The earnings threshold: R269 600,90 from 1 May 2026

The figure and the notice

One number decides more South African employment questions than any other. The Minister of Employment and Labour sets it under section 6(3) of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, and the current determination reads as follows.

Two details are worth pinning down. The effective date is 1 May 2026, not 1 April as in previous years — several published summaries still carry the old cycle. And the previous figure, R261 748,45 from 1 April 2025, remains the correct one for any period before 1 May 2026, which matters when you are assessing a historical engagement.

The notice itself only excludes certain BCEA sections. Its reach is much wider than that, because four other provisions borrow the same figure: the presumption of employment in section 200A of the Labour Relations Act and section 83A of the BCEA, and the three non-standard employment regimes in sections 198A, 198B and 198C.

Figures last reviewed 9 September 2026.

What counts as earnings

This is where most miscalculations happen. “Earnings” is not cost to company, and it is not total pay. The notice defines it, and the exclusions are specific.

So you count the employee’s own regular remuneration gross, before their tax, pension and medical deductions. You do not count what the employer contributes on top. And you strip out subsistence and transport allowances, achievement awards and overtime.

The gauge on the hub page does this arithmetic for you.

At or below the line

Five things apply that do not apply above it.

1. The presumption of employment. Any one of seven factors presumes the person is an employee, regardless of the form of the contract, and the engager must prove otherwise (LRA s 200A; BCEA s 83A). See employee or independent contractor?
2. The CCMA advisory award. Either party may ask the CCMA for an advisory award on whether the people in an arrangement are employees (s 200A(3)).
3. Labour-broker deeming. A placement that is not a genuinely temporary service — broadly, longer than three months and not covering an absent employee — makes the client the employee’s employer on an indefinite basis (s 198A). See labour brokers and secondment.
4. The fixed-term rules. A fixed term longer than three months is lawful only for a justifiable reason recorded in writing, or the contract is deemed to be of indefinite duration (s 198B). See fixed-term contracts.
5. Part-time equal treatment after three months, at employers with 10 or more employees (s 198C), and the four-hour minimum: an employee who works less than four hours on a day must be paid for four (BCEA s 9A).

On top of that, the BCEA sections the notice lists apply in full: ordinary hours, overtime, a compressed working week, averaging, meal intervals, daily and weekly rest, Sunday pay, night work and public holidays not ordinarily worked.

Above the line

Above the threshold the presumption is off, the three-month rules in sections 198A to 198C do not apply, and hours and overtime become a matter of contract rather than statute. A senior manager who negotiates their own hours is the case the exclusion was written for.

What does not change is longer than what does:

• unfair dismissal, unfair labour practice and automatically unfair dismissal protection;
• annual, sick, family responsibility and parental leave;
• notice periods and severance pay on retrenchment;
• the national minimum wage, which cannot be waived;
• protection against unfair discrimination and harassment;
• and the common-law dominant-impression test, which decides employee status when the statutory presumption cannot.

The Code of Good Practice is explicit that the seven factors keep working above the line, as a guide rather than a presumption.

It changes every year

The threshold is re-determined annually, and the effective date has moved: 1 April in recent years, 1 May in 2026. Two consequences follow for any business with staff near the line.

First, put a diary note for the new determination each autumn and re-check who sits on which side of it. An employee who crosses down across the line gains the BCEA hours rules and the presumption from the effective date — you do not need their consent, and the change is automatic.

Second, do not hard-code the figure into contracts or policies. Refer to “the earnings threshold determined by the Minister under section 6(3) of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act” and let the number look after itself. The national minimum wage moves on its own cycle each 1 March — currently R30,23 an hour — and other figures move with the Budget. See what is changing for the full watch list.

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