Long service leave in New South Wales (2026–27): 8.67 weeks after 10 years

Accrued weeks and payout on $1,500/week

The earliest pro-rata threshold in the country

New South Wales opens its pro-rata payment at 5 years of service, five years earlier than the 10-year full entitlement and two years earlier than Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. Only the ACT matches it. Under the Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW) that early payment is conditional: it is owed when the employer ends the employment for a reason other than serious misconduct, when the employee dies, or when the employee resigns because of illness, incapacity or domestic or other pressing necessity. A redundancy is squarely within the first of those. The practical effect is that a NSW employee made redundant at six or seven years walks away with 5.2 to 6.07 weeks of paid leave that the same employee in Brisbane or Perth would lose entirely — the single largest difference between the eight regimes at that point of a career.

The two right-hand columns tell the NSW story on their own. The redundancy column is populated from 5 years because the employer ended the employment; the resignation column stays empty until 10 years, when the entitlement vests and becomes payable however the job ends. Between those two lines sits the whole of the NSW pro-rata question.

When New South Wales pays on termination

After 5 years: pro-rata on termination if the employer ends employment (not for serious misconduct) or the employee leaves for illness, incapacity or domestic/pressing necessity. After 10 years: paid on any termination. The category of "domestic or other pressing necessity" is the one that generates disputes: it has been read to cover a move made necessary by a partner's relocation or by the care of a family member, and not to cover a resignation to take a better job. The reason has to exist at the time of the resignation and be the reason for it, which is why an employee in that position should put it in writing in the resignation letter rather than reconstruct it afterwards. Employees who are dismissed for serious misconduct lose the pro-rata payment but not a full entitlement already vested at 10 years.

Transfers of business and related companies

Service in New South Wales follows the work rather than the legal employer in several situations that matter at the 5-year and 10-year marks. Employment with a related corporation counts as service with the one employer, so a career spread across three companies in the same group is continuous. Where a business is transferred and the employee is retained, service with the previous owner counts against the new employer. A dismissal followed by re-engagement within two months does not break continuity either. These rules are the reason an apparently short tenure can already carry a pro-rata entitlement, and the reason the exact start date is the first thing to establish when a NSW redundancy lands between five and ten years.

The Long Service Corporation scheme

Building and construction workers in New South Wales accrue long service leave through the Long Service Corporation rather than with a single employer. The scheme is funded by a levy on construction work and follows the worker from employer to employer, which in an industry where a decade with one company is rare is the only way the entitlement is ever reached. Contract cleaning has its own NSW portable scheme administered by the same Corporation. Where a portable scheme covers the work, the employer's obligation under the Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW) is displaced and the claim is made to the Corporation, not in the final pay — so a construction worker who sees no long service leave line on a redundancy payslip has not necessarily been underpaid.

Recovering unpaid long service leave in NSW

Long service leave owed on termination is payable with the final pay. Where it is not paid, the claim is made to the long service leave unit of NSW Industrial Relations, which can investigate and recover the amount, or directly in the Local Court as a claim for a debt. Employers must keep service records, and an employee can ask for a statement of accrued leave at any time — a request worth making a year or two before a threshold, while the payroll records of a business sale or a change of entity can still be traced.

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.