Home Loans for Pilots, Cabin Crew and Shift Workers

Why rostered pay gets read differently

A salaried office worker's income is one number. Yours is a base rate with a stack of variable items on top, and each of them moves with the roster and the season. An assessor who has never worked a night shift sees volatility where you see a normal year.

The caution is not personal, and the banks did not invent it. APRA's Prudential Practice Guide APG 223 tells lenders that a prudent one discounts or disregards temporarily high or uncertain income, with significant discounts generally applied to bonuses, overtime and variable commissions. It puts prudent practice at a discount of at least 20 per cent on most non-salary income, and higher in some cases.

That is guidance, not one rulebook. Each lender writes its own credit policy on top of it, which is why one bundle of payslips can produce two very different borrowing figures.

How lenders read the parts of your pay

Base or ordinary-time pay is the straightforward part. The rest is where lenders differ.

Overtime and penalty rates

Fair Work describes overtime as work performed outside the ordinary hours in an award or agreement, and penalty rates as the higher rates payable for working particular hours or days, such as evenings, weekends or public holidays. The lending question is not whether you earn it, but whether it will continue. Some lenders count a portion of it, some average what you have earned over a recent period, and some want a longer track record before counting it at all.

Duty, flight and shift allowances

Since Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 the ATO requires allowances to be itemised separately rather than swept into taxable gross, so an assessor sees each one by type instead of a mystery total. What it cannot show is whether an allowance will keep coming, so expect to be asked how each one is earned.

Per diems and travel allowances

The ATO describes a travel allowance as money paid to cover costs you might incur travelling away from home overnight for work, and says it may or may not be shown on your income statement. An employer does not have to report a travel or overtime meal allowance through Single Touch Payroll where it sits at or under the ATO reasonable amount.

So a per diem can arrive every month and still be invisible on your end of year statement. Because it reimburses a cost rather than rewarding work, some lenders will not count it and others only part of it.

Casual, part-time and permanent

Fair Work treats you as a casual employee where, when you start, there is no firm advance commitment to ongoing work and you are entitled to a casual loading or casual pay rate. APG 223 lists confirming that status, permanent, casual, part-time, contractor or fixed term, as one step in verifying income, alongside payslips showing usual shift penalties. Lenders generally want a track record before they lean on casual income, while permanent part-time is often read closer to permanent full-time.

Probation and moving between employers

Changing airlines, hospitals or state services resets your time in the job even when the role is near identical. Some lenders accept a move inside the same industry, others want probation served, and a new contract can restructure your allowances. Tell us before you sign.

Overseas-based and foreign-currency pay

Australians flying for overseas carriers face a smaller pool of lenders and tighter conditions, and the lenders that do look at foreign-currency income commonly discount it to allow for exchange-rate movement. Whether you are an Australian resident for tax purposes is settled by the ATO's residency tests, not by your citizenship or visa, and it can affect which lenders will look at your file.

General information, not tax advice. Nothing here is tax, credit or financial advice and it does not consider your objectives, financial situation or needs. Confirm your position with a registered tax agent. Official guidance is published by the ATO.

The paperwork that makes it easy

Shift-worker applications are not harder, just better evidenced. Get these together and most of the back and forth disappears:

Your two most recent payslips, showing year-to-date figures, not just the fortnight.
A longer run of payslips, up to a full year, where overtime and allowances are a real share of your pay.
Your income statement from myGov, what used to be called a group certificate. It shows year-to-date gross income, tax withheld and super, and must be marked "Tax ready" to be final. Employers have until 14 July to finalise.
A recent roster or duty statement, which explains a quiet month better than an email can.
Your employment contract or an employer letter confirming permanent, part-time or casual, your start date and base rate.
Bank statements showing the salary credits, which APG 223 lists as one way a lender verifies income.

Want to see where your year is tracking first? Our income annualiser does the year-to-date maths roughly the way an assessor does, separating expected base pay from everything above it. From there the repayments calculator shows how a loan of a given size behaves, and if you already own a home, a mortgage health check tells you whether your loan still suits the way you are paid.

Rostered, uniformed, on call

Who we help

Different uniforms, the same payslip problem: the real money sits in the lines under the base.

Airline pilots & cabin crew

Base salary plus duty and flight allowances, per diems, seniority-driven rosters and, for some, an overseas posting and a foreign currency.

Air traffic controllers & aviation ground staff

Shift cycles, night and weekend penalties, endorsements and higher-duties payments. Steady work that still looks lumpy on a payslip.

Police, fire, ambulance & nursing

Penalty rates, on-call and recall payments, overtime that is anything but optional, and agency shifts on top of a permanent role. Shift work and allowances are what we grew up reading: this is a veteran-owned brokerage, and rostered pay was the first payslip we ever had to make sense of.

Common questions

Questions we get from rostered workers

Do lenders count my overtime and penalty rates?

Usually, but rarely at full value. APRA's guidance puts prudent practice at a discount of at least 20 per cent on most non-salary income. Past that baseline each lender sets its own policy, which is why two lenders can read the same payslips very differently.

How do lenders treat per diems and travel allowances?

Carefully, because a travel allowance covers a cost rather than rewarding work, and it may not even appear on your income statement where it sits at or under the ATO reasonable amount. Some lenders exclude it, others will consider part of it where you can evidence it.

Can cabin crew on a casual or part-time contract get a home loan?

Yes. Employment type changes the evidence, not the answer. Lenders generally want a track record before they lean on casual income, while permanent part-time is often read closer to permanent full-time. How long a record varies by lender.

Should I wait if I am moving airlines and starting probation?

Not necessarily, but tell us before you sign or resign. Moving employers resets your time in the job even when the role is identical. Some lenders are comfortable with that, others want probation served first.

Can you help if I am based overseas or paid in a foreign currency?

Often, though the pool of lenders is smaller and the conditions tighter. Expect questions about the currency, the posting length and where you pay tax. Tax residency is settled by the ATO's tests and belongs with a registered tax agent.

Home loans for pilots, cabin crew and shift workers