In Queensland you become entitled to 8.67 weeks of long service leave after ten years of continuous service with one employer (s 95(2)). If your job ends between seven and ten years, you are paid pro rata only for the reasons the Act lists (s 95(3), s 95(4)). After ten years you are paid whatever the reason.
How much leave you get
Long service leave in Queensland is in the Industrial Relations Act 2016, Chapter 2, Part 3, Division 9 (ss 93-114).
The entitlement works out to 8.67 weeks for every ten years of continuous service, or about 0.87 weeks per year, and part years count (s 95(2)). Business Queensland's tables convert one month to 0.0722 weeks, one week to 0.0167 weeks and one day to 0.0024 weeks.
You can first take leave at ten years. After a further five years you get another 4.33 weeks, so 15 years gives 13 weeks in total (s 95(2)(b)). Business Queensland says that after 15 years there is no further qualifying period and you can take leave as it accrues.
Business Queensland gives these examples. With 17 years and three months of service, you have 13 weeks plus 1.95 weeks, which is 14.95 weeks. With 18 years, three months, two weeks and two days, you have 15.85 weeks.
If you were casual or regular part-time at any time during your service, a minimum hours-based formula applies. See the pay section below (s 105).
When you leave
With less than seven years of continuous service, nothing is payable when your job ends.
Between seven and ten years, you are paid pro rata only if one of these applies (s 95(4)): you died; you resigned because of your illness or a domestic or other pressing necessity; your employer dismissed you because of your illness, or for a reason other than your conduct, capacity or performance, or unfairly; or a fixed-term job ended when you reasonably expected it to continue to ten years and you were prepared to keep working. Illness includes injury, incapacity or another medical condition (s 95(7)).
This list is narrower than in NSW. A dismissal for any conduct, capacity or performance reason, not only serious misconduct, gets nothing between seven and ten years unless the dismissal was unfair. An ordinary resignation and a voluntary retirement also get nothing.
After ten years, you are paid automatically when your job ends, whatever the reason. The payment covers your whole period of continuous service including part years, less any long service leave already taken (s 95(3)). Business Queensland gives the example of 12 years of service, which pays 10.4 weeks.
If a worker dies, the unpaid amount is paid to their legal personal representative (s 111).
| How the job ended | 7 to 10 years | After 10 years |
|---|---|---|
| Resigned | Nothing. An ordinary resignation is not a listed reason (s 95(4)). | Paid for your whole period of service, less leave taken (s 95(3)). |
| Resigned due to illness, incapacity or pressing necessity | Pro rata for all your service (s 95(4)(b)). | Paid for your whole period of service, less leave taken (s 95(3)). |
| Employer ended your employment | Pro rata only if you were dismissed because of illness, for a reason other than your conduct, capacity or performance, or unfairly (s 95(4)(c)). Otherwise nothing. | Paid for your whole period of service, less leave taken (s 95(3)). |
| Redundancy | Pro rata. A redundancy is a dismissal for a reason other than your conduct, capacity or performance (s 95(4)(c)(ii)). | Paid for your whole period of service, less leave taken (s 95(3)). |
| Dismissed for serious misconduct | Nothing, unless the dismissal was unfair (s 95(4)(c)(iii)). | Paid. After ten years the entitlement does not depend on the reason for leaving (s 95(3)). |
| Retirement | Nothing, unless you retire because of illness or a pressing necessity (s 95(4)(b)). | Paid for your whole period of service, less leave taken (s 95(3)). |
| Death | Pro rata, paid to the legal personal representative (s 95(4)(a), s 111). | Paid to the legal personal representative (s 111). |
Before you rely on this
- The Queensland Employment Standards, including long service leave, override an award or agreement unless the award or agreement term is at least as favourable (s 17, s 18). If you get long service leave from another source, it must be at least as good as s 95 (s 95(6)).
- If you are a national system employee, you may be covered by long service leave terms in a pre-modern award or an old agreement instead (Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) s 113). Business Queensland says that where no federal long service leave entitlement exists, the Queensland Act applies.
- Business Queensland's list of pro rata reasons leaves out the fixed-term ground in s 95(4)(d). The Act includes it: if a fixed-term job ended when you reasonably expected to reach ten years and you were prepared to stay, you can be paid pro rata.
- Between seven and ten years, retirement on its own does not qualify for pro rata (s 95(4)). Neither does a dismissal for conduct, capacity or performance, unless it was unfair.
- We could not find an interactive long service leave entitlement calculator published by the Queensland Government. Business Queensland publishes lookup tables, and QLeave's levy calculator is for the portable scheme, not your long service leave entitlement.
- If you work in building and construction, contract cleaning or community services, a QLeave portable scheme may cover you. Business Queensland says an employee with ten or more years with the same employer is still owed long service leave by that employer under the Act.
- Queensland public sector employees are covered by Directive 10/24, which this page does not cover.
What counts as service
Counts as service
- Paid leave approved by your employer, including paid sick leave (s 134(3)).
- Service lent or hired out to another employer (s 134(2)).
- Service with a partnership and one of its members, or with a corporation and its subsidiaries (s 134(1), (8)).
- Service with the previous owner when a business is transferred (s 132).
- For casuals, the gaps between engagements, as long as no gap is longer than three months (s 103(4)(b)).
- Service partly outside Queensland, as long as part of it was in Queensland (s 93).
Does not count, but does not break your service
- Unpaid leave approved by your employer, including unpaid parental leave. Business Queensland says your anniversary dates move back to allow for it (s 134(3)(b)).
- The gap when you are re-employed after leaving because of illness or injury, within three months, after an industrial dispute or after slackness of trade, unless an Act, instrument or the commission says otherwise (s 134(9)).
- Casual service before 23 June 1990, and in some cases casual service between 23 June 1990 and 30 March 1994 (s 103(4)(a)).
- These periods do not break your continuous service, but they are not added to it.
Breaks your service
- Resigning or being dismissed and not being re-employed within three months, unless the gap was because of illness or injury, an industrial dispute or slackness of trade (s 134(4)-(7)).
- For casuals, a gap of more than three months between the end of one contract and the start of the next (s 103(3)).
If you are employed as a casual more than once by the same employer, your service is continuous even with broken employment, part-time work, several contracts or other jobs at the same time (s 103(2)). It ends only if a gap between contracts is longer than three months (s 103(3)).
If a business is transferred, your service with the old employer counts as service with the new one (s 132(2), (3)). This also applies if the old employer dismissed you within one month before the transfer and the new employer hired you within three months after (s 132(1)(b)).
An apprenticeship or traineeship does not break your service, including where the employer re-employs you within three months after you finish it (s 133). Reserve Forces service does not break it either (s 112).
In Infosys Technologies Limited v Fox [2025] QCA 45, the Court of Appeal held that service partly in Queensland is enough. An employee with ten years of service, only 18 days of it in Brisbane, was entitled under the Act. The High Court refused special leave to appeal on 7 August 2025.
How your pay is worked out
You are paid full pay at the rate you were paid immediately before the leave, if that is above your ordinary rate (for example an above-award rate). Otherwise you are paid your ordinary rate (s 98(1)). If the ordinary rate goes up during your leave, you get the increase (s 98(4)).
Overtime is not included, and there is no leave loading. Business Queensland says casuals are paid at their loaded casual hourly rate.
If you were casual or regular part-time at any time during your service, a minimum payment formula applies (s 105). Take the total ordinary hours you actually worked over your whole continuous service, divide by 52, multiply by 8.6667 and divide by 10. That gives your hours of long service leave, which are paid at your ordinary hourly rate on the day the leave starts or your employment ends (s 105(2), (3)). Hours already taken are deducted.
Business Queensland gives this example: a worker with 9,600 ordinary hours over eight years who qualifies for pro rata gets 9,600 / 52 x 8.6667 / 10 = 160 hours. A worker with 15,600 hours over ten years gets 260 hours. By agreement these can be taken as full-time-equivalent weeks (s 104), for example 260 hours is 6.84 weeks at 38 hours a week.
If you earn commission, the default is your total commission in the year before the leave, divided by 52.179, times the weeks of leave, unless your award, agreement or contract says otherwise (s 99). Disputes about piecework rates are decided by the commission (s 100).
Seasonal workers in the sugar industry and meat works have their entitlement scaled to the time they actually worked (s 107). In the Act's example, someone who worked half of each year for ten years gets 4.33 weeks.
Taking your leave
- Minimum period
- Business Queensland says leave can be taken for any period you and your employer agree. There is no minimum in the Act, except that an employer-directed period must be at least four weeks (s 97(3)).
- Notice
- If you cannot agree on timing, your employer can decide, giving you at least three months' written notice of the date you must take at least four weeks of long service leave (s 97(3)).
- Public holidays
- A public holiday during your leave extends it (s 95(5)).
- Leave in advance
- No official Queensland source says whether you can take long service leave before you are entitled to it.
- When you are paid
- As you and your employer agree, or as the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission decides if you cannot agree (s 101).
Cashing out
You can cash out long service leave in Queensland only in limited cases (s 110). Either your award, agreement or federal industrial instrument allows it, you sign an agreement, and the payment follows the instrument; or, if no instrument allows it, the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission orders it on your application on compassionate grounds or because of financial hardship. Business Queensland says this is only possible once you have qualified for an entitlement. There is no general ruling that allows cashing out (s 110(5)).
Records your employer must keep
Your employer must keep time and wages records, including long service leave, for six years after the date the work they relate to was done (s 339, s 340). Business Queensland describes this as six years after your employment ends.
Who these rules cover
- Full-time employees
- Regular part-time employees
- Casual employees
- Seasonal employees in the sugar industry and meat works (ss 106-108), and other seasonal employees as decided by the commission (s 109)
- National system employees in Queensland where no federal long service leave entitlement exists (s 13(1))
- State and local government employees (s 12(2))
Not covered
- Employees of employers with an exemption granted under the repealed Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1961 (s 113)
- National system employees entitled to long service leave under the National Employment Standards, from a pre-modern award or an old agreement (Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) s 113)
- Employees covered by a pre-reform agreement or instrument that expressly deals with long service leave, while it remains in operation
- Workers in a QLeave portable scheme (building and construction, contract cleaning, community services), although an employee with ten or more years with the same employer is still owed long service leave under the Act
Recent changes
- 1 April 2025: In Infosys Technologies Limited v Fox [2025] QCA 45, the Court of Appeal held that service only partly in Queensland counts, with no need for a substantial connection. The High Court refused special leave to appeal on 7 August 2025.
- 1 January 2026: Current reprint of the Industrial Relations Act 2016. No change to the long service leave provisions was identified.
Questions about long service leave in QLD
How much long service leave do I get after ten years in Queensland?
8.67 weeks at full pay (s 95(2)). After 15 years you have 13 weeks, and after that leave accrues at about 0.87 weeks a year.
Do I get long service leave if I resign after seven years in Queensland?
Only if you resigned because of your illness or a domestic or other pressing necessity (s 95(4)(b)). An ordinary resignation between seven and ten years gets nothing.
Do I get pro rata long service leave if I retire before ten years in Queensland?
No, unless you are retiring because of illness or a pressing necessity. Retirement is not a listed reason in s 95(4).
How is long service leave calculated for casuals in Queensland?
Total ordinary hours worked over your whole service, divided by 52, times 8.6667, divided by 10. That gives your long service leave in hours, paid at your ordinary hourly rate (s 105). Casuals are paid at the loaded casual rate.
Can I cash out long service leave in Queensland?
Only if your award or agreement allows it and you sign an agreement, or the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission orders it on compassionate or financial hardship grounds (s 110).
Official sources
- Industrial Relations Act 2016Queensland Parliamentary Counsel
- Industrial Relations Act 2016 (PDF reprint)Queensland Parliamentary Counsel
- Long service leave in QueenslandBusiness Queensland
- Calculating long service leaveBusiness Queensland
- Long service leave entitlements and continuous serviceBusiness Queensland
- Transferring, taking and cashing in long service leave in QueenslandBusiness Queensland
- QLeave - Portable long service leave in QueenslandBusiness Queensland
- Infosys Technologies Limited v Fox [2025] QCA 45Supreme Court Library Queensland
- Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth)Federal Register of Legislation
- Long service leaveFair Work Ombudsman
Rules last reviewed 3 November 2026 against the Industrial Relations Act 2016 (Qld) and the regulator's guidance.