Long service leave in Australian Capital Territory (2026–27): 6.07 weeks after 7 years

Accrued weeks and payout on $1,500/week

Seven-year vesting and the broadest portable coverage in the country

The Australian Capital Territory combines the two most generous features found anywhere: the Long Service Leave Act 1976 (ACT) vests the entitlement at 7 years like Victoria, and its pro-rata opens at 5 years like New South Wales. An ACT employee reaches 6.07 weeks three years earlier than in most of the country, and can be paid a pro-rata balance from 5 years where the employer ends the employment. On top of that, ACT Leave runs portable schemes across four industries — construction, contract cleaning, security, and the community sector — the widest coverage of any jurisdiction, in a territory where a large part of the workforce moves between government-funded service providers on contract cycles shorter than the entitlement itself.

Both payout columns fill in earlier than in any other jurisdiction: the redundancy column from 5 years, the resignation column from 7. The accrued-weeks column uses 0.8667 weeks a year, the common rate; the ACT's advantage is entirely in the thresholds, not in the rate.

Termination rules in the ACT

Entitlement at 7 years. After 5 years: pro-rata on termination for illness, incapacity, domestic/pressing necessity, or if the employer ends employment (not for serious misconduct). The combination is what matters: between 5 and 7 years a redundancy pays the accrued balance, and from 7 years everything is payable whatever the reason for leaving. An ACT employee is therefore never more than 5 years away from a payable entitlement, where a Queensland or Western Australian employee can be nine years into a job and still lose the lot by resigning. For employees of Commonwealth agencies the position is different again: Commonwealth employment is governed by its own long service leave legislation, not by the territory Act.

Commonwealth employment is not covered

The largest employer in the territory is not governed by the territory's Act. Commonwealth public servants have long service leave under the Long Service Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1976, which uses different thresholds and its own rules on pro-rata payment and on the treatment of prior service in other Commonwealth agencies. Movement between departments and agencies is generally continuous service for that purpose, which for a Canberra career spent inside the Commonwealth is the decisive point. An employee moving from the Australian Public Service to a territory-based employer starts a fresh entitlement under the Long Service Leave Act 1976 (ACT); the two do not aggregate.

ACT Leave and the four covered industries

ACT Leave administers portable long service leave for the building and construction, contract cleaning, security and community sector industries. Employers in those industries pay a levy and register their workers; the entitlement accrues to the worker across employers and is claimed from the scheme. The community sector scheme is the one with the widest reach in the territory, covering employees of the non-government organisations that deliver disability, housing, youth and family services under rolling government contracts. Workers in those industries should register and check their balance periodically rather than assume the employer has done it — the scheme's records are what the claim rests on.

Enforcement in the territory

Access Canberra administers the Long Service Leave Act 1976 (ACT) for employment outside the portable schemes, and unpaid entitlements can be recovered through the ACT Magistrates Court. Employers must keep service records, and an employee may request a statement of accrued leave. Because so much ACT employment sits inside a portable scheme, the first question in any territory claim is which regime applies to the period in question — the scheme and the Act do not both run for the same work.

The rules common to all eight jurisdictions — what counts as continuous service, the rate of pay the leave is paid at, and how leave is taken while employed — are set out in the long service leave guide. The final pay calculator adds the result to redundancy, notice and annual leave.