Victoria Long Service Leave Calculator

How the Entitlement Is Worked Out

Section 6 of the Long Service Leave Act 2018 (Vic) entitles an employee, at any time after completing 7 years of continuous employment with one employer, to long service leave on ordinary pay equal to 1/60th of their total period of continuous employment, less any long service leave already taken.

That works out to about 0.8667 of a week for every year worked. Unlike several other states, the Act does not accrue in blocks of years after the qualifying mark; the 1/60th formula simply keeps running against total continuous employment.

Nothing Is Paid Before 7 Years, on Any Ground

Victoria pays nothing at all under the ordinary entitlement before 7 years of continuous employment, whatever the reason employment ends, including redundancy, illness, or a domestic or other pressing necessity. Sections 9 and 10, which govern what happens when employment ends before leave is taken or when an employee dies before taking it, only operate on leave to which the employee is already "entitled", and section 6 makes that entitlement arise only after 7 years.

Every other state and territory allows some form of pro-rata payment before its full qualifying period, in specified circumstances (New South Wales and the ACT from 5 years, the rest from 7).

What Happens on Termination or Death

Section 9 provides that if an employee's employment ends, other than by death, before they have taken all the leave they are entitled to, they are taken to have started that leave on the day employment ends, and the full amount, calculated as at that day, is due and payable on that day.

Section 10 covers death separately: if an employee dies before taking all their entitled leave, the employer must pay the full remaining amount to the employee's personal representative.

Cashing Out Is an Offence

Section 34, "Payments in lieu forbidden", makes it an offence for an employer to give, or an employee to accept, a payment instead of long service leave, except as permitted under this or another Act or the relevant fair work instrument. The penalty is up to 12 penalty units for an individual and 60 penalty units for a body corporate.

Taking Leave in Advance

Section 8 allows an employer to agree to an employee taking long service leave despite not having completed 7 years, or at any time before the leave has actually been earned. If leave is taken this way before it is earned, the employee is not entitled to further leave or a payment in lieu for the period of employment the advance leave was taken against.

Portable Long Service Schemes in Victoria

The construction industry has its own portable scheme under the Construction Industry Long Service Leave Act 1997 (Vic), administered by CoINVEST Limited as trustee for the Construction Industry Long Service Leave Fund, which has traded under the name LeavePlus since 14 August 2023.

Community services, contract cleaning, and security industry workers are covered by a separate scheme under the Long Service Benefits Portability Act 2018 (Vic), administered by the Portable Long Service Authority. That scheme lets workers accrue long service benefits based on their total time in the industry, rather than with a single employer, and become eligible to claim once they reach 7 years in the industry, regardless of how many employers they have had.

How Pay Is Calculated

Section 15 sets ordinary pay as the pay the employee is entitled to receive on the day they start long service leave, worked out on their normal weekly hours at their ordinary time rate of pay, plus the cash value of any board or lodging.

Where the employee's ordinary time rate is not fixed under their employment agreement, the rate used is the greatest of the average weekly rate earned over the 52 weeks before starting leave, the average over the 260 weeks (5 years) before starting leave, or the average over the whole period of continuous employment before starting leave. Section 16 applies an equivalent three-way test to work out normal weekly hours.

How Continuous Employment Is Counted

Section 12 keeps continuity intact through absences on annual leave, long service leave, paid or unpaid parental leave (though for a casual or seasonal employee this only preserves continuity up to 104 weeks of parental leave), carer's leave, illness or injury leave, and any other leave under the relevant employment agreement.

Section 13 separately governs which of those absences actually count towards the length of continuous employment for accrual purposes: paid leave counts in full, and unpaid leave counts in full up to 52 weeks, with the remainder counting only where the employment agreement provides for it, employer and employee agreed in writing beforehand, or the leave was for illness or injury.

Section 11 preserves both continuity and any already-accrued entitlement across a change in the ownership of the business: the employee is treated as having started with the new owner on their original start date, and the new owner cannot refuse leave that accrued before the change of ownership.

Taking the Leave: Requests and Employer Direction

Section 18 lets an employee request to take long service leave for a period of at least 1 day, which the employer must grant as soon as practicable unless there are reasonable business grounds to refuse.

Section 19 lets an employer instead direct an employee to take long service leave at a specified time and for a specified period, on at least 12 weeks' written notice.

What This Calculator Does Not Model

This tool computes the ordinary Act entitlement using a single current weekly pay figure; it does not apply the three-way averaging test the Act uses for a variable rate of pay.