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Notice period
calculator (Australia)

Work out the minimum notice for ending employment under the National Employment Standards, including the extra week for employees 45 and over.

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Minimum notice
 
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What is the minimum notice period in Australia?

Under the National Employment Standards it runs from 1 week for up to a year of service to 4 weeks beyond five years, with one extra week for employees who are 45 or over and have at least two years of continuous service. Awards, agreements and contracts can set more than the minimum.

How we calculated this

The calculator reads your years of continuous service off the notice scale in section 117 of the Fair Work Act 2009 and adds the extra week where the over-45 rule applies. That gives the minimum an employer must give. For a resignation it shows the same scale as a reference point, because the Standards do not set employee notice at all. The rule, the exclusions and the primary sources are below.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of notice periods in the HR Glossary.

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Assumptions
  • Applies the notice scale in section 117 of the Fair Work Act 2009: 1 week for up to a year of continuous service, 2 weeks for more than 1 to 3 years, 3 weeks for more than 3 to 5 years, 4 weeks beyond 5 years, plus 1 week when the employee is 45 or over with at least 2 years of continuous service.
  • These are the National Employment Standards minimums for notice given by the employer. An award, enterprise agreement, contract or redundancy clause can require more, never less, and the longest one applies.
  • Some employees sit outside the rule: casuals, employees engaged for a set period or task, seasonal workers, and anyone dismissed for serious misconduct. Check the Fair Work Ombudsman list before relying on the number.
  • The Standards do not set how much notice an employee gives when resigning. For a resignation the calculator shows the employer-side scale as a common reference point; the award, agreement or contract sets what actually applies.
  • Notice can be worked or paid in lieu at the full rate the person would have earned for the hours they would have worked.
Sources

What to do about it

The notice period is the easy part. What you do with those weeks decides whether this exit is a clean handover or the start of the next vacancy. These steps are for whoever handles the offboarding, not only the person who signs the letter.

1

Check the instrument before you check the Act

The number above is the floor. Read the award, enterprise agreement and contract for the role: any of them can set longer notice, and the longest one applies. Write down which document you relied on. For a resignation, the employee's notice comes from those documents, not from the Standards.

2

Confirm the person is covered

Casuals, employees engaged for a set period or task, seasonal workers, and anyone dismissed for serious misconduct sit outside the notice rules. A wrong assumption here is the expensive kind, so check the Fair Work Ombudsman list and get advice if the case is unusual.

3

Decide worked or paid out, in writing

Notice can be worked, paid in lieu at full rate for the hours they would have worked, or a mix of the two. Put the decision, the dates and the amounts in the termination letter so nobody is reconstructing it later.

4

Use the notice weeks for the handover you will wish you had

Document the role as it is actually done, not as the position description says. Who does the person talk to, what breaks if they vanish tomorrow, what would they fix if they had another year. Most of that walks out the door unrecorded.

5
Where a tool helps

Log why they left, in one place, every time

One line per exit: role, tenure, manager, the reason as they told it, the reason as you read it. After a year that list is worth more than any exit survey, because it shows the pattern behind the notice periods you keep calculating.

The notice is process.
Why they left is not.

Compono is a talent intelligence platform: an applicant tracking system and an employee engagement platform built on the same people data. Most HR systems handle the notice period well and have nothing to say about why it is being served.

Compono reads engagement and culture while people are still on the payroll, so the exits you could have prevented get flagged before the letter, and it reads fit before you hire the replacement, so you are not back here in a year for the same seat. Step 5 asks you to keep the log by hand. Compono keeps the people data behind it.

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

Common questions

Does the notice period change for older employees?

Yes. An employee who is 45 or over and has completed at least two years of continuous service is entitled to one additional week of notice on top of the service-based amount.

Do employees have to give the same notice when they resign?

Not under the National Employment Standards. Employee notice on resignation is set by the applicable award, enterprise agreement or contract, so check the document that covers the role.

Can notice be paid out instead of worked?

Yes. An employer can pay in lieu of notice rather than have the person work it out. This tool gives the minimum period. It is general guidance, not legal advice, so confirm the specifics against the relevant award or agreement.

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.

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