Dry hire vs wet hire: what's included and how each is billed
Dry hire is the machine on its own: you supply the operator, the fuel and the daily checks. Wet hire is the machine with an operator from the hire company, and often the fuel too. Which one you choose decides who runs the machine, who carries which risks, and how every line on the invoice is worked out.
In short
- Dry hire is the machine alone, billed per day, week or month. You supply the operator, the fuel and the daily checks.
- Wet hire comes with the hire company's operator, billed per hour for both, often with minimum hours and a float to site.
- Ask what a quote includes, and check each line's rate is per the period you agreed.
Dry hire and wet hire, defined
Dry hire means hiring plant or equipment without an operator. The hire company delivers the machine, and your business operates it, fuels it, does the daily checks and sends it back clean. You're billed per day, week or month for as long as it's on hire, usually with a minimum hire, plus delivery and pick-up.
Wet hire means hiring plant together with an operator from the hire company. The operator runs the machine on your site, doing the work you set, and the hire company looks after the machine. You're billed per hour for the machine and operator together, often with a minimum number of hours and a charge to get the machine to site.
Hire companies don't all use the terms the same way, so when a quote says wet or dry, ask what it includes: the operator, the fuel, or both.
Side by side
The hire agreement decides who supplies what, so read yours. These are the usual arrangements, not rules:
| Item | Dry hire | Wet hire |
|---|---|---|
| Operator | Dry hire: Yours: someone trained on the machine, and licensed where the plant needs a high risk work licence | Wet hire: The hire company's, included in the hourly rate |
| Fuel | Dry hire: Yours. The machine usually goes out full and should come back full, or a refuelling charge applies | Wet hire: Often in the hourly rate. Some add fuel as its own line or a fuel levy, so check the quote |
| Daily checks and servicing | Dry hire: Daily checks are yours; servicing and breakdowns are usually the hire company's | Wet hire: The hire company's |
| Getting it to site | Dry hire: Delivery and pick-up, or a float each way | Wet hire: A float or travel charge, or none for a local job |
| Damage and insurance | Dry hire: Usually yours while it's on hire, unless damage waiver or your own insurance covers it | Wet hire: Set by the agreement: ask who covers damage done by their operator |
| Who directs the work | Dry hire: You | Wet hire: You say what's to be done; their operator runs the machine |
| How it's priced | Dry hire: Per day, week or month, with a minimum hire | Wet hire: Per hour for machine and operator, often with minimum hours |
| What stops the charges | Dry hire: Calling it off hire | Wet hire: The operator's last hour on the docket, plus travel or the float back |
How rates are quoted
Wet hire is quoted per hour for the machine and its operator together, such as an hourly rate for a 5 tonne excavator with operator. Most wet hire has a minimum, often a half or a full day's hours, and a charge to bring the machine to site: a float each way, or the operator's travel time. Some hire companies quote an all-in day rate instead.
Dry hire is quoted per day, per week or per month, and the longer periods usually cost less per day. There's usually a minimum hire, such as a day, a weekend or a week, and delivery and pick-up are charged on top. Damage waiver, where it applies, is usually a percentage of the hire or a charge per day, and a machine that comes back less than full is charged for refuelling.
Some dry hire day rates cover a set number of engine hours, with extra hours charged on top. If yours does, have the hour meter reading written on the docket when the machine arrives and when it goes back.
What a wet hire invoice bills
A wet hire invoice usually carries:
- the machine and operator's hours, by day or by docket, at the hourly rate
- travel time or a float charge, to site and back
- the minimum hours, on a day the machine worked less than the minimum
- standby, if the machine waited on site with nothing to do and your agreement charges for it
- fuel or a fuel levy, where fuel isn't in the rate
What a dry hire invoice bills
A dry hire invoice usually carries:
- each item, the number of days, weeks or months, and the rate per period: "1 Excavator 5 t, 2 weeks" at the weekly rate
- the minimum hire, when the hire ran shorter than it
- delivery and pick-up, or a float each way
- damage waiver
- refuelling, cleaning, and damage or lost parts, each of which should come with evidence
Where hire invoices go wrong
On dry hire, the charges usually run until you call the machine off hire with the hire company, not until the job ends or the machine is parked ready for collection. A machine that sat on site over a long weekend waiting for a pick-up nobody booked is billed for all of it. The guide to off hire covers how to call it off and what to keep as proof.
A minimum hire is fair when it's in your agreement. It should be applied once per hire: not again on each invoice of a long hire, and not on top of a hire that already ran longer than the minimum.
The period is the other trap. A day rate charged across a week the hire company should have billed at its weekly rate, or a weekly rate charged per day, can look right at a glance. Check the rate on each line is per the period you agreed.
On wet hire, check the hours against the operator's dockets, signed on site each day, and the travel or float against what was agreed. Standby is where most disagreements start: agree up front what counts, such as wet weather or waiting on another trade, and at what rate.
Which to choose
Wet hire suits short jobs, specialist machines, and work where you don't have an operator who knows the machine: the operator comes with it, along with their experience of it. You pay more per hour, and for the operator's time on site and getting there.
Dry hire suits longer jobs where you have your own trained operators, and machines that work on and off through the day, because a day rate doesn't change with the hours worked. It puts more on you: the operator, the fuel, the daily checks, and the risk of damage while the machine is in your care.
Settle the hire agreement before the machine arrives
business.gov.au suggests documenting the terms you agree with a supplier as a written contract, and lists delivery terms and insurance responsibilities among what it should cover. For a hire, read the agreement for:(business.gov.au: Suppliers)
- when the hire starts and stops, and how to call it off
- the minimum hire, and how part weeks or months are charged
- who carries the risk of damage and loss, and what damage waiver covers and leaves out
- fuel, cleaning, and what counts as fair wear and tear
- breakdowns: whether hire is charged while the machine can't work
- on wet hire, standby, wet weather and travel
Standard terms and licences
Most hire agreements are the hire company's standard terms. The ACCC explains that the unfair contract terms protections cover standard form contracts with small businesses as well as consumers, and that a term a court finds unfair is void. Whether one is depends on the whole contract, so ask a lawyer about your own terms.(ACCC: Contracts)
On dry hire you supply the operator. Some plant can only be operated by someone with a high risk work licence: Safe Work Australia's list includes forklifts, certain cranes and hoists, and boom-type elevating work platforms over a set boom length, and scaffolding work needs one too. Safe Work Australia doesn't issue the licences; your state or territory's work health and safety regulator does, and can tell you what the machine you're hiring needs.(Safe Work Australia: High risk work licences)
Checking a hire invoice against agreed rates
Hire invoices are quickest to check when the rates are agreed first, item by item and period by period: each machine, whether it's wet or dry, the period its rate is per, the minimum hire, the float or delivery charge, and refuelling. The free plant and equipment hire template has rows for those, dry hire machines per day, a float each way, a minimum hire charge and refuelling per litre, with the rates left blank to agree. Add a row per hour for each machine you wet hire.
Then check each line: the item, the period, the rate per period, and the number of items times the period times the rate against the line's total. Keep the dockets, the off-hire confirmations and any damage report with the invoice. The ATO generally asks businesses to keep their records for five years, and some records for longer.(ATO: Overview of record-keeping rules for business)
items × period × rate per period = line totalHow CostCode checks hire invoices
CostCode reads a hire line that prints the number of items, a period and a rate per period as items × period × rate, whether the period is printed with its word in a column of its own ("3 weeks") or as a bare number under a Days or Weeks column, but only when exactly one reading of the period comes to the line's total. A period written into the item's description isn't read that way. When none adds up, or more than one could, the line goes to a person rather than being guessed.
It then checks the rate against the hire rate you agreed for that item, in the period it was billed in: per day against a day rate, per week against a week rate, per hour against an hourly wet hire rate. Agree one period per item: a day rate and a week rate under the same description can't be told apart on an invoice line, so those lines stay unverified. Days billed against a rate agreed per week, or the other way round, show as unverified with the question, because converting one into the other isn't CostCode's to guess. A hire line is never passed on anything but a hire rate: with none on file it shows as unverified with the reason, and one billed over a price your schedule gives per item rather than per period is held for your team, never put to the hire company, because that price may be per day, per week or per hire.
Delivery lines and fuel or environmental levies are checked against the charges you agreed with that hire company. A float, a minimum hire charge, refuelling or damage waiver is checked like any other item when your schedule has a row for it with a price per unit or per day. Damage waiver charged as a percentage of the hire has no such price to check against, so CostCode doesn't check the percentage: that's yours.
CostCode doesn't know your on-hire and off-hire dates and doesn't read plant dockets, so the days and hours billed are yours to check against them. A query to the hire company quotes only what they can check, and goes only when a person in your team reads it and presses send.
Questions
Is fuel included in wet hire?
Often, but not always. Some wet hire rates include fuel, and some add it as its own line or a fuel levy. Check the quote, and on the invoice check fuel isn't billed on top of a rate that already includes it.
Who insures dry-hired plant?
Your hire agreement says. On dry hire the hirer usually carries the risk of damage and loss while the machine is in their care, which is what damage waiver and your own insurance are for. business.gov.au lists insurance responsibilities among what a supplier contract should cover; ask your insurer whether your policy covers hired plant.(business.gov.au: Suppliers)
What does "dry hire only" mean?
The hire company won't supply an operator for that machine. You hire the machine alone and operate it yourself, so you need someone trained on it, and licensed where the plant needs a high risk work licence.(Safe Work Australia: High risk work licences)
What is standby time on wet hire?
Time the machine and operator are on site but can't work, such as waiting on another trade or on the weather. Whether it's charged, and at what rate, is whatever your agreement says, so settle it before the job starts.
Can CostCode check wet hire and dry hire invoices?
Yes, against the hire rates you agreed: a wet hire line against the hourly rate for that machine and operator, a dry hire line against the day or week rate for that item. A hire line with no rate agreed in the period it's billed in is never passed. The hours and days billed are yours to check against your dockets and off-hire confirmations.