Long service leave under modern awards

Why your award does not mention long service leave

Section 155 of the Fair Work Act 2009 does not let modern awards deal with long service leave. The Fair Work Ombudsman says it this way: modern awards (from 1 January 2010) cannot include terms about long service leave.

Instead, the National Employment Standards keep long service leave terms from a pre-modern award. This is the award that would have covered your job before the standards started (s 113(1), (3)). If there are no such terms, the Fair Work Ombudsman says that your entitlement comes from state and territory laws. Most employees are in this group.

Every award that we checked has a clause about your minimum conditions. The clause says that the National Employment Standards and the award together contain these conditions. Several awards also copy the list of standards from s 61 of the Act, which includes 'long service leave (Division 9)'.

Most awards then add a note in the clause on payment on termination. The note says: 'State and Territory long service leave laws or long service leave entitlements under section 113 of the Act, may require an employer to pay an employee for accrued long service leave on the day on which the employee's employment terminates or shortly after.'

What 13 common awards say

We checked the consolidated text of each award from the Fair Work Commission. We used the award viewer of the Fair Work Ombudsman in October 2026. No award contains its own long service leave entitlement.

The portable scheme column shows schemes that can apply to some work that the award covers. Your work and your employer, not the award, decide if a scheme covers you.

If no portable scheme applies

If no portable scheme applies, your long service leave comes from the Act in the state or territory where you work. The exception is if a pre-modern award or preserved agreement term applies. The Acts have different rules for the qualifying period, the amount and pro rata payments. See our state guides and calculator for the rules in your state.

An enterprise agreement made from 1 January 2010 can include long service leave terms. But the Fair Work Ombudsman says that state and territory laws generally prevail over agreement terms that are inconsistent with them.

If a portable scheme may cover you

Portable schemes follow the industry and the work, not the award. For example, the Cleaning Services Award covers many cleaners. But the contract cleaning schemes cover only cleaners that contract cleaning businesses employ. They do not cover cleaners that the owner of the premises employs directly (NSW and VIC scheme rules).

Some schemes operate together with the state Act. In Queensland, if an employee has 10 or more years with the same employer, that employer must still give the long service leave. In the Victorian contract cleaning and security schemes, if you are entitled to both, you choose one.

If you are not sure, speak to the scheme body in your state.

Old pre-modern award terms

A small group of employees still get long service leave from a pre-modern award. This occurs if an award that would have covered the job before 1 January 2010 had a long service leave clause (s 113(1), (3)).

The Fair Work Ombudsman gives the example of a part-time worker in a Melbourne butcher chain. The federal pre-modern meat award of the worker had a long service leave clause. Thus the Victorian Act did not apply.

Your current modern award will not tell you this. To find the pre-modern award, the Fair Work Ombudsman suggests that you use the Find an award page of the Fair Work Commission. You can also call the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94.