General information, not legal advice. The official places to check are the Fair Work Commission’s list of current minimum standards orders and the Fair Work Ombudsman, which can investigate and enforce minimum standards orders.
whoThe five parts of the definition
Section 15P(1) of the Fair Work Act says a person is an employee-like worker if all of these are true:
- they are an individual party to a services contract who does work under it (or, where a company, trust or partnership is the party, its director or a director’s family member, a trustee or a partner who does the work);
- they perform “all, or a significant majority, of the work” under the contract;
- the work is digital platform work;
- they do not perform any of the work as an employee; and
- they satisfy “2 or more of the following”: low bargaining power in negotiating the contract; pay “at or below the rate of an employee performing comparable work”; “a low degree of authority over the performance of the work”; or other characteristics the regulations prescribe.
Digital platform work is paid work a contractor does through a digital labour platform, or under a contract one arranged or facilitated (s 15N). The platform is “an online enabled application, website or system operated to arrange, allocate or facilitate the provision of labour services”, with the conditions about contractors and payments in s 15L.
The label does not turn a contractor into an employee. A worker covered by an employee-like worker order “is not an employee of any person in relation to that work” (s 15KA(2)), and an order may not include “a term that deems a regulated worker to be an employee” (s 536KM(1)(d)).
the powerWhat an order may hold
Part 3A-2 of the Act, in force since 26 August 2024, lets the Fair Work Commission make minimum standards orders for employee-like workers (s 536JY), after publishing a notice of intent and a draft (s 536KAA).
| May include | Must not include |
|---|---|
| Payment terms; deductions; record-keeping; insurance; consultation; representation; delegates’ rights; cost recovery. The list does not limit other terms. | Among other things, overtime rates, rostering arrangements, or a term changing the workers’ form of engagement (s 536KM). Penalty rates, pay before a job is accepted or between jobs, and minimum engagement are out unless the Commission is satisfied a term is appropriate (s 536KMA). |
Contravening a term of an order that applies to a person is a civil remedy provision (s 536JB).
the orderThe on-demand delivery order
On 11 August 2026 an Expert Panel of the Commission for the road transport industry made the order, titled the Interim On-Demand Delivery Employee-like Worker Minimum Standards Order. It operates from 17 August 2026. The Commission’s list, last updated 1 September 2026, shows it as current.
It covers employee-like workers engaged through a platform’s app whose services, across an earnings period, predominantly involve collecting and delivering food, drinks, liquor or supermarket items that someone ordered online from a business selling them, for delivery straight away or as soon as practicable, and the platforms that engage them. It does not cover a worker using a vehicle that can carry more than 1 tonne.
the floorThe safety net rate
Over each earnings period the platform sets (up to 21 days), a covered worker must be paid no less overall than the earnings floor: hours of engaged time multiplied by the hourly rate for their vehicle. A shortfall is topped up in the next earnings period, or within 7 days after that next period ends.
| Vehicle | 17 Aug to 31 Dec 2026 | 1 Jan to 31 Dec 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| No vehicle, or a pedal bicycle | $31.30 | $31.80 |
| Electric bicycle or scooter | $31.30 | $31.80 |
| Combustion motorcycle or scooter | $31.50 | $32.00 |
| Any other motor vehicle, electric or combustion, carrying up to 1 tonne | $32.00 | $32.50 |
Engaged time runs from accepting a job (or finishing the one before it) to completing it. It leaves out, among other things, time after a customer cancels, abandoned jobs, breakdowns and breaks, and, once the platform has given the two notices the order requires, time the order treats as non-engaged, such as waiting at a pickup after the items were ready or taking an unreasonable route. From 1 January 2028 the rates rise each year by the National Minimum Wage increase, or as the Commission orders.
the restWhat else the order sets
Among the order’s other clauses:
- The worker pays for their vehicle, its running costs, its registration where the law requires it, and any licences, permits or eligibility checks the platform requires.
- Fines are the worker’s, unless incurred by following the platform’s express direction.
- The worker holds compulsory third-party insurance for each vehicle; the platform holds personal accident insurance with a reasonable minimum level of cover.
- The platform keeps listed records for 7 years and gives the worker copies on request.
- Disputes go first through the platform’s own process, then either side may take them to the Commission, whose opinion or recommendation is not binding. That clause does not apply to disputes about deactivation, covered in the unfair deactivation guide.
what comes nextOther applications, and a review of the order
Two more Transport Workers’ Union applications, for small vehicle delivery work, were shown as ongoing on the Commission’s case page last updated 22 September 2026. If a notice of intent and draft order is published in either, the Commission is to start a review of this order within 21 days. If the Minister considers it is in the public interest, the Minister may also, by notifiable instrument, suspend all or part of an order for no longer than 12 months; a declaration suspending the whole order must be made within 12 months of the day the order came into operation, and the Department publishes any declaration on its website (ss 536KQD, 536KQE).