Acting Pay Rates 2026: SAG-AFTRA Scale and Non-Union Rates

Acting pay rates in the United States divide cleanly in two. On a SAG-AFTRA production the minimums are set by contract and cannot be negotiated downward: $231 for an eight-hour background day, $1,283 for a day performer, $4,456 for a weekly performer. Everywhere else, nothing is set at all, and the only legal floor is your local minimum wage.

That distinction matters more than any single number on this page. It decides whether overtime is owed, whether a missed meal break is penalised, whether anyone contributes to your pension and health coverage, and whether there is a union to chase a payment that does not arrive.

Every figure below is from the published SAG-AFTRA wage tables for the 2026–30 agreements, effective 1 July 2026, unless stated otherwise. Sources are linked at the foot of the page.

Background and extras rates

These are the theatrical and new-series television rates for an eight-hour day, effective 1 July 2026.

• General background — $231. The standard rate for a non-speaking background performer.
• Special ability background — $241. Paid when the role requires a specific skill: skating, driving a particular vehicle, playing an instrument, a sport performed on camera.
• Stand-ins — $270. Standing in for a principal while the crew lights and blocks the scene.
• Photo doubles — $270. Appearing on camera in place of a principal performer.

Some legacy network and CW series run on a separate schedule paying slightly more: $238 general background, $248 special ability and $278 for stand-ins.

Performer rates

These apply once you have lines or are engaged as a principal rather than background.

• Day performer — $1,283. Film or new television series. A speaking role booked for a single day.
• Three-day performer — $3,252 on a half-hour or one-hour television show, $3,826 on a ninety-minute or two-hour show.
• Weekly performer — $4,456. Film and television.
• Legacy series rates are higher: $1,329 for a day performer and $4,612 for a weekly performer.

Series regulars

Series regular weekly minimums depend on episode length and on how many episodes are guaranteed — and fewer guaranteed episodes means a higher weekly rate, because the total commitment is smaller.

• One-hour series: $5,361 a week with 13 or more episodes guaranteed, $5,981 with seven to twelve, $6,996 with six.
• Half-hour series: $4,456, $5,101 and $5,947 on the same basis.
• Ninety-minute: $7,141 with 13 or more, $8,088 with seven to twelve.
• Two-hour: $8,928 with 13 or more, $10,347 with seven to twelve.

These are minimums, not salaries. Established leads negotiate well above scale, and a series regular credit on a returning show is worth far more than the weekly figure suggests once residuals are counted.

What gets added on top of the day rate

This is the part most performers underestimate. On a union job the base rate is a starting point.

1. Overtime. Hours one to eight are straight time. Hours nine and ten pay time and a half. Hours eleven to fifteen pay double time.
2. The sixteen-hour rule. Beyond sixteen hours you earn a full day's pay for every additional hour or part of an hour. It exists to make very long days expensive rather than routine.
3. Meal period penalties. Violations are penalised on an escalating scale, rising with each successive violation in the same day.
4. Night premiums. 10% of the hourly rate between 8pm and 1am, 20% between 1am and 6am.
5. Wet and smoke pay. Working in water, rain, smoke or dust carries a higher rate, with a further increase when both conditions apply.
6. Day adjustments. Allowances are paid for heavy makeup or body makeup, a rubber skull cap, spirit-gum hair goods, a required natural beard, or supplying your own hairpiece. Separate payments apply when a stand-in works as a rehearsal actor, or when a photo double is required to memorise and deliver scripted dialogue.
7. Pension and health. The production contributes 20.5% on top of your earnings. This is not deducted from your pay — it is paid in addition to it, and it is one of the clearest arguments for union work.

The penalty and allowance amounts above come from SAG-AFTRA's published background rate breakdown, which covers 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026. The overtime structure, the sixteen-hour rule and the night premium percentages are contractual rules rather than rates and do not change year to year.

Commercials work differently

A commercial does not pay a single fee. You are paid a session fee for the day of the shoot, then use payments each time the commercial runs, structured by where and how it is broadcast. Over the life of a national campaign the use payments routinely exceed the session fee by a wide margin, which is why a commercial booking can be worth far more than its shoot day suggests.

Under the 2025 Commercials Contract, wages and use fees rose 5% from 1 April 2025, 4% from 1 April 2026 and 3% from 1 April 2027, applying to new commercials and to commercials renewed after their maximum period of use expires. Some categories are excluded from those increases, including Class A per-use and cycle caps, cable rates and streaming platforms. Exact session figures are published on the contract's own rate sheet rather than in the agreement itself, so check the current sheet before accepting a commercial booking.

What non-union work actually pays

There is no honest single answer, because no contract sets these rates. What can be said is this: non-union background work commonly pays somewhere in the region of $100 to $200 a day, and non-union principal and commercial rates vary enormously with budget, market and the producer's good faith. Treat every figure as negotiable.

The important difference is not the headline number but what is missing from it. There is no contractual overtime, no meal penalty, no night premium, no pension and health contribution, and no union to pursue a payment that never arrives. A $150 non-union day that runs fourteen hours pays less per hour than the minimum wage in much of the country.

Non-union work is not something to avoid — it is where almost every performer starts, and it builds the credits and the reel that make union work possible. It just needs to be entered with clear eyes and written terms.

What it costs to join SAG-AFTRA

The national initiation fee is $3,121, although it is lower in some states. Annual base dues are $246.14, and work dues add 1.575% of covered earnings, applied up to $1,000,000 of earnings.

Those numbers explain the usual career shape: performers build credits on background, commercial and independent work first, and join once union bookings make the cost worthwhile rather than before.

Child performers and trust accounts

Scale rates do not change for minors, but the protections around them vary enormously by state. Four states require a trust account — often called a Coogan account — into which a share of a child performer's earnings must be deposited: California, New York, Louisiana and New Mexico. Most other states require no entertainment-specific permit or trust at all.

Where state law is thin, the production's own terms are the only protection. On a SAG-AFTRA production the union's young performer provisions apply regardless of where you are filming, which is a substantive reason to prefer union-signatory work for a child.

How to make sure you actually get paid

Underpayment is more common than outright fraud, and it is usually preventable.

• Confirm the production's union status before you accept.
• Get the rate, call time, expected wrap and payment terms in writing.
• Keep your own record of actual call and wrap times.
• Never pay to audition, to be submitted, or to be registered for a production. No legitimate casting process charges performers.
• Treat any payment sent to you before the work, with instructions to deposit it and forward part of it, as fraud.

Official sources: SAG-AFTRA · SAG-AFTRA membership costs · SAG-AFTRA young performer state statutes · US Department of Labor state minimum wage table

Pay and rules by state: California · New York · Georgia · New Mexico · Louisiana · Texas · Illinois · Washington

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