What Does a New Grad Chiropractor Cost a Clinic?

A new graduate chiropractor costs a clinic at least $84,200 a year in wages and super from February 2027, and about $130,100 by mid-2030 on an assumed 4% annual wage review, with no promotion. The award applies AQF 9 to every new chiropractor, the highest starting level of the professions in this series, and it does so even for graduates of bachelor-only programs. Medicare, DVA and NSW workers compensation pay a chiropractic service what they pay a physiotherapy service, so the chiropractic graduate starts $7,900 a year dearer against the same public prices.

The short answer

Forecast figures assume a 4% Annual Wage Review each year from 2027, no promotion, and 44 revenue-generating weeks of 25 billable hours. The 40% and 50% ratios, every dated step, the costs that sit on top of wages and the evidence for each figure follow below.

Which rate applies

The Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020 (MA000027) covers employers in the health industry and their employees in its classifications (cl 4.1(a)), and any employer engaging a health professional employee in those classifications (cl 4.1(b)). The second limb is occupational: it can reach a health professional employed outside a clinic, such as by a disability provider or a school, unless another award or agreement applies. The award's terms do not apply where an enterprise agreement applies, and an employee earning above the high income threshold under a guarantee of annual earnings is outside the award's terms. Where an employer is covered by more than one award, the employee falls under the classification most appropriate to their work and where they do it (cl 4.7).

Schedule B lists chiropractor at one level, AQF 9. Under cl B.2(a) a new graduate chiropractor starts at Level 1, AQF 9, 1st year: $1,444.90 a week full-time from 1 October 2026.

Here the level applied can be higher than the qualification held. The Council on Chiropractic Education Australasia's accredited programs, as listed on 4 October 2026, produce chiropractors through three kinds of route: combined bachelor and master's programs and graduate-entry master's programs, which confer an AQF 9 master's degree; and bachelor-only routes, which confer AQF 7. One bachelor-only program is still enrolling new students, and two double-bachelor programs continue to graduate students during a teach-out or after a change of offering. Because the award lists chiropractor at AQF 9 only, cl B.2(a) classifies every one of these graduates at AQF 9, whichever degree they hold. That is the reverse of physiotherapy, occupational therapy and exercise physiology, where graduates often hold more than the level applied.

Registration. Chiropractors are registered with the Chiropractic Board of Australia through Ahpra, and registration requires professional indemnity insurance. The fee and who pays it are set by the board and your contract, not the award.

One graduate, eight dates

Full-time, 38 ordinary hours a week, rounded to the nearest $100, commencing in the profession in February 2027. On the assumed reviews that is a 54.6% rise in wages plus super with no promotion, smaller than the 61.0% at AQF 7, because the award's staged increases are smaller at AQF 9.

Determined, published and projected

Three kinds of number sit in every table on this page, and they carry different weight.

• Determined. The 1 October 2026 Level 1 rates are in the award now, set by Fair Work Commission determination PR814029 (made 7 September 2026 with [2026] FWCFB 231) and printed inclusive of the 2026 Annual Wage Review. Only the February 2027 row rests on a determined rate alone; every later row adds an assumed review to a published stage rate, so the tables mark it Projected.
• Published, not yet operative. The Commission decided in [2026] FWCFB 123 that the new rates phase in over five stages, and its appendix at [2026] FWCFB 216 publishes the rate for every stage to 30 June 2030. Each later stage still has to be put into the award by its own determination. The appendix prints those figures before any later Annual Wage Review.
• Projected. The 4% a year for 2027 to 2030 is our assumption, not a determination. Every figure from July 2027 carries it and moves if the actual reviews differ. Read the shape of the curve as the finding and each figure as a planning estimate. Figures are nominal, as payroll will show them.

The award bands Level 1 by years of experience in the profession. The model counts whole years from a February 2027 start with no prior experience, which is why nothing moves at the February 2029 anniversary. How a particular person's experience is counted can move the dates.

Without any future review, the published stage schedule alone takes the same person to about $111,200 a year with super by mid-2030, a 32.1% rise on the starting floor.

The floor, not the payroll. Every figure here is the award minimum for a full-time employee on 38 ordinary hours. A clinic already paying above it starts from its own offer, and the contract sets how that offer moves. The floor still rises by these steps underneath it, and the margin between the offer and the floor narrows at every step unless the offer moves too.

What wages and super leave out

The tables are annualised rates in force at each date, not cash paid across a calendar year, and they cover base wages and super only. The fully loaded cost of employing the same person is higher. Some of the gap is fixed by the award; the rest depends on your state, your insurer and the way you run the role.

Where they apply, these costs sit on top of the table above. A model built on wages and super alone is built short.

Evenings and Saturdays. The award names physiotherapy, chiropractic and osteopathic practices in its span of ordinary hours: in those practices a day worker's ordinary hours can fall between 7.30 am and 9.00 pm Monday to Friday and 8.00 am to 4.30 pm on Saturday (cl 13.2(b)). Evening appointments inside that span are ordinary time. Saturday hours are still paid at 150% (cl 26.1), so each Saturday hour costs at least $19.01 more than a weekday hour at the AQF 9 first-year rate.

The billings the role has to produce

Per billable hour assumes 44 revenue-generating weeks of 25 completed, revenue-producing hours: 1,100 hours a year. 44 weeks is our planning assumption for the weeks a clinician actually produces billings: a 52-week year less four weeks of annual leave, public holidays, sick leave and training. It is not a statutory figure. The wages and super above are still costed the way the award and the National Employment Standards require, on the full 52-week year, because paid leave is still paid; only the billings side is divided by 44. Cancellations and empty slots come out of the 25 hours, not the 44 weeks, so no absence is counted twice. The hourly figure moves the moment either assumption changes.

This page states the requirement per billable hour and does not convert it into a per-appointment figure. Appointment length and visit frequency in chiropractic vary by clinic and no primary source sets a standard one; divide the hourly figure by the number of completed appointments your diary fits into an hour.

We treat 50% as the ceiling rather than the target. In our planning, wages plus super should be no more than half of a clinician's billings, so the role bills at least twice its cost; clinics with different overheads or owner pay will set their own line. Clearing it is not profit; the other half still has to carry rent, admin, equipment and the owner's margin. Our approach to timing is that the first year's target should already point at the end state. We don't set goals for year one that will be redundant by year two.

Where chiropractic's prices are set for you

The billings table is a target per hour. Some payers set or cap the price instead. Where a scheme fixes or caps what an hour or a service pays, the question becomes how many minutes of the graduate's time that price pays for. The figures below are the schemes' published prices set against the hourly billings this role needs; none of them is a fee recommendation, and private health insurance sets no fee at all. NDIS figures are the national price limits; the schedule sets higher limits for remote and very remote areas.

• The same public prices as physiotherapy, on a higher award floor. Medicare CDM, DVA and the NSW workers compensation order pay a chiropractic service exactly what they pay a physiotherapy service: the same $63.40 CDM benefit, $77.10 DVA subsequent consultation and $100.90 NSW maximum; the physiotherapy page lists the matching physiotherapy items. The chiropractic graduate starts $7,900 a year dearer in wages+super, because the award applies AQF 9. Each of those prices therefore pays for fewer minutes of a chiropractor's time than of a physiotherapist's.
• The gap narrows. The award's staged increases are larger at AQF 7 than at AQF 9, so by mid-2030 the gap between a physiotherapy and a chiropractic graduate who started on the same day is about $7,400 a year on the same assumptions. Chiropractic's floor rises by 54.6% over the period against physiotherapy's 61.0%.
• NDIS. The 2026-27 NDIS Pricing Schedule has no chiropractic item. Whether a chiropractic service can be funded under its general "other professional" therapy item is not settled by the schedule, so a chiropractic role is planned here on private, Medicare, DVA and compensable work.
• Workers compensation is state-based. NSW is shown only as an example, and from 1 October 2026 the number of chiropractic consultations allowed there before insurer pre-approval fell from eight to four.

Two illustrations for a chiropractic diary

Neither is a benchmark. No primary source sets a standard chiropractic appointment length or fee, so both tables divide this page's hourly requirement and leave the inputs to your diary.

If the diary fits more than one consultation into an hour. What each completed consultation has to average for wages plus super to stay at 45% of billings:

If the diary is not yet full. A graduate building a caseload completes fewer billable hours, but the first-year cost does not wait for the diary to fill. On the same February 2027 cost, the hourly requirement at 45% rises as the diary thins:

At the same fees, a first year planned with a ramp is a first year in which wages plus super run above 45% of billings. Size that period before the offer, because the pay rises in the tables above arrive on their dates whether or not the caseload has.

What to look at now

The question is not only whether a clinic can pay the starting wage, but whether the role still works once the bands change and the stages land. Most of these levers are easier to move before the increases arrive than after.

• Fee schedule. A fee rise that only tracks inflation does not close a gap in which the cost of the same person climbs by band as well as by review.
• Payer mix. Where the role's hours are funded at a fixed price, the hourly figure in the billings table has to fit under that price.
• Diary design and ramp plan. When in the first year the role is expected to reach the billings the table implies, and which hours count as billable.
• Service mix. Where growing experience can be matched to work the clinic can charge more for.
• The hiring decision itself. The offer sets one number. Who is hired has a large bearing on whether the role reaches the billings the table implies.

Change the assumptions. The free New Graduate Cost Calculator gives the first-year cost at AQF 9 for this profession; the table above carries the AQF 9 path forward to 2030. Neither determines the pay of someone already on your team.

The team you already have

A new graduate is the clean case: one qualification, one clock, no history. For an employee classified under the award on 30 September 2026, clause J.4.3 of PR814029 sets the new award minimum as the higher of two figures: the minimum for their translated classification, and the minimum for their old classification on that day. It compares two award minimums, not what someone is actually paid, and it runs one person at a time. What the October change does to a wage bill is covered in How exposed is your clinic to the 2026 award changes?

Questions owners ask

How much should I pay a new grad chiropractor in 2027?

At least the award minimum. From 1 October 2026 a full-time first-year chiropractor at Level 1, AQF 9, has a minimum of $1,444.90 a week, about $75,100 a year before super, until the next stage and wage review in mid-2027.

Why is a new grad chiropractor paid more than a new grad physio?

The award lists chiropractor at AQF 9 and physiotherapist at AQF 7, and Level 1 rates are set by AQF level. In February 2027 the difference is about $7,900 a year in wages and super.

My graduate holds a Bachelor of Chiropractic, not a master's. Are they still AQF 9?

The award's rule: chiropractor is listed at AQF 9 only, so cl B.2(a) applies AQF 9 to a new graduate whatever qualification they hold.

What does a new grad chiropractor cost after three years?

On an assumed 4% annual review, a chiropractor who started in February 2027 enters the 4th–6th year band in February 2030 at about $121,000 with super, against $84,200 at the start.

How much does a new grad chiropractor need to bill?

At wages plus super of 45% of billings, a February 2027 graduate needs about $187,000 a year, or $170 per billable hour on 44 weeks of 25 hours. By mid-2030 the same person needs about $289,000, or $263 an hour.

Can a chiropractor bill the NDIS?

The 2026-27 NDIS Pricing Schedule has no chiropractic item. It has a general "other professional" therapy item, and whether a particular chiropractic service can be funded under it is not settled by the schedule.

Related reading

• The Health Professionals Award hub: the key dates, the rates and every source in one place.
• AQF levels by profession under the Health Professionals Award: which level each profession starts at.
• How exposed is your clinic to the 2026 award changes?: the margin question for the whole team.
• Your second pay rise hits October 1: what to line up before the reclassification.

The same model for each profession in this series: physiotherapist, exercise physiologist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, osteopath, chiropractor.

Sources

• Fair Work Commission, determination PR814029, made 7 September 2026 with [2026] FWCFB 231 ("stage 1 final determination"), operative 1 October 2026: Level 1 rates at cl 17.1, printed inclusive of the 2026 Annual Wage Review; Schedule B (qualification levels by profession); cl J.4.3(b) (existing employees).
• [2026] FWCFB 216 (14 August 2026), Appendix: the staged Level 1 rates for 30 June 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030, printed before any later Annual Wage Review.
• [2026] FWCFB 123 (26 May 2026): the decision to phase the new structure in over five stages. [2026] FWCFB 47 [6]: the staging method.
• Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020, MA000027, consolidated to 1 October 2026: cl 2 (definitions), cl 4 (coverage), cl 13.2 (span of ordinary hours), cl 23.3(h) (vehicle allowance), cl 25.2 (overtime), cl 26 (penalty rates and shiftwork), cl 27.3 (annual leave loading).
• Australian Qualifications Framework, Second Edition (January 2013): qualification types by AQF level.
• NDIA, NDIS Pricing Schedule 2026-27, effective 24 September 2026 (NDIS pricing arrangements), Part 4 definitions and the therapy support tables.
• Medicare Benefits Schedule, item 10964, fees from 1 July 2026 (MBS Online).
• Department of Veterans' Affairs, chiropractic fee schedule effective 1 July 2026 (from DVA's dental and allied health fee schedules).
• State Insurance Regulatory Authority (NSW), workers compensation fees for health services, Fees Orders for services on or after 1 February 2026, shown as one example of a state scheme.
• Council on Chiropractic Education Australasia, accredited programs (retrieved 4 October 2026); Chiropractic Board of Australia (Ahpra).

About this information

Culture of One is a business advisory firm, not a law firm. This is an illustrative planning model for a new hire and general information about the Health Professionals and Support Services Award, not legal or workplace-relations advice. It assumes the award covers the employment and no enterprise agreement applies, and it does not assess any individual employee's classification or pay entitlements. Stage rates after 1 October 2026 take effect only when the Commission determines them. Annual Wage Review percentages from 2027, and every figure derived from them, are projections; check the current determination before relying on any forward rate.

Last updated 5 October 2026.