NSW Leave Calculator.
Calculate every leave entitlement for New South Wales employees, under the Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW), Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and the National Employment Standards.
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| Component | Formula | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Accrual rate (FULL-TIME) | 4 wks × 38h ÷ 52 | 2.923 hrs/wk |
| Hours accrued | 2.923 × 52 wks | 152.42 hrs |
| Hourly base rate | - | $35.00 |
| Base leave value | 152.42 × $35.00 | $5,334.62 |
| 17.5% leave loading | base × 0.175 | + $933.56 |
| Total payout | - | $6,268.17 |
Disclaimer: This tool does not constitute legal or financial advice. Results may be inaccurate due to changes in legislation or your circumstances. This tool does not constitute legal or financial advice. We do not recommend taking actions based solely on these results. The calculator makes assumptions and results may be inaccurate due to changes in legislation, modern awards, or your personal circumstances. You use this information at your own risk. We can't guarantee to be perfect, so do note you use the information at your own risk and we can't accept liability if things go wrong. For official guidance, visit Fair Work Ombudsman (fairwork.gov.au). Fair Work Ombudsman.
Three numbers every NSW employee should know.
The NES sets the federal floor; state law adds the long service entitlement and gazetted holidays.
Every NSW leave calculator.
Each calculator below is pre-configured for NSW law.
NSW Long Service Leave
8.67 weeks after 10 yrs. Pro-rata from 5 yrs. Under the Long Service Leave Act 1955.
Open NSW Long Service Leave calculatorNSW Public Holidays 2026 & 2027
13 gazetted holidays in 2026 plus the 2027 calendar. Penalty rates by award, substitute days when a holiday falls on a weekend.
Open NSW Public Holidays 2026 & 2027 calculatorRedundancy Pay (National)
NES sliding scale, 4-16 weeks based on years of service. Small business exemption built in. Section 119 Fair Work Act.
Open Redundancy Pay (National) calculatorAnnual & Personal Leave
Federal entitlements identical across every state, 4 weeks annual + 10 days personal under the NES. National calculator.
Open Annual & Personal Leave calculatorLong service leave is the one entitlement New South Wales sets for itself. Under the Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW) you reach 8.67 weeks at 10 years, with a pro-rata payout available from 5 years, worked out on NSW long service leave. Whether that pro-rata amount is actually paid depends on why the job ended, which differs by state and is set out in pro-rata long service leave. New South Wales also gazettes 13 public holidays in 2026, listed with penalty rates on NSW public holidays.
Everything else comes from the National Employment Standards and is identical in every state: 4 weeks of annual leave, 10 days of personal and carer's leave, unpaid parental leave, and redundancy pay on the section 119 scale. When a job ends, final pay brings the notice, unused leave and redundancy components together. The rules themselves are explained in the National Employment Standards guide.
New South Wales long service leave
Long service leave in New South Wales accrues under the Long Service Leave Act 1955. You reach the full entitlement at 10 years of continuous service with one employer, and from that point a further 4.33 weeks accrues for each additional 5 years of service.
The full entitlement is 8.67 weeks (2 months) at 10 years, plus 4.33 weeks for each further 5 years, set by the Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW) rather than federal law. Choose long service leave in the calculator above to work out your own balance.
Leaving before 10 years: pro-rata in NSW
Pro-rata long service leave becomes possible at 5 years of continuous service in New South Wales. That threshold is necessary, but here it is not sufficient.
The rule for all eight states is side by side in the pro-rata long service leave guide.
What counts as continuous service
Service must be continuous with the one employer, though NSW is reasonably generous about what does not break it. Paid leave of any kind counts. An absence because of illness or injury does not break service and counts towards it (s 4(11)(a1)(ii)). Leave granted by your employer does not break continuity but is not counted (s 4(11)(a1)(vi)). A transfer of business normally carries service across to the new employer, and an industrial dispute or a stand-down for slackness of trade does not break service, though that period is not counted either.
How the payment is calculated
The payment is based on your ordinary gross weekly wage at the prescribed date, which is the day before the leave starts or the employment ends, excluding overtime, penalty rates and expense allowances. Which averaging test applies depends on how you are paid. On a fixed rate it is the higher of your ordinary remuneration at the prescribed date or your average weekly ordinary remuneration over the previous 5 years. Where your pay varies because of commission or piece rates, it is the higher of your average weekly wage over the previous 12 months or over the previous 5 years.
Daniel, 10 years with one employer, a Sydney warehouse supervisor, on $1,650 a week.
8.67 x $1,650 = $14,305.50 gross, whether taken as paid leave or paid out on termination. The tax on a payout depends on when the service was performed: see the long service leave tax calculator.
The NSW catch worth knowing
New South Wales has the lowest pro-rata threshold in the country at 5 years, tied with the ACT. That sounds generous and often is not, because the conditions attached below 10 years are strict. The threshold is what gets quoted; the condition is what decides whether you are paid.
How NSW works out your rate when your pay has changed
NSW does not simply use your current wage, and the test that applies depends on how you are paid. Under the definition of ordinary pay in section 3 of the Long Service Leave Act 1955, a worker on a fixed rate is paid the greater of their ordinary remuneration at the prescribed date or their average weekly ordinary remuneration over the 5 years ending on that date. A worker whose pay varies because of commission or piece rates is paid the greater of their average weekly wage over the previous 12 months or over the previous 5 years. Taking the greater of the two matters in both directions: if you won a large rise late in your service the current rate wins, and if your hours were cut recently the average protects you. Ordinary remuneration means your normal weekly hours at your time rate, so shift loadings, overtime, penalty rates and expense allowances are excluded. Where no normal weekly number of hours is fixed for you, section 3(2A) deems it to be your average weekly hours over the 12 months or the 5 years ending on the prescribed date, and NSW Industrial Relations guidance says a casual's ordinary pay includes the casual loading. This is a different method from Queensland, where section 105 works from the total ordinary hours actually worked over the whole period for anyone who was casual or part-time, and from the Northern Territory, where section 11 values each completed year separately using that year's weekly hours, averaged where they were not fixed.
Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW) s.3. Verified 14 September 2026.
NSW changed how it reads the Act on 1 March 2026, and the Act itself did not move
NSW Industrial Relations issued updated long service leave guidance that took effect on 1 March 2026. The Long Service Leave Act 1955 was not amended. What changed is how the regulator interprets it, and that interpretation is what an inspector applies when a complaint or an audit lands on your employer. Continuous service for a casual is now assessed case by case, so a break in the pattern of work is examined for the reason behind it rather than counted mechanically against continuity. Successive fixed-term contracts are treated as continuous where the role and the engagement are continuous in substance, even where a fresh contract was signed each time. Ordinary hours for a worker whose hours genuinely fluctuate must be built from the actual working pattern rather than a notional standard-hours figure, which is the change most likely to move a real payment. The guidance also covers when to use ordinary remuneration rather than an average weekly wage, how bonuses are treated, how a single day of long service leave is paid and accrued, and how accruals work after 15 years of service. It applies from 1 March 2026 and is not retrospective: complaints, audits and prosecutions already finalised stand, but a live case can be reassessed under it.
NSW Government, updated Long Service Leave guidance. Verified 11 August 2026.
There is no way to cash out NSW long service leave while you are employed
The Long Service Leave Act 1955 contains no mechanism for cashing out, and NSW Government guidance states there is no provision for an employer or worker to make any arrangement or agreement to cash out or pay out accrued long service leave while the worker is still employed. That absence is the rule: unlike Tasmania and South Australia, which both expressly permit a written cash-out agreement, there is nothing in the NSW Act for the parties to rely on. Payment of accrued long service leave happens on termination. If your employer offers to pay out your balance so you keep working, that arrangement has no support in the NSW Act, and agreeing to it does not extinguish the entitlement you would otherwise be paid when you leave. Get advice before signing anything that describes itself as a settlement of accrued long service leave.
NSW Government, long service leave guidance. Verified 11 August 2026.
The 5-year mark in NSW is a threshold, not an entitlement
This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in NSW long service leave. Section 4(2)(a)(iii) makes a pro-rata payment between 5 and 10 years available only where the employer terminates for a reason other than serious and wilful misconduct, or the worker resigns because of illness, incapacity, domestic necessity or other pressing necessity, or the worker dies. Resigning at 7 years to take a better job is none of those, and it pays nothing. Reaching 5 years is necessary but not sufficient, and plenty of NSW workers hand in notice believing the opposite. From 10 years the entitlement is unconditional and payable however you leave. If you are between 5 and 10 years and considering resigning, the reason you give and the way the departure is characterised can be worth thousands.
Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW) s.4(2)(a)(iii). Verified 11 August 2026.
Between 10 and 15 years, leaving NSW employment pays more than 8.67 weeks
The figure quoted for New South Wales is 8.67 weeks at 10 years, and for a worker who stays on and takes the leave that is right: section 4(2)(a)(i)(B) adds a further month, 4.33 weeks, only once another 5 years of service is complete. On termination the Act works differently, and the difference is worth real money. Section 4(2)(a)(ii) provides that a worker who has completed at least 10 years of service but fewer than 15, and whose services are terminated or cease for any reason, is paid a proportionate amount on the basis of 3 months for 15 years service. Section 4(2)(a3) defines a month as 4 and one-third weeks, so 3 months is 13 weeks and the rate works out at 0.8667 weeks for each year of service. Leaving at 12 years is therefore worth 10.40 weeks rather than 8.67, and at 14 years it is worth 12.13 weeks. The reason for leaving has stopped mattering by this point, because the words the Act uses are terminated or cease for any reason, which is the opposite of the conditional 5 to 10 year window. If you are leaving after more than a decade in New South Wales and the payout has been calculated at a flat 8.67 weeks, that is the first figure to query.
Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW) s.4(2)(a)(ii) and s.4(2)(a3). Verified 9 September 2026.
Why Victoria pays at 7 years and New South Wales makes you wait for 10
The two largest states run the two different models, and the gap between them is three years plus a condition. Section 6 of the Long Service Leave Act 2018 (Vic) entitles an employee, at any time after completing 7 years of continuous employment with one employer, to long service leave equal to 1/60th of the total period of continuous employment, which is 6.07 weeks at the 7-year mark. Section 9 of the same Act then makes the full balance due and payable on the day the employment ends, whatever ended it. New South Wales reaches its full entitlement three years later, at 10 years under section 4(2)(a)(i)(A) of the Long Service Leave Act 1955, and the earlier pro-rata payment under section 4(2)(a)(iii) is available only where the employer terminated for a reason other than serious and wilful misconduct, or the worker resigned on account of illness, incapacity, domestic or other pressing necessity, or the worker died. Set the two side by side at 8 years of service and a worker resigning to take a better job is paid 6.93 weeks in Victoria and nothing at all in New South Wales. The underlying accrual rate is almost identical in the two states, at roughly 0.867 weeks a year. What differs is where the starting line sits and whether your reason for leaving is on the list.
Long Service Leave Act 2018 (Vic) s.6 and s.9. Verified 9 September 2026.
How NSW compares.
Federal annual leave is identical everywhere. State LSL and public holidays differ.
Modern awards common in New South Wales.
Industry awards layered on top of the NES. Each award has its own penalty rates, leave loading and (sometimes) RDO arrangements.
NSW-specific leave questions.
How much long service leave do I get in NSW?
When does NSW long service leave become payable on termination?
What's the NSW pro-rata LSL formula?
Do NSW casuals get long service leave?
How many public holidays does NSW have in 2026?
Does NSW substitute public holidays that fall on weekends?
Is annual leave different in NSW?
What law governs long service leave in NSW?
Why does Victoria pay long service leave at 7 years when NSW makes you wait for 10?
Do I get more than 8.67 weeks if I leave a NSW job after 12 years?
Which pay rate is my NSW long service leave paid at if my wage has changed?
Built on NSW law.
This NSW calculator is built directly from the Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW), the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), and current NSW Industrial Relations guidance.
Reviewed by a registered HR practitioner based in Sydney.