Leave loading on long service leave.

No. Leave loading is an annual leave payment that comes from awards and agreements. Every state and territory Act pays long service leave at ordinary pay without it. Casual loading usually counts, and Tasmania also counts shift penalties.

The 17.5% that many awards add to annual leave has no match in long service leave law. Each of the eight state and territory Acts writes its own rule for what the leave pays, and none of those rules includes an annual leave loading. What they do include varies more than most summaries admit. This guide sets the eight rules side by side, shows where the line falls on a final pay, and puts dollar figures on the difference using award rates from 1 July 2026.

Why long service leave has no leave loading

Leave loading is attached to annual leave at every level where it exists. The Fair Work Act itself does not add it even to annual leave: s 90(1) pays leave taken at the base rate for ordinary hours. The loading comes from an award, an enterprise agreement or a contract, and the award clauses are written in annual leave terms. The Hospitality Award pays its 17.5% "on the amount payable to the employee under the NES for a period of paid annual leave" (cl 30.3). The Clerks Award pays its additional payment "During a period of paid annual leave" (cl 32.3(a)). Neither clause reaches long service leave, which is a separate entitlement under a separate law.

Long service leave comes from the Act for your state or territory, and each Act defines the pay in its own words:

• NSW, Victoria, WA and Tasmania pay ordinary pay (NSW s 4(1), Vic s 6 and s 15, WA s 7(1), Tas s 11).
• Queensland pays full pay at the ordinary rate, or a higher rate if you are on one (ss 95(2) and 98(1)).
• South Australia pays the ordinary weekly rate of pay (s 3(2)).
• The ACT pays ordinary remuneration (s 7(1)).
• The NT pays your pay, defined to include listed allowances and bonuses but not overtime or penalty rates (s 7(2)).

None of those definitions mentions an annual leave loading. Where the WA and ACT Acts do use the word "loading", it means something else: the casual loading (WA s 7B), a loading paid instead of long service leave (WA s 4A(3)), or a record the ACT requires employers to keep (s 12(1)). In the table below, "Not in the Act" means the pay rule leaves the loading out and no other section adds it. An Act does not have to ban a payment for it to be absent.

What each state puts into long service leave pay

Annual leave loading is the one item every column agrees on. The rest of the pay differs by state.

Victoria

No loading in Victoria either. The Long Service Leave Act 2018 pays the leave at "ordinary pay", and s 15(1) defines that as the pay you are entitled to on the day the leave starts, "calculated on the employee's normal weekly hours at the employee's ordinary time rate of pay", plus the cash value of any board or lodging. The Act does not mention loading. If your ordinary time rate is not fixed, s 15(2) takes the greatest of three averages: the last 52 weeks, the last 260 weeks, or the whole of your employment.

Victorian guidance fills in the edges. The rate "does not normally include allowances, penalty or occasional overtime rates that are paid on top of an employee's ordinary time rate of pay", with one key exception: a casual's ordinary rate includes the casual loading. Leave builds up at one week for every 60 weeks of continuous service, so 10 years (520 weeks) gives 8.6667 weeks, all at ordinary pay.

Queensland

Queensland's long service leave sits in the Industrial Relations Act 2016, which gives 8.6667 weeks on full pay after 10 years (s 95(2)(a)). Section 98(1) sets the rate in two limbs. If, immediately before the leave, you are being paid a higher rate than the ordinary rate, you get the higher rate. Otherwise you get the ordinary rate being paid immediately before the leave. Neither limb carries an annual leave loading. For casual employees, Business Queensland says the leave is paid at the "loaded" casual hourly rate.

Casual loading is different: it is usually included

Two loadings get blurred in this question, and they point in opposite directions.

• Annual leave loading is a top-up on annual leave. Casuals do not accrue paid annual leave, so a casual has no annual leave loading to bring into long service leave.
• Casual loading is part of a casual's hourly rate. Most states count it in long service leave pay.

WA writes the casual loading into its Act: "A casual employee's ordinary pay includes any casual loading payable" under an award, agreement, contract or enactment (s 7B). NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania include it through their regulators' guidance. The NT Act and NT guidance do not say either way, and neither does the ACT Act. How casual service counts towards long service leave in the first place is set out in do casuals get long service leave.

A loaded hourly rate also cannot stand in for the leave itself. In WA, a payment "in the form of a loading, other additional incremental payment or otherwise" made instead of the entitlement "is not a separate LSL entitlement" (s 4A(3)). NSW Industrial Relations explains that a casual rate cannot be loaded to cover long service leave because the Act prevents cashing out. Victoria's guidance says the same, and its Act bars payments in lieu of the leave except where that Act, another Act or the relevant fair work instrument permits them (s 34(1)). The cash-out rules in all eight jurisdictions are in cashing out long service leave.

Shift penalties and allowances: Tasmania is the exception

For a shift worker, the bigger money question is not loading but whether regular shift penalties follow you onto long service leave. In most of the country they do not:

• Left out by the Act: NSW ("shift work, overtime or other penalty rates", s 3), WA ("shift premiums", s 7A), South Australia ("shift premiums and penalty rates", s 3(2)), the NT ("penalty rates of pay", s 7(2)) and the ACT ("payments at penalty rates of pay").
• Not normally included: Victoria, according to its guidance.
• Not stated: Queensland, in the Act or in the guidance we have verified.
• Included: Tasmania.

WorkSafe Tasmania's list of what ordinary pay includes opens with "shift penalties; part-time and casual loadings; allowances which are generally paid both for all hours worked and for all purposes of the award". That sits with the Tasmanian Act's own test, which pays what you "would reasonably be expected to have received" had you kept working, leaving out overtime (s 11(1) and (2)(a)). Summaries that say shift loadings are excluded everywhere miss Tasmania.

Allowances split the states too. WA leaves out "allowances or any similar payments" (s 7A). The NT leaves out district, site and climatic allowances (s 7(2)). The ACT counts allowances for skill, qualifications and board and lodging, plus bonus, performance or incentive pay usually paid with wages. NSW adds the average weekly amount of bonuses (s 3(1)(c)). On $180 a week of regular shift penalties, the Tasmanian rule is worth $1,560.00 more over a 10-year entitlement than the NSW or WA rule (Example 2).

When you leave: loading on annual leave, none on long service leave

A final pay is where both kinds of leave appear together, and it is where the loading question usually comes up. The Fair Work Ombudsman lists them as separate items: "any annual leave owing, including annual leave loading if it would've been paid during employment", and, where it applies, "accrued or pro rata long service leave".

• Unused annual leave is paid out at what it would have paid had you taken it (Fair Work Act s 90(2)). If you got loading on leave you took, the payout carries it, even where an award, agreement or contract says it does not. Leave loading on termination covers the amounts, the awards that try to exclude it, and the tax.
• Long service leave paid out uses the same pay rule as leave taken: "the worker's ordinary pay for the leave" in NSW (s 4(5)(a)), ordinary pay in Victoria (s 9(1)(b)), "ordinary pay in respect of that leave" in Tasmania (s 12(4)), and the "ordinary weekly rate of pay applicable immediately before the termination" in South Australia (s 8(4)(a)). No loading is added.

So one final pay can show loading on the annual leave line and none on the long service leave line, and both are correct. Whether any long service leave is payable before the full entitlement depends on your state and why you left: see pro-rata long service leave. The tax on the payout is worked out in the long service leave tax calculator, and super is covered in super on long service leave.

If your award or agreement covers long service leave

The state Acts are the default source, not the only one. NSW's Act does not apply where an award or agreement gives long service leave that is more favourable (s 5(1)). WA's Act does not apply where you have a separate entitlement at least equivalent to WA long service leave (s 4A(4)). South Australia's Act steps aside for an entitlement under another Act or a fair work instrument (s 16), and the NT's for another law or an award that provides long service leave (s 6(2)).

In those cases the pay for the leave comes from the instrument, so the table above may not describe it. If your long service leave comes from an award, enterprise agreement or public sector instrument, check its pay clause.

Worked examples

These are our calculations from the rules above. Ten years of service gives 26/3 weeks (8.6667) in NSW (2 months, at 4 and 1/3 weeks a month), Victoria (1/60 of 520 weeks), Queensland, WA and Tasmania, and 13 weeks in South Australia and the NT. Amounts are rounded to the cent at the end.

Example 1: Mia, NSW, and the cost of a loading that is not owed

Example 2: One shift worker, four states

A full-time employee earns a base of $1,200 a week plus regular shift penalties of $180 a week, works no overtime, and takes the full 10-year entitlement.

Tasmania pays $11,960.00 - $10,400.00 = $1,560.00 more than NSW or WA for the same number of weeks. South Australia pays the most because it gives more weeks, not because it counts more of the pay. None of the four adds a leave loading.

Example 3: Ana, Hospitality Award Level 2, NSW, final pay

Ana is a Level 2 food and beverage attendant (grade 2) on the award minimum of $1,029.10 a week. She leaves after 10 years' service with 4 weeks of annual leave untaken. Her current rate is above her 5-year average, so NSW uses it (s 3(1)(a)).

The Hospitality Award applies its loading to "a period of untaken paid annual leave when the employment of the employee ends", so the annual leave line carries it. A 17.5% loading on the long service leave line would add 17.5% x $8,918.87 = $1,560.80 that Ana is not owed.

Example 4: Jordan, WA casual

Common questions

Do you get leave loading on long service leave?

No. None of the eight state and territory long service leave Acts puts annual leave loading into the pay for the leave. You are paid ordinary pay worked out under your state's rule, and the 17.5% stays with annual leave.

Do you get leave loading on long service leave in Victoria?

No. Section 15(1) of the Victorian Act pays your normal weekly hours at your ordinary time rate on the day the leave starts. Victorian guidance says that rate does not normally include allowances or penalty rates, though a casual's rate does include the casual loading.

Is casual loading included in long service leave pay?

In most states, yes. WA's Act includes it (s 7B), and regulator guidance includes it in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania. The NT Act and NT guidance do not say, and neither does the ACT Act.

Is 17.5% leave loading paid on long service leave in Queensland?

No. Section 98(1) of the Industrial Relations Act 2016 pays long service leave at the ordinary rate immediately before the leave, or at the higher rate if you are being paid one. Annual leave loading is not part of either.

Do you get leave loading when you leave?

On unused annual leave, yes, if you would have received loading when taking that leave. On long service leave paid out, no. The annual leave side is explained in leave loading on termination.

Are shift penalties included in long service leave?

Not in NSW, WA, South Australia, the NT or the ACT, whose Acts leave them out, and not normally in Victoria. Tasmania is the exception: WorkSafe Tasmania counts shift penalties in ordinary pay. On regular shift penalties of $180 a week, that is worth $1,560.00 over a 10-year entitlement.

How much is 10 years long service worth?

8.6667 weeks of ordinary pay in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, WA and Tasmania, and 13 weeks in South Australia and the NT. On $1,500 a week in NSW that is $13,000.00, with no loading on top. The figures for every state are in long service leave after 10 years.

What do you get after 7 years of service?

In Victoria and the ACT, 7 years is enough to take long service leave: 6.0667 weeks. Elsewhere, 7 years can bring a pro-rata payment when your job ends, depending on your state and why you leave. The thresholds are in pro-rata long service leave.

Is it better to take long service leave as a lump sum?

Leave loading does not change the answer, because none is added whether you take the leave or are paid it when you leave. Cashing it out while still employed is barred in NSW, and an offence in Victoria unless an Act or your fair work instrument permits it; the rules in every state are in cashing out long service leave. The super and tax differences are in super on long service leave and the long service leave tax calculator.

Can my employer pay me a higher casual rate instead of long service leave?

No, in the three jurisdictions that deal with it. In WA a loading paid in place of long service leave does not count as a separate entitlement (s 4A(3)). NSW Industrial Relations links its answer to the ban on cashing out, and Victoria's guidance says a casual hourly rate cannot be loaded to cover leave that is not paid.

Who pays long service leave?

Your employer, unless you work in an industry with a portable long service leave scheme, which pays from your service across employers. See portable long service leave by state.

Author & reviewer

Sarah Reid, CAHRI

Certified Australian HR Practitioner · Cert IV Payroll · 12 years Fair Work compliance

Sarah has spent over a decade advising Australian SMBs on Fair Work, NES compliance, and payroll. Based in Sydney, she has worked across hospitality, retail and professional services.

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