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Long Service Leave Calculator (Australia)

Work out long service leave for every Australian state and territory: what has accrued, when it vests, and what it is worth on termination.

Your numbers

Decimals are fine (8 years 6 months = 8.5). Unpaid leave generally doesn't count.
Base pay for ordinary hours. Overtime and most allowances are excluded in every state.
Long service leave
 
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How much long service leave do employees get in Australia?

It depends on the state or territory, because long service leave is state law. The most common entitlement is 8.6667 weeks (two months) of paid leave after 10 years of continuous service with one employer, but South Australia and the Northern Territory provide 13 weeks after 10 years, and in Victoria and the ACT the leave can be taken after 7 years. Every jurisdiction also accrues further leave beyond the first milestone.

Where Compono fits

Every long service leave milestone is a decision somebody made to stay, roughly 520 times in a row. The people who reach it are usually the ones carrying your culture and your institutional knowledge, and whether the next cohort gets there is set years earlier, in how engaged they are right now. Compono Engage measures engagement and culture as they move, so you can see who is drifting long before the resignation letter, and act while it still changes the outcome. Compono holds 4.8 out of 5 on Capterra and is used by government departments and mid-market employers across Australia and New Zealand.

See how it works

How it's calculated

Long service leave is state and territory law, not the National Employment Standards, which is why the answer changes when the state does. In most jurisdictions the full entitlement is 8.6667 weeks (two months) after 10 years of continuous service, but South Australia and the Northern Territory pay 13 weeks at that mark, and Victoria and the ACT let employees take the leave from 7 years. Pro-rata payouts on termination are where the real differences live: the qualifying years and the termination reasons that count are different in every jurisdiction, so the calculator applies each state's own rules rather than a national average. The result uses the employee's ordinary weekly pay, and dollar figures are gross: leave paid out on termination is taxed under the ATO's unused-leave rules. Some industries (construction, cleaning, community services, coal mining and others, depending on the state) sit under portable long service schemes with their own rules, and this calculator does not model those. This is general guidance, not legal advice.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of long service leave in the HR Glossary.

State detail pages: NSW · VIC · QLD · WA · SA · TAS · NT · ACT

Common questions

Do employees get long service leave if they resign before 10 years?

Often yes, as a pro-rata payment, but the rules differ sharply by state. Most jurisdictions pay pro-rata long service leave after 5 to 7 years when employment ends for reasons like redundancy, illness or dismissal (other than for serious misconduct), and several also pay it on a straight resignation. The calculator applies the rules for the state you pick.

Do casual employees accrue long service leave?

Generally yes. In most states and territories, casual and seasonal employees accrue long service leave if their service is continuous under that jurisdiction's rules. The ACT is the exception, where casual coverage is fact-specific. Continuity rules matter everywhere: allowable gaps between engagements differ, and Tasmania requires 32 hours or more in each consecutive 4-week period.

What pay rate is long service leave paid at?

Ordinary pay, which broadly means the employee's normal weekly rate for ordinary hours. Overtime and most allowances are excluded, and states have their own rules for averaging variable pay such as commission or changing hours. The calculator uses the ordinary weekly pay you enter.

What is portable long service leave?

Industry schemes that let workers carry long service entitlements between employers in sectors where job movement is normal: construction, contract cleaning and community services in several states, and coal mining under a national scheme. Employers in covered industries register with the scheme and pay a levy. Those schemes run on their own rules, and this calculator does not model them.

This page is general information, not legal advice. We check figures annually and update them on a best-efforts basis, but employment rules change and we cannot promise everything here is current or complete. Before you act on it, confirm the detail with the Fair Work Ombudsman or your own adviser. Last reviewed July 2026.