For most national-system employees in Australia, long service leave (LSL) entitlements are **not** governed by a single, uniform federal standard. Instead, the level of law that actually governs long service leave for the vast majority of employees is **State and Territory legislation**. 

While the *Fair Work Act 2009* (Cth) includes long service leave as one of the National Employment Standards (NES), the Act specifically preserves state and territory LSL laws (unless there is an applicable pre-modern federal award or enterprise agreement that contains LSL entitlements). Consequently, State and Territory statutes remain the primary governing laws.

### No Uniform National Figure
There is **no single, uniform long service leave entitlement or figure** (such as a standard number of weeks of leave after a set number of years) that applies the same way across the whole country. 

### Entitlement Turns on the Employee's Location
An employee's LSL entitlement turns entirely on the **State or Territory in which the employee is located/based for work**. Because each jurisdiction has its own unique legislation, the rules differ significantly from one region to another. Depending on the employee's location, there are variations in:
*   **The qualifying period of continuous service** required to take leave (for example, some jurisdictions require 10 years of service, while others require only 7 years).
*   **The rate of accrual** (which determines how many weeks of leave are earned per year of service).
*   **Pro-rata entitlement rules** governing when an employee is entitled to a payment-in-lieu of LSL upon termination of employment.

To work out an employee's entitlement correctly, a national-system employer must identify the specific State or Territory where the employee is based and apply the local LSL legislation of that jurisdiction.