Income Gross Up Calculator

Work out your gross (before-tax) annual salary from your net take-home pay, using this financial year’s tax brackets and the Medicare levy. If part of your pay is salary packaged, the section below matters more than the number the calculator gives you.

Want a more accurate result?

Calculator results are estimates only.
If you salary package any part of your pay, a broker can work out your actual assessable income against a lender’s own rules.
Free. No obligation. Takes 2 minutes

Why you might need a gross figure

This tool runs the standard reverse income tax calculation: enter your net pay, and it works out the gross annual salary that produces it, using this financial year’s tax brackets and the Medicare levy. That number is exactly right for one thing and can be misleading for another, depending on how you’re paid.

How you’re paid changes what the result actually means.

Straight PAYG salary

Your net pay is what’s left after ordinary income tax and the Medicare levy, nothing else deducted or added. The reverse-tax calculation above gives you the correct gross figure directly.

Overtime, allowances or a bonus

These get taxed the same way as base salary, so including them in your net pay figure is fine for the gross-up arithmetic itself. What changes is how a lender treats the result, covered in the FAQ below.

Salary packaging

Common in health, aged care, ambulance and charity roles. Part of your pay is paid to you as a tax-free benefit instead of taxed salary, so it never shows up in the net pay this calculator asks for. Left out, your true income is understated. There is a worked example below.

Self-employed or business income

This calculator reverse-engineers a PAYG salary from a payslip-style net figure. It has no way to model business income, which a lender assesses from tax returns and financial statements instead. If that’s you, this isn’t the right tool.
Which of these you fall into changes what gross income means for your situation, and it’s worth knowing before the number goes anywhere near a loan application. The case that trips people up most is salary packaging, so that’s what the rest of this page focuses on.

The formula, and what it can’t see

Your gross salary is what you’re paid before tax. Your net pay is what actually lands in your account, after income tax and the Medicare levy come out. The calculator above starts from the net figure and works backwards to find the gross one.

For a straight PAYG salary that’s the whole story.

For salary packaging it isn’t, because part of your pay never goes through the ordinary tax brackets at all.
Reverse income tax formula

Gross salary = the taxable income that, after this financial year’s income tax and the 2 per cent Medicare levy, leaves you with your stated net pay

Because Australia’s tax scale is progressive, this is solved by testing each bracket in turn rather than with one multiplication.
Two things about that formula are worth pausing on.

First, it only works on pay that was actually taxed through the normal PAYG brackets. It has no visibility into anything paid to you a different way.

Second, and this is where a plain reverse-tax calculator understates income for a lot of health, ambulance and charity workers, salary packaging reduces your taxable salary before the brackets are even applied. So the net pay you type in has already had the packaged amount stripped out once, and a home loan lender will generally still count it.

The bracket you land in changes more than you’d expect

Australia’s tax scale is progressive, so the share of your pay that disappears in tax and the Medicare levy climbs as your income rises, not just the dollar amount. Here is what that looks like at five income levels common across nursing, allied health and early-career medical roles, using this financial year’s brackets.

$55,000 gross

Tax and Medicare levy  $8,120
Net pay  $46,880
Share taken by tax  14.76 per cent

award-level nursing, entry allied health

$70,000 gross

Tax and Medicare levy  $12,920
Net pay  $57,080
Share taken by tax  18.46 per cent

experienced RN, allied health

$85,000 gross

Tax and Medicare levy  $17,720
Net pay  $67,280
Share taken by tax  20.85 per cent

senior nurse, specialist allied health

$100,000 gross

Tax and Medicare levy  $22,520
Net pay  $77,480
Share taken by tax  22.52 per cent

nurse practitioner, early-career doctor

$120,000 gross

Tax and Medicare levy  $28,920
Net pay  $91,080
Share taken by tax  24.10 per cent

senior clinician
Find the net figure closest to your own take-home pay and you have a rough sense of where the calculator above will land, before you even run it. The gap between gross and net widens as income rises, which is why a reverse calculation is more useful here than a flat percentage guess.

Worked example: the same $75,000, two different net figures

The figures below are illustrative and are not financial advice or a lender’s assessment. They show how the arithmetic behaves.

Take a $75,000 package at a public hospital.

No salary packaging
Full $75,000 is taxable. Tax and Medicare levy $14,520. Net pay in the bank, $60,480.

Packaging $9,009 of general living expenses (the standard cap for public hospital employees)
Taxable salary drops to $65,991. Tax and Medicare levy $11,637. Net pay in the bank, $54,354. Plus the $9,009 of living expenses already paid for tax-free.

Run that $54,354 bank figure back through a plain reverse-tax calculator and it correctly returns a taxable salary of $65,991, exactly right for what was taxed. Most lenders will still add the $9,009 back when assessing serviceability, because it is real income capacity, just paid a different way. Leave it out and the borrowing power a plain calculator implies is short by that amount.
This is why a bank-deposited net pay figure alone can understate what a lender will actually count, if any part of your pay comes through as a packaged benefit rather than taxed salary.

What the calculator does not show you

A gross income figure is one input into how much you can borrow. These are the others, and every one of them can move the answer.

Salary packaging needs adding back manually

The gross figure above is only your taxable salary. If you package a novated lease, meal card or general living expenses, add the packaged amount back yourself, or ask your salary packaging provider for the annual statement that shows it.

Super isn’t part of gross salary

The superannuation guarantee your employer pays, 12 per cent of ordinary time earnings this financial year, sits on top of your gross salary, not inside it. Lenders generally don’t count it as income.

Bonuses and overtime get shaded

Even once they’re correctly included in a gross figure, most lenders only count a percentage of irregular income like overtime, allowances or bonuses, and usually want to see it over two years rather than one payslip.

This is a starting figure, not a lender’s number

Every lender verifies income differently, from payslips, a group certificate, or an employer letter for packaged pay. Treat this calculator as the number to walk into that conversation with, not the final word.

Before you apply

A gross income figure only gets you so far on its own. Lenders combine it with your other income, your existing debts, your living expenses and the interest rate buffer they apply, so the same gross salary can produce very different borrowing power at two different lenders.
Related tools on this site: borrowing power calculator and the loan repayment calculator.
Know your gross figure and want the tax on it? Use the Australian income tax calculator.

If salary packaging applies to you, see professional home loan packages, or if you work in health in South Australia, our health professional home loans in Adelaide page. For anything else, talk to us about home loans in Adelaide.
Sources
Australian Taxation Office: Individual income tax rates, for the tax brackets used in this calculator.
Australian Taxation Office: Medicare levy reduction for low-income earners, for the low-income thresholds used at low incomes.
Australian Taxation Office: FBT-exempt organisations, for the salary packaging caps used in the worked example.

About the figures on this page. Every tax and net pay figure was calculated directly from this financial year’s brackets and the published Medicare levy thresholds, not copied from a third party or from any calculator’s own output. The Medicare levy low-income thresholds shown are the most recently published ones; this calculation applies them until updated thresholds are published.

General information only, and not financial or tax advice. Nothing on this page takes your objectives, financial situation or needs into account. Your accountant or registered tax agent can confirm your own tax position, and a salary packaging provider can confirm your own packaging cap. Loanity is a credit representative and can provide credit assistance once we understand your situation.
STILL GOT QUESTIONS?

Income gross-up questions, answered

How do I calculate my gross income from my net pay?

Take your net (after-tax) pay and work backwards through this financial year’s tax brackets and the Medicare levy until you find the taxable income that produces it. The calculator above does this for you. It assumes your net pay is ordinary PAYG salary; anything paid to you as a tax-free benefit, like salary packaging, needs to be added back separately.

It is the reverse of the usual payslip calculation. Instead of starting with your salary and working out what tax leaves you, you start with your take-home pay and work out what salary produced it. It comes up whenever a form asks for gross annual income but you only know what actually lands in your account.

Lenders assess how much you can borrow against your gross income, not your net pay, because that is the figure responsible lending calculations are built around. If you only know your take-home pay, this calculator gives you a number to start the conversation with.

Yes, and this is the most common mistake. Salary packaging reduces your taxable salary before tax is calculated, so a reverse-tax calculator run on your bank-deposited net pay alone will understate your income. Add back whatever you have packaged, up to your cap, to get closer to the figure a lender will use. See the worked example above.

Employees of public and not-for-profit hospitals and public ambulance services can generally package up to $17,000 a year in grossed-up value, worth around $9,009 in general living expenses paid tax-free. Public benevolent institutions and health promotion charities have a higher cap, around $30,000 grossed-up, worth close to $15,900. Your employer or salary packaging provider confirms your exact entitlement.

Most do, generally adding the packaged amount back to your taxable salary once it is verified through your payment summary or a letter from your salary packaging provider. Policy varies by lender, so it is worth confirming with a broker rather than assuming.

You can, since they are taxed the same way as base salary and the gross-up arithmetic does not change. What does change is how a lender treats the result: irregular income like overtime and bonuses is usually shaded to a percentage and needs a track record, typically two years, rather than being counted in full from one payslip.

Yes. The Medicare levy is 2 per cent of taxable income for most people, on top of ordinary income tax, and this calculator includes it. Below roughly $28,000 a year it phases in or does not apply at all, which matters at lower incomes.

No. The superannuation guarantee, 12 per cent of ordinary time earnings this financial year, is paid on top of your salary into your super fund, not out of it. Gross salary for a loan application is your salary before tax, not your salary plus super.

Getting started is easy. Book a free 30-minute consultation, and we’ll review your goals, check your borrowing power, compare lenders, and outline your best options. You can also request a call or complete our quick online assessment, and we’ll guide you step-by-step whether you’re buying, refinancing, or investing.

Important information about this calculator
This calculator provides an indicative estimate of gross income based on simplified Australian tax brackets, standard Medicare levy rates, and general gross-up methodologies. It does not account for individual tax offsets, HECS/HELP repayments, Medicare levy surcharges, or lender-specific income shading policies.
Tax legislation, statutory thresholds, and lender assessment rules are subject to change by the ATO and financial institutions, and this tool may not immediately reflect the most recent legislative amendments. Loanity makes no representations and provides no warranty regarding the accuracy, completeness, or ongoing validity of these calculations. You should not rely solely on this output for tax, legal, or loan application purposes. Contact Loanity or a qualified tax professional to evaluate your true assessable borrowing income.