Long Service Leave Calculator Australia

What the long service leave calculator does

This long service leave calculator tells you how many weeks you have accrued under the Act that applies in your state or territory, whether that entitlement can be taken or paid out yet, and what the payment is worth once tax comes out. It also shows how many more years of continuous service stand between you and the full entitlement, and between you and a pro-rata payment if your job ends early.

Long service leave is one of the few Australian entitlements that is genuinely different in every jurisdiction. There is no federal Act that covers most employees. That is why the first thing the calculator asks for is the state or territory, and why the qualifying period, the entitlement and the pro-rata point all change when you switch it.

How long service leave works state by state

The pattern across the country is broadly similar and the detail is not.

Six jurisdictions set the qualifying period at ten years. New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania give around 8.67 weeks at that point, which is the modern expression of the old two months. South Australia and the Northern Territory are more generous, giving 13 weeks after ten years.

Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory take a different approach and set a shorter qualifying period of seven years, with the entitlement expressed as a fraction of continuous service rather than as a fixed number of weeks. Victoria's Long Service Leave Act sets it at one sixtieth of the period of continuous employment, which comes to about 0.8667 weeks for each year of service, or roughly 8.67 weeks after ten years, the same rate as the ten-year states but available sooner.

Because those two jurisdictions store the entitlement as a fraction rather than a weeks figure, the calculator asks you to enter the weeks accrued per year for them rather than guessing at a conversion. For Victoria the figure to enter is 0.8667. Everywhere else the accrual is derived from the Act's own numbers and no input is needed.

The two gates: qualifying and pro-rata

There are two separate thresholds in every scheme and confusing them is the most common mistake.

The qualifying period is the service needed before you can take long service leave as leave while you are still employed. In most of the country that is ten years, and until you reach it you have accrued weeks on paper but nothing you can take.

The pro-rata period is shorter and only matters when employment ends. It is the point at which accrued leave becomes payable even though the full qualifying period was never served. Most states set it at seven years. New South Wales sets it at five, but attaches conditions: the payment is available where the employee resigns because of illness, incapacity or domestic or other pressing necessity, is dismissed for a reason other than serious misconduct, or dies in service. A straightforward resignation at six years in New South Wales does not automatically attract a payment.

The calculator handles this with a simple choice between still employed and employment ending. Choose still employed and it applies the qualifying period. Choose employment ending and it applies the pro-rata period. It deliberately does not try to encode each jurisdiction's list of acceptable reasons for leaving, because those are legal tests rather than arithmetic, and getting them wrong in a calculator would be worse than leaving them to you.

Continuous service and what breaks it

Everything depends on the phrase continuous service, and it is broader than most people expect.

Paid leave of any kind counts. Unpaid parental leave generally counts towards service in most jurisdictions but may not count towards the accrual itself. Periods of unpaid leave, stand-downs and industrial action are treated differently from state to state. Casual and seasonal service can count where the pattern of work is regular. A transfer of business usually preserves service, so an employee who moved with a sold business often has far more service than they realise.

Enter the total years of continuous service, including part years as a decimal. If you are unsure whether a break counts, the safer approach is to run the calculator both ways and see how much turns on it.

What the payment is worth

The calculator values each week at your ordinary weekly pay, taken from the annual base salary you enter divided by fifty-two. Long service leave is paid at the ordinary rate, and annual leave loading does not apply to it, which is why there is no loading option here.

Tax is calculated by the marginal method: the tax on your income for the year with the payment included, less the tax on the same income without it. The difference is what the payment actually costs you, and it carries the Medicare levy and any withdrawal of the low income tax offset. If your payment is made in a year where you have earned little other income, enter that other income so the marginal calculation starts from the right point, otherwise the tax figure will be lower than reality.

Two situations sit outside this model. Service before 18 August 1993 is taxed under a concessional formula, and a payment made because of a genuine redundancy, an early retirement scheme or invalidity is withheld at a flat concessional rate. Both are handled better by a redundancy calculator.

Portable schemes

Some industries run portable long service leave schemes, notably building and construction, contract cleaning, security and, in several states, community services. In those schemes service accrues with the industry rather than with one employer, and a worker who changes jobs keeps their accrual. The rules, the accrual rates and the claiming process come from the scheme, not from the general Act, so this calculator will not match a portable scheme statement.

All figures are an estimate based on the values you enter and the current published rules. They are general information, not financial, tax or legal advice; check your state or territory Act, or speak to your employer or a registered tax agent, before you rely on them.

About This Long Service Leave Calculator

Use this long service leave calculator to get an instant, accurate estimate. The figures follow official ATO guidance and every rate and threshold is kept up to date for 2026. Adjust the inputs above to match your situation, or browse all our calculators to plan your next step.