The National Minimum Wage from 1 March 2026, and Why R30,23 Is Not the Whole Answer

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

That figure was fixed by the Minister of Employment and Labour in a notice gazetted on 3 February 2026, under the National Minimum Wage Act, replacing the schedule that had applied since the previous February. The Minister's notice fixes 1 March 2026 as the date the amendment "shall become binding".

Two things about that number are widely misunderstood, and both cost people money.

It is an hourly rate, not a monthly salary — which matters enormously for part-time and irregular work. And for a large number of workers it is not the rate that actually applies, because the very same gazette sets higher minimums for entire sectors.

Who the headline rate covers

The national floor applies broadly, and the gazette deals expressly with the categories that used to sit below it:

• Farm workers — R30,23 per hour. The same as everyone else.
• Domestic workers — R30,23 per hour. Also the same. The historic gap between domestic work and the national floor is closed, and a household employing someone owes the full rate.
• Expanded Public Works Programme workers — R16,62 per hour. This is the one category the gazette sets materially lower.
• Learners on learnership agreements under the Skills Development Act are entitled to the allowances in Schedule 2, which work differently and are set out below.

If you employ someone in your home — a cleaner, a gardener, a childminder — the second bullet is the one that applies to you. There is no separate, lower household rate.

The hourly rate, and the monthly figure people quote

The law obliges an employer to pay per ordinary hour. It does not gazette a monthly salary, which is why the monthly figures circulating vary.

The gazette does, however, show its own working. Its sector tables state that a weekly rate is based on a 45-hour working week and a monthly rate on 4.333 weeks. On that basis, and using its own published figures, R30,23 an hour comes to R1 360,35 a week and R5 894,40 a month for someone working 45 ordinary hours.

Treat those as a guide to full-time equivalence, not as the obligation. The obligation is hourly. Someone working three days a week is owed R30,23 for every ordinary hour they actually work, and a "monthly wage" that quietly divides out to less than that is short.

This is where part-time domestic work most often goes wrong. If someone works two days a week, eight hours a day, the arithmetic is 16 hours × R30,23 — not a rounded-down monthly figure that felt about right.

Worked examples

Run your own arrangement through the same two steps: hours actually worked in a week, multiplied by R30,23, then multiplied by 4.333 for a monthly equivalent.

Only the last line matches the full-time figure quoted everywhere. Someone working three days a week is legally owed roughly R3 537 a month, and a household paying a flat R2 500 for that arrangement is underpaying by about a thousand rand a month without necessarily intending to.

The point of running the calculation this way round is that it removes the guesswork. A monthly amount that was agreed years ago and never revisited is the single most common source of underpayment, because the rate rises every year while the agreed figure does not.

Whole sectors are entitled to more

Here is the part that gets missed. The national minimum wage is a floor, not a ceiling, and the same February gazette sets sectoral minimums above it.

Contract cleaning is the clearest example:

Look at Area C. At R30,33 it is above the national R30,23 — so even the lowest contract cleaning rate in the country beats the national floor. A contract cleaner paid exactly R30,23 is underpaid, and the shortfall is invisible to anyone who only checked the headline number.

Wholesale and retail works differently again, with tables set by job category and area. In Area A, a general assistant or trolley collector sits at the R30,23 floor, but a merchandiser or shop assistant is higher, a cashier higher still, and a driver of a vehicle between 3 501kg and 9 000kg higher again.

The practical instruction is short: if you work in a sector with its own determination, the national figure is the wrong number to check yourself against. Find your sector's table.

Learnership allowances

Learners on formal learnership agreements are paid on a different basis entirely — a minimum allowance per week, scaled by NQF level and by how many credits the learner has already earned:

Every level starts at R455,00 a week for a learner with 0–120 credits. The allowance rises as credits accumulate, so a learner who has banked credits and is still being paid the entry allowance should be asking why.

If you employ someone at home

Household employers are employers. The rate is the same R30,23, and the obligations that come with employing someone do not disappear because the workplace is a house.

The things worth getting right, in order:

1. Pay per ordinary hour, and work out the monthly figure from the hours actually worked rather than the other way round.
2. Put it in writing. A written record of hours, rate and duties protects both sides, and our guide on what must be in an employment contract sets out the basics.
3. Register for UIF and understand the related obligations — our guide on hiring your first employee covers UIF and COIDA, and you can estimate contributions with the UIF calculator.
4. Issue a payslip. It is the document that resolves every later argument about what was paid; the payslip generator produces one.

If you think you are being underpaid

Work out your own hourly rate first: take what you are actually paid for a period, and divide by the ordinary hours you actually worked in it. Compare that against R30,23 — and then against your sector's determination, if it has one, because that is the figure that binds your employer.

If the number falls short, the Department of Employment and Labour is the body that enforces the national minimum wage, and it publishes the current rates and its own guidance. Keep a record of the hours you work; almost every wage dispute turns on hours rather than on the rate.

A written record does not need to be elaborate. A diary of start and finish times, kept contemporaneously, is worth more than a recollection reconstructed months later — and it is the thing most workers in a dispute turn out not to have.

When the rate changes next

The rate is reviewed annually and moves on a predictable rhythm. The 2026 figure was gazetted on 3 February 2026 and became binding on 1 March 2026; it replaced a schedule gazetted on 4 February 2025, which had run from the March before that.

So expect the next revision to be published around February and to take effect on 1 March. Two practical consequences follow.

If you employ someone, diarise February. An agreed monthly wage that was compliant last year quietly stops being compliant on 1 March, and the employer carries that risk, not the employee.

And treat any rate you find online with the date attached to it. A figure without a gazette date behind it is a figure that may already have been superseded — which is why every number on this page is tied to the notice it comes from.

For the broader picture on managing what you earn, start at our money guides.

Frequently asked questions

What is the national minimum wage in South Africa now? R30,23 for each ordinary hour worked, binding from 1 March 2026 under a notice gazetted on 3 February 2026.

Do domestic workers get the full rate? Yes. The gazette sets domestic workers at R30,23 per hour, the same as the national figure. Farm workers are also at R30,23.

Is there a lower rate for anyone? Workers on an expanded public works programme are set at R16,62 per hour. Learners on learnership agreements are paid weekly allowances under a separate schedule.

What is that as a monthly wage? The law sets an hourly rate, not a monthly one. Using the gazette's own basis of a 45-hour week and 4.333 weeks a month, R30,23 an hour equates to R1 360,35 a week and R5 894,40 a month. Fewer hours means proportionally less.

Can my sector require more than the national minimum? Yes, and several do. Contract cleaning runs at R33,27 an hour in the listed metropolitan areas and R30,33 in the rest of the country — both above the national floor — with KwaZulu-Natal on BCCCI rates. Wholesale and retail sets rates by job category and area.

I am a contract cleaner paid exactly R30,23. Is that legal? It is below the contract cleaning minimum everywhere the sectoral rates apply, since even the rest-of-country rate is R30,33. Check which area you fall into.

What do learners get? A minimum weekly allowance set by NQF level and credits already earned, starting at R455,00 a week and rising to R2 654,04 at NQF 5–8 with 481–600 credits.

Who enforces this? The Department of Employment and Labour. Keep your own record of hours worked, since underpayment disputes are usually settled on the hours rather than the rate.