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Long service leave
calculator NT

Work out long service leave under the Long Service Leave Act 1981 (NT): accrual, vesting at 10 years, and what is payable when employment ends.

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 you get in Northern Territory?

13 weeks of paid leave after 10 years of continuous service under the Long Service Leave Act 1981 (NT), accruing at 1.3 weeks per year of completed service. 13 weeks after 10 years at 1.3 weeks per completed year. Between 7 and 10 years, pro-rata is payable on employer termination for any reason other than serious misconduct (redundancy included), on reaching retirement age, or on resignation for illness, incapacity or pressing domestic necessity. An ordinary resignation gets nothing until 10 years.

How we calculated this

In Northern Territory, long service leave runs under the Long Service Leave Act 1981 (NT), administered by NT Government (OCPE). 13 weeks after 10 years at 1.3 weeks per completed year. Between 7 and 10 years, pro-rata is payable on employer termination for any reason other than serious misconduct (redundancy included), on reaching retirement age, or on resignation for illness, incapacity or pressing domestic necessity. An ordinary resignation gets nothing until 10 years.

Between 7 and 10 years, pro-rata leave is payable on redundancy, dismissal for performance or capacity, resignation for illness, incapacity or pressing necessity. It is not payable on an ordinary resignation or dismissal for serious misconduct.

Casual employees accumulate long service leave. Construction workers sit under the NT Build portable scheme instead. Usual rate of pay excluding overtime, penalties, and district and site allowances. The Territory counts completed years only, and leave cannot be cashed out while employed. Portable long service schemes and pre-2010 federal award terms sit outside this calculator. 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

Assumptions
  • Continuous service is taken as you enter it. What breaks continuity (unpaid absences, parental leave, gaps between casual engagements, a change of business owner) differs by jurisdiction. If there was a break, the number can be too high.
  • Ordinary weekly pay means the normal rate for ordinary hours: overtime and most allowances excluded. Each jurisdiction has its own averaging rules where hours or pay have changed, so for someone whose hours dropped recently the figure you enter may not be the figure the law uses.
  • South Australia and the Northern Territory count completed years only; the other jurisdictions credit part-years. Close to a milestone that difference is worth weeks.
  • Dollars are gross. Leave paid out on termination is taxed under the ATO's unused-leave rules, so the amount that reaches the person is lower.
  • Portable long service schemes (construction, contract cleaning, community services and coal mining, depending on the state) and any long service leave terms preserved in an award or agreement are not modelled. The state Act is the floor, and the calculator applies the Act.
Sources

What to do about it

The entitlement is arithmetic once you know which rule book applies. The harder question is whether the people between year five and year ten are still going to be here to take it. These steps are for whoever administers leave and whoever manages the long-serving people, which is rarely the same person.

1

Confirm which rule book applies, and write it down

The state Act, a preserved award term, an agreement term, or a portable scheme. Note the instrument you relied on next to the figure. Two people in the same office can sit under different rules, and the mistake is expensive in the direction of underpayment.

2

Check continuity before you check the maths

Get the full service record from payroll, including periods before the current system, and look for unpaid leave, parental leave, casual gaps and any transfer of business. Continuity rules differ by jurisdiction and a break can reset or pause the clock.

3

Ask finance how the liability is provisioned

Long service leave accrues from year one even though it vests years later, and the provision should reflect current pay rates and the people who will realistically reach the milestone. If nobody has looked at it since the last audit, this calculator is a fast way to spot-check the largest balances.

4
Where a tool helps

Read the near-miss list

Everyone who left between year five and year nine over the last three years is a person who nearly stayed. Log why they went, as they told it and as you read it. If the reasons cluster around one manager or one team, the ten-year cohort you are counting on is already thinner than it looks.

5

Plan the leave rather than only paying it out

Someone taking two or three months away is a live succession test. Decide who covers and what they will own. Then decide what you want to know about the role by the time the person comes back.

Ten years is a choice
made every day.

Compono Engage is an employee engagement platform that reads culture and climate alongside work personality, so you can see which of the people between year five and year ten are drifting before they resign. Payroll knows the accrual to the day. It has nothing to say about whether the person will still be here to take it.

Step 4 asks you to read the near-miss list by hand. Engage reads it while the people are still on the payroll, team by team, with the reason attached. The weeks above are what loyalty is worth. Engage is how you keep earning it.

See how it works
Compono Engage
8%+
reduction in turnover

Common questions

Do you get long service leave if you resign in Northern Territory?

Not on an ordinary resignation before 10 years. Between 7 and 10 years, pro-rata leave is payable on redundancy, dismissal for performance or capacity, resignation for illness, incapacity or pressing necessity. It is not payable on an ordinary resignation or dismissal for serious misconduct.

Do casual employees get long service leave in Northern Territory?

Casual employees accumulate long service leave. Construction workers sit under the NT Build portable scheme instead.

What pay rate applies to long service leave in Northern Territory?

Usual rate of pay excluding overtime, penalties, and district and site allowances. The Territory counts completed years only, and leave cannot be cashed out while employed.

Who administers long service leave in Northern Territory?

NT Government (OCPE). For entitlements in other states and territories, use the national version of this calculator, which covers all eight jurisdictions.

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 NT Government (OCPE) or your own adviser. Last reviewed July 2026.

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