Australian Capital Territory Long Service Leave Calculator

How the entitlement is worked out

Section 3(1) of the Long Service Leave Act 1976 (ACT) entitles an employee who has completed 7 years of service with a single employer to long service leave for that period of service, with section 3(2) adding a further entitlement for each year completed after the 7th. Section 4 sets the accrual rate itself: one fifth of a month's leave for each year of service.

That rate runs continuously from the employee's first year, even though the first payment is gated at 7 years by section 3. This calculator reflects that structure: nothing payable before 7 years, then 1.4 months at 7 years, continuing to accrue at the same one fifth of a month per year rate afterwards.

Before the qualifying period: pro rata payments

Section 11C(1) provides a pro rata payment where an employee's service is between 5 and 7 years and their employment is terminated in one of a specific list of ways: the employee resigning because of illness, incapacity, or a domestic or other pressing necessity of a nature justifying the resignation, the employee reaching the minimum retiring age, the employee's death, or the employer ending the employment for a reason other than the employee's serious and wilful misconduct.

A plain resignation for reasons outside that list, before 7 years, is not covered. Section 11C(2) sets the amount payable as the proportion of 2 months that the employee's completed years or months of service bear to 10 years, and section 11C(3) defines the minimum retiring age as whatever age an applicable award or agreement fixes, or 65 where none is fixed.

Cashing out while employed

The ACT's base Act has no provision allowing an employee to cash out accrued long service leave while still employed. That is a real difference from Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, all of which allow an agreed cash out of already accrued leave before employment ends.

Under section 11A, payment in lieu of a long service leave credit is only available where employment has ceased, for any reason, and section 11A(4) to (5) require the employer to make that payment within 90 days of the employment ending or commit a strict liability offence carrying a maximum of 50 penalty units.

Taking leave in advance

Section 3(3) provides that the entitlement for a period of service arises at the end of that period, and the Act contains no mechanism for taking leave before then. The only flexibility found in the Act is section 6(1)(b)(ii), which lets an employer and employee agree on a different time to take leave that has already accrued.

Portable long service schemes

The Long Service Leave (Portable Schemes) Act 2009 (ACT) is administered by ACT Leave and currently covers four industries. Building and construction workers registered on or after 1 January 1997 accrue 13 weeks of portable long service leave after 10 years of recorded service, plus 1.3 weeks for every year after that, funded by a 2.75 percent employer levy on gross ordinary wages, with contractors and working directors paid out rather than taking the benefit as leave.

Community sector workers registered on or after 1 July 2010 accrue 4.33 weeks after 5 years of recorded service, plus 0.867 of a week for every year after that. The security industry is also covered, and the services industry scheme, which commenced 1 April 2025 and absorbed the former Contract Cleaning Industry Scheme, is due to expand on 1 January 2027 to include hairdressing, beauty, and food and accommodation services. These figures come from ACT Leave's own published pages rather than the Act or its determinations directly, and this calculator does not model any of the four portable schemes.

Pay basis: what rate leave is paid at

Section 7(1) provides that payment for long service leave is made at an amount equivalent to the ordinary remuneration the employee would have received had they not taken the leave. The Act's dictionary defines ordinary remuneration as salary or wages (excluding overtime and penalty rates), plus skill, qualification and board-and-lodging allowances and bonuses usually paid with wages. For a part time or casual employee, section 7(2) calculates that remuneration by multiplying the average weekly hours worked over the 12 months immediately before the employee became entitled to the leave, by the employee's ordinary remuneration on the day the entitlement arose.

Section 7(3) adds an anti manipulation rule: if an employee moved from full time to part time or casual work within the 2 years before becoming entitled to leave, their ordinary remuneration is instead calculated by dividing the total salary or wages paid over the preceding 5 years by 5.

How service is counted

Section 2G(1) defines a period of service as a period of continuous service as the employee of a particular employer. Section 2G(2) lists interruptions that do not break continuity, including an industrial dispute where the employee returns under a settlement, a stand down for slackness of trade followed by re-employment within 6 months, employer approved absence, injury related absence, Defence Force service, temporary service outside the ACT, and any other interruption, including employment ended by the employer other than to avoid long service leave obligations, followed by re-employment within 2 months.

Section 2G(5) provides that most of those interruption periods do not themselves count towards the total years of service, with Defence Force service and service temporarily outside the ACT being counted. Where a business is transmitted, section 10 deems continuity unbroken and counts the prior employer's service as service with the new employer; section 10A extends similar treatment to labour hire and contracted services arrangements where a new contractor is contractually obliged to, and does, re-employ the same workers, and section 11 aggregates service across associated companies. The Act does not apply to ACT public employees.

Taking the leave: notice

Section 6(2) makes it an offence for an employer not to give an employee at least 60 days written notice of the date from which long service leave is to be taken, carrying a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units on a strict liability basis. Section 6(3) removes that requirement where the employee agrees otherwise.

This is a materially stronger obligation than South Australia's equivalent, which only says notice "should" be given rather than making a failure to give it an offence.

What this calculator does not model

This tool calculates the general entitlement under the Long Service Leave Act 1976 (ACT) only. It does not model any of the four ACT Leave portable schemes, which have different qualifying periods and accrual rates from the base Act and from each other, and it does not model an award, enterprise agreement or employment contract that may provide a better entitlement.

It also does not calculate the 5 to 7 year pro rata payment, which depends on the specific circumstances of termination.