How many days in a row can a venue roster you? What MA000009 actually limits

Eleven days straight is legal. So is fourteen, if you're casual. The line you'll see quoted everywhere, no more than 10 days in a row without a rostered day off, is genuinely in the Hospitality Award. It's also buried inside a clause that only catches full-time employees on one of two specific 4 week roster cycles. Casuals aren't in it. Part-timers aren't either.

The 10 hour break between shifts gets the same treatment. It's real, it's clause 15.5(e), and clause 15.5(a) opens with nine words that almost every article skips: "The following rostering provisions apply to full-time and part-time employees." A casual can finish at 2am and start again at 9am, and MA000009 has nothing to say about it.

Short version: the Hospitality Industry (General) Award (MA000009) puts no limit on how many days in a row a casual can be rostered. What it caps is hours: 12 hours per day or shift, and 38 hours per week under clause 11.2, with everything past that paid at overtime rates under clause 11.4. The consecutive day rule and the 10 hour break between shifts are both real, and both are written for permanent staff. This is general information, not legal advice. Dollar figures are MA000009 minimums applying from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026.

The 10 day rule is real. It's just not where you think.

It appears twice, both times as a condition bolted onto one particular way of arranging a full-timer's 38 hour average. Clause 15.1(b) lists eight ways that average can be worked, from a 19 day month of 8 hour days to 152 hours over a 4 week period. Choose option (vi) or (vii) and clause 15.1(d)(i) attaches the consecutive day cap. Choose any of the other six and it simply doesn't exist.

The employer must not roster an employee to work on more than 10 consecutive days without a rostered day off.

That's the whole protection, and it's conditional on a rostering arrangement your employer picked, probably without telling you which one. If you're casual, you never had it to lose.

Who each rostering rule actually covers

The pattern is hard to miss once you've seen it. Nearly every protection people quote at each other in the staff room lives in clause 15, and clause 15 was written for permanents. The largest group of workers in Australian hospitality is arguing from a page that isn't about them.

What actually caps a casual's roster

Two numbers, and neither is a number of days. Clause 11.2 says a casual "must be engaged to work a maximum of 12 hours per day or per shift", and "a maximum of 38 hours per week or, if the casual employee works in accordance with a roster, an average of 38 hours per week over the roster cycle (which may not exceed 4 weeks)". Clause 11.4 sends every hour past either cap to overtime rates.

So the award doesn't limit your days. It prices your hours. Whether that's good news depends entirely on where in your week the long run falls, and the only way to see it is to cost a real one. Our full breakdown of casual overtime past 38 hours covers the rate mechanics.

Eleven days straight, priced hour by hour

Level 2 food and beverage attendant, casual, base rate $27.08 an hour from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. Eight paid hours a day (a 10.30am to 7pm shift with the unpaid 30 minute meal break taken out), Monday of week one through to Thursday of week two. The venue's week runs Monday to Sunday.

Days six and seven pay $866.56 between them. Days one, two and three combined pay $812.40. The back half of a long run is worth more than the front half, which is the reverse of what most people assume, and it's the most useful thing to know before you agree to a seventh day.

Now the honest catch, because overtime takes things away as well as adding them. Clause 29.1 only applies penalty rates to hours that aren't already on overtime, and the 25% casual loading isn't inside the overtime rate at all. Had that Sunday landed at the start of your week instead of the end, it would have paid the ordinary casual Sunday rate of $47.39. As overtime it pays $54.16. Genuinely more, but $6.77 an hour more, not the windfall people picture.

Two clocks, and the gap between them

Consecutive days and the 38 hour cap run on different clocks, and a roster that straddles the week boundary slips neatly between them. Work Thursday to Sunday in week one and Monday to Thursday in week two: that's 8 days in a row, 32 hours in each week, and not one hour of overtime, because neither week crossed 38.

Eight days in a row can cost a venue less than seven. The seventh day is where the 38 hour cap bites. The eighth is where the week starts again.

Clause 11.2(b) widens the gap further, because a casual on a roster can have the 38 averaged over a cycle of up to 4 weeks. And every cap here is per employer, not per person, so two venues rostering you 30 hours each is a 60 hour week with no overtime anywhere and nobody adding it up. Worth knowing before you take on a second venue.

What actually protects you on a long run

1. Your breaks, and these do cover everyone. Clause 16 carves nobody out. More than 6 hours in a shift and you get an unpaid meal break of at least 30 minutes; more than 8 adds a 20 minute paid rest break; more than 10 adds a second one. If the venue doesn't let you take the meal break, clause 16.6 pays you 50% of your ordinary hourly rate extra from the 6 hour mark until you get it or the shift ends. On a Level 2 rate that's $13.54 an hour, and clause 29.3(c) makes it payable on top of your weekend penalty, not instead of it.
2. The right to refuse. Clause 28.1(b) is one sentence: an employee may refuse to work overtime hours if they are unreasonable. The first factor listed for deciding that is any risk to your health and safety from the additional hours, sitting above the needs of the business. Nine days deep on five hours' sleep is precisely what that factor is there for. The mechanics of saying no to a shift are worth reading before you need them.
3. Consultation, if your pattern is regular. Clause 39 requires the venue to consult you before changing your regular roster or ordinary hours, and it excludes only employees whose working hours are "irregular, sporadic or unpredictable". A casual who has worked the same four shifts every week for a year is not that person.
4. The right to disconnect. Your day off is a day off, and you aren't obliged to watch the group chat. That's clause 15A and section 333M of the Fair Work Act, covered in our piece on ignoring the can you cover tonight text.
5. Your own count. Track paid hours per week, not days, and find out which day the venue's week starts, because that single fact decides whether your Sunday is ordinary or overtime. The Fair Work Ombudsman's Record My Hours app logs it, and the Pay and Conditions Tool at calculate.fairwork.gov.au prices it. Your award level sets the base rate, and levels go by duties, never job title.

Where Shiftly comes in

Most 11 day runs don't happen because someone wants them. They happen because one venue is your only source of hours, so you say yes to everything in case the offers stop. That's a supply problem wearing a rostering costume. Shiftly is free workforce management for venues with an on-demand staffing network built in, so short shifts go out to workers nearby instead of to whoever answered the last three texts. For you that means you see the venue, the hours and the pay before you accept, you can fill a gap in your week from your phone instead of banking days at one place, and you get paid fast once the shift is done. Find shifts on Shiftly.

Frequently asked questions

How many days in a row can you legally work in Australia?

Under MA000009 there is no general limit. The often quoted maximum of 10 consecutive days without a rostered day off sits in clauses 15.1(d)(i) and 15.1(e)(i), and applies only to full-time employees whose agreed hours arrangement is the 152 hour or 160 hour 4 week cycle. Casual and part-time employees have no consecutive day cap in the award at all. What does apply to everyone is the National Employment Standards position that an employee works a maximum of 38 hours a week unless the additional hours are reasonable, and that they can refuse hours that aren't.

Is there a minimum break between shifts in hospitality?

Yes, but not for casuals. Clause 15.5(e) requires a minimum break of 10 hours between finishing ordinary hours on one day and starting on the next, reduced to 8 hours for a changeover of rosters. Clause 15.5(a) limits the whole of clause 15.5 to full-time and part-time employees. If you're casual and doing a close then an open, the award's answer is silence, though your employer still owes you a duty of care under work health and safety law and you can refuse hours that are unreasonable under clause 28.1(b).

Do the hour caps still apply if I work at more than one venue?

They apply per employer, not per person. The 12 hour day and 38 hour week in clause 11.2 are counted by each venue against the hours it engaged you for, so 30 hours at one pub and 30 at another is 60 hours with no overtime triggered anywhere. Nobody is aggregating it for you, which is why tracking your own total across venues matters more than it does for someone with a single job.

What if I don't get a meal break on a long stretch of shifts?

Clause 16.5 and 16.6 handle it, and they cover casuals. On any shift longer than 6 hours where the employer doesn't allow the unpaid meal break, you're owed an extra 50% of your ordinary hourly rate from the 6 hour mark until you're given the break or the shift ends. For a Level 2 employee that's $13.54 an hour on top of whatever the shift already pays, and clause 29.3(c) confirms it's paid in addition to any penalty rate, so a Saturday without a break is $54.16 an hour for that stretch rather than $40.62.