Ten years with one employer is the milestone almost everyone has in mind when they talk about long service leave, and it is the point at which most Australians finally get a block of paid leave for staying put. What surprises people is how much the answer moves depending on where they work. The same decade of service pays 13 weeks in South Australia and the Northern Territory, 8.67 weeks in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania, and in Victoria and the ACT you passed the finish line three years ago. This guide gives the figure for all eight jurisdictions, converts it into dollars, and explains what actually counts towards the ten years. You can run your own numbers on the long service leave calculator.
Key takeaways
- Long service leave is not part of the National Employment Standards. Your entitlement comes from your state or territory Act, which is why the answer differs by thousands of dollars across a border.
- At 10 years: 13 weeks in SA and the NT, 8.67 weeks in NSW, QLD, WA and TAS.
- In Victoria and the ACT the full entitlement arrives at 7 years, not 10. By 10 years you are already accruing your second block.
- The payment is your weeks multiplied by your ordinary weekly rate, and most states use an averaged rate where your hours or pay have changed.
- Paid leave counts as service. Unpaid leave usually does not add to the total but does not break continuity either, and a transfer of business normally carries your service across.
The short answer
In six of the eight Australian jurisdictions, ten years of continuous service with one employer entitles you to a block of paid long service leave. In the other two, Victoria and the ACT, the entitlement arrived earlier, at seven years. There is no national figure because long service leave sits outside the National Employment Standards, so each state and territory legislates its own.
How much long service leave after 10 years, by state
The weeks column is the full entitlement at the trigger point set by each Act. Where the trigger is 7 years, the figure shown is what crystallised at 7, and by 10 years you have accrued further leave on top of it.
| State or territory | Full entitlement at | Weeks | Governing Act |
|---|---|---|---|
South Australia | 10 years | 13 weeks | Long Service Leave Act 1987 (SA) |
Northern Territory | 10 years | 13 weeks | Long Service Leave Act 1981 (NT) |
New South Wales | 10 years | 8.67 weeks | Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW) |
Queensland | 10 years | 8.67 weeks | Industrial Relations Act 2016 (QLD) |
Western Australia | 10 years | 8.67 weeks | Long Service Leave Act 1958 (WA) |
Tasmania | 10 years | 8.67 weeks | Long Service Leave Act 1976 (TAS) |
Victoria | 7 years | 6.07 weeks at 7 years | Long Service Leave Act 2018 (VIC) |
ACT | 7 years | 6.07 weeks at 7 years | Long Service Leave Act 1976 (ACT) |
The spread is the thing worth noticing. A worker in Adelaide and a worker in Sydney can do the identical job for the identical decade and finish with a 50% difference in leave, purely because of which Act applies. Check your own state on the long service leave calculator, which is state-aware and applies the right Act automatically.
Victoria and the ACT: you passed it at 7 years
If you work in Victoria or the ACT, the ten-year question is the wrong one. Both jurisdictions set the full entitlement at seven years, so by the time you reach a decade you should already have taken or accrued that first block and be part-way into the next. Victoria in particular accrues continuously rather than in fixed steps, so there is no second cliff to wait for.
This trips people up when they move interstate mid-career. Service does not automatically port between states, and the entitlement is generally worked out under the law of the place where the employment is properly located, not where you happen to sit on a given day. Our pro-rata long service leave guide covers the cross-border tests in detail.
Turning weeks into dollars
The calculation itself is simple. Multiply your entitlement in weeks by your ordinary weekly rate of pay:
The complication is which rate counts as ordinary. Most Acts require an averaged rate where your pay or hours have changed over the qualifying period, which matters for anyone who has moved from full-time to part-time, or the reverse, during the ten years. Overtime is generally excluded; allowances that are a permanent part of ordinary pay are generally included. Where the answer changes the number materially, get it confirmed by your state authority rather than assuming.
What counts towards the 10 years
Continuous service is unbroken service with one employer, and it is the foundation the whole entitlement is built on. The rules are more forgiving than most people expect:
- Paid leave counts. Annual leave, personal and carer's leave and long service leave itself all count as service.
- Unpaid leave usually does not add to the total, but does not break continuity. A year of unpaid parental leave typically pauses the clock rather than resetting it.
- A transfer of business normally carries your service across. If your employer is bought out and you keep doing the same job, your accrued service usually follows you to the new entity.
- Casual service can count where it has been regular and systematic. See do casuals get long service leave.
What does break continuity is a genuine resignation followed by a rehire. Coming back to a former employer after a real break generally starts the clock again, however familiar the work.
What happens after 10 years
You keep accruing. Every state provides further long service leave for service beyond the first milestone, usually as a proportional accrual rather than another full block at 20 years. In practice that means each additional year adds roughly a tenth of the original entitlement, so a worker at 15 years typically has about half a second block banked.
Once the full entitlement has crystallised, it is also paid out on termination for practically any reason, including a plain voluntary resignation. That is a meaningful change from the years below the threshold, where the reason you left often decides whether you are paid at all. That trap is the subject of the pro-rata guide, and it is worth reading before you resign at nine years and change.
A worked example
Priya, 10 years with a Brisbane logistics firm, $1,750 a week.
Queensland sets the full entitlement at 8.67 weeks after 10 years under the Industrial Relations Act 2016. Priya's payment is 8.67 x $1,750 = $15,172.50 gross, whether she takes it as paid leave or is paid out on termination.
Had the identical decade been worked in Adelaide, the Long Service Leave Act 1987 (SA) would give 13 weeks, or $22,750. The gap of $7,577.50 is entirely the choice of state.
Had it been Melbourne, Priya would have reached her full entitlement at 7 years and would by now be well into a second accrual.
Tax is the last piece. Long service leave taken as paid time off is taxed as ordinary income in the pay period it is paid. A lump sum paid out on termination is taxed under different rules, and for a redundancy the treatment changes again. See how leave payouts are taxed and genuine redundancy and tax.
Author & reviewer
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.