Is your dog groomer an employee or a contractor?

15 September 2026·2 min read

Whether the person grooming beside you is an employee or a contractor isn't something you get to pick. It's decided by how the work actually runs day to day, and an ABN or a signed "contractor" agreement won't change the answer if the arrangement underneath it looks like employment.

Why the paperwork doesn't decide it

Fair Work applies a whole-of-relationship test: they weigh the real substance of how you work together rather than the words on the contract. So a groomer who works the hours you roster, grooms the dogs you book in, uses your bath, your dryer and your table, and gets paid a set rate for their time is almost certainly your employee, whatever the paperwork calls them. The label follows the reality; it can't rewrite it.

That's worth getting right, because a wrong call isn't just a filing slip. If you've dressed up an employee as a contractor to save on entitlements, that's sham contracting, and it carries real penalties.

So can you ever pay a groomer on an ABN?

Yes, when the arrangement is genuinely independent. A real contractor runs their own business: they can groom for other shops, they carry their own insurance, they bring their own gear, they invoice for a result and they can knock back work you offer. Rent-a-table can be exactly that, when the renter is truly running their own book alongside yours.

The trap is rent-a-table on paper while you treat the person like staff. If you're rostering them, sending them your clients, setting their prices and telling them how to finish a groom, what you've got is an employee who happens to pay you rent. The test won't care what the invoice says.

The super check most people miss

Here's the part that catches careful operators out. Even a genuine contractor can be owed superannuation. When you pay someone mainly for their labour, the ATO can treat them as an employee for super alone, even while they're a contractor for everything else. So "they're on an ABN" doesn't settle super. It's a separate question with its own test, and it's cheaper to answer before you agree a rate than after.

Work it out one groomer at a time

Run the test on each arrangement you've actually got, on the facts of how that person works, and write down what you found. Two people in the same shop can land on different sides of the line, and the answer can drift as the relationship changes. A "contractor" who slowly becomes your most rostered, most managed groomer can quietly turn into an employee, even though nobody re-signed a thing.

Seglo keeps each groomer's rostered hours, assigned dogs and pay rate in one place, so the facts that decide the test are already written down when you need them — see how Seglo works for pet grooming.

Keep reading

Ready to run it this way?

Seglo takes the booking, holds the right groomer and the right equipment, and keeps the day moving.

Start with usView pricing