The Minimum Wage Is R30.23 an Hour. Your Sector May Say More.

From 1 March 2026, the national minimum wage is R30.23 for each ordinary hour worked.

That single figure covers far more people than most employers realise, and it is not the whole answer for any of them — because several sectors have their own gazetted rates sitting on top of it.

The headline, and who it covers

The gazette is short about it. Subject to one exception, the national minimum wage is R30.23 an hour. Then, explicitly:

The two middle rows matter historically. Farm and domestic workers were once set below the general floor; here they are named separately and given the same figure. If you employ someone in your home, that is your number.

The expanded public works programme sits at roughly half — R16.62 — and is the one genuine carve-out below the line.

Workers on learnership agreements are dealt with separately again, on a weekly allowance scale rather than an hourly rate.

Hours to months: the gazette's own arithmetic

An hourly figure is not much use when you pay monthly, and the conversion is where household employers most often guess.

The gazette does it for you, and states its assumptions in a footnote: the weekly rate is based on a 45-hour working week, and the monthly rate on 4.333 weeks.

Run R30.23 through that:

Those are not our numbers — R1,360.35 and R5,894.40 are printed in the gazette's own sector tables against the R30.23 rate. If you are budgeting for full-time help, R5,894.40 a month is the floor for a 45-hour week, before anything else.

Fewer hours, proportionally less. The obligation is hourly; the monthly figure is just arithmetic on top of it.

Some sectors are higher, and they are area-specific

This is the part that gets missed, because "the minimum wage" is discussed as though it were one number.

Contract cleaning has its own determination, and it is geographic:

Note that even Area C, the residual category, sits slightly above the national floor at R30.33. And KwaZulu-Natal is not given a rate at all: the gazette defers to the collective agreement concluded in the bargaining council for that industry.

Wholesale and retail goes further, setting rates by job category and by area. The R30.23 floor recurs across the junior roles — general assistant, trolley collector, security guard, forklift operator — while senior categories run well above it. In Area A a manager's minimum is R64.66 an hour, more than double the national floor.

The practical point for an employer: check whether your sector has a determination before assuming R30.23 discharges the obligation. For a worker: the same, in reverse.

"Area A" does not mean the same thing twice

A trap for anyone applying two determinations at once, and an easy one to walk into because the labels look interchangeable.

Contract cleaning defines Area A as the metropolitan councils — Cape Town, Greater East Rand Metro, Johannesburg, Tshwane, Nelson Mandela — plus a short list of named local councils: Emfuleni, Merafong, Mogale City, Metsimaholo, Randfontein, Stellenbosch, Westonaria. Area B is all of KwaZulu-Natal. Area C is everywhere else.

Wholesale and retail uses Area A for a much longer and differently drawn list, running well beyond the metros — Bergrivier, Breede Valley, Cape Agulhas, Cederberg, Drakenstein, Hessequa, Karoo Hoogland, Knysna, Kouga, Mossel Bay, Overstrand, Saldanha Bay, Swellendam, Theewaterskloof, Witzenberg and many others alongside the big cities. Its Area B is simply everything not named in Area A, with no separate KwaZulu-Natal treatment at all.

So a business in, say, Knysna is in Area A for wholesale and retail and in Area C for contract cleaning. Check the area list inside the determination you are applying, rather than carrying an assumption across from another one.

Part-time hours are priced differently

Something the retail tables show that is rarely discussed: they distinguish employees working 27 hours or less from the rest, and the rates are not the same.

For several junior categories in the largest area, the ordinary rate sits at the R30.23 floor while the corresponding "27 hours or less" column runs higher — R35.53 for a general assistant or trolley collector, R36.11 for a security guard, R38.58 for a forklift operator, R39.35 for a driver under 3,500kg.

The tables reference specific clauses of the determination for each column, and we have not read those clauses, so we are not going to explain the mechanism or tell you which column applies to a given employee. What we will say is that the number of hours changes the hourly rate, which is the opposite of the usual assumption that part-time work is simply the same rate for fewer hours.

If you are scheduling staff around a 27-hour line — in either direction — that is a determination to read properly rather than summarise.

The rest of the retail scale

For context on how far above the floor the senior categories sit, in the largest area:

Learnerships are a weekly allowance, not an hourly wage

Anyone taking on a learner works from a different schedule again — a minimum allowance per week, scaled by NQF level and by how many credits the learner has already earned.

Two features worth noticing. Every level starts at the same R455.00 for a learner with under 120 credits — the entry rung is flat regardless of level. And the allowance rises with credits banked, not with time served, so the cost of a learner increases as they demonstrate progress rather than as the months pass.

One thing this page is not telling you

What else you owe on top. Unemployment insurance, compensation-fund obligations, and any tax withholding are governed by different legislation entirely. None of it is in this gazette, we have not sourced it here, and we are not going to gesture vaguely at "plus deductions" as though that were guidance.

If you are about to employ somebody — in a home or a business — the wage floor above is the starting figure, not the total cost, and the rest is a conversation with a payroll adviser or the Department directly.

About the source

Every figure above is from Government Notice R.7083, published in Government Gazette No. 54075 on 3 February 2026, made by the Minister of Employment and Labour under section 6(5) of the National Minimum Wage Act No. 9 of 2018. The notice amends the schedules published under Government Notice 52053 of 4 February 2025 and fixes 1 March 2026 as the date the amendment becomes binding.

The Department also announced the increase publicly, describing a rise from R28.79. That prior figure comes from the announcement rather than from the gazette text, so we attribute it rather than quote it.

The minimum wage is reviewed annually. Confirm the current figure before relying on it.

How does this affect YOUR Money OS?

If you employ someone, R5,894.40 a month for a 45-hour week is the legal floor and belongs in the budget as a fixed cost, not an estimate. If you are paid it, that is the number your payslip has to clear.

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FAQ

What is South Africa's minimum wage in 2026? R30.23 for each ordinary hour worked, binding from 1 March 2026.

What is the minimum wage for a domestic worker? R30.23 an hour — the same as the national minimum wage. Farm workers are on the same figure.

What is that per month? Using the gazette's own basis of a 45-hour week and 4.333 weeks a month, R30.23 an hour is R1,360.35 a week and R5,894.40 a month.

Is any category below the national minimum? Workers employed on an expanded public works programme are entitled to R16.62 per hour.

Are some sectors higher? Yes. Contract cleaning in the major metros is R33.27 an hour and R30.33 in the rest of the country, and wholesale and retail sets rates by job category — a manager in the largest area is R64.66 an hour.

What about KwaZulu-Natal contract cleaning? The gazette defers to the collective agreement concluded in the bargaining council for that industry rather than setting a rate.

How are learners paid? On a weekly allowance scaled by NQF level and credits already earned, starting at R455.00 a week for a learner with fewer than 120 credits.

Related

• Salary benchmarks by sector
• Free budget planner