# Long Service Leave Entitlements

There is **no single uniform long service leave entitlement** that applies the same way across the whole of Australia. The answer turns on the **employee's location** — specifically, the state or territory in which the employee works.

## Which level of law governs

For most employees, long service leave is governed by **state and territory long service leave legislation**, not federal law. Each state and territory has its own Long Service Leave Act setting out:

- the qualifying period of continuous service (commonly 10 years, sometimes 7 or 15 for certain historical entitlements);
- the amount of leave accrued (often expressed as a number of weeks after a set period, e.g. ~8.67 weeks after 10 years in some jurisdictions, 13 weeks after 15 years in others);
- pro-rata entitlements on termination after a minimum period (often 7 years, sometimes 5 or 10); and
- rules around continuity of service, casual employment, and transferring between associated entities.

## Interaction with the Fair Work Act

Although the employer is a national-system employer covered by the *Fair Work Act 2009* (Cth), the Fair Work Act does not itself create a general long service leave entitlement for the majority of employees. Instead, the Fair Work Act **preserves** certain state and territory long service leave entitlements (and related provisions) that would otherwise have been displaced by the federal system. The practical result is that the **applicable state or territory Act** still determines the entitlement for most employees.

Some modern awards and enterprise agreements also contain long service leave provisions, but these generally cannot provide a lesser entitlement than the relevant state or territory legislation.

## Key point

To work out a particular employee's long service leave entitlement, you must identify the **state or territory in which the employee is employed** and apply the long service leave legislation of that jurisdiction. Different states and territories prescribe different accrual rates, qualifying periods, and pro-rata thresholds, so the figure will **not** be the same everywhere in Australia.