Long Service Leave Guide

Date: 20/10/2025

 

Did you know that once you have been with an employer for 7 years, you are entitled to take long service leave? Full time, part time, casual and seasonal employees all accrue long service leave, and some workers who have stayed in the same industry but have changed employers may be eligible for the Victorian Portable Long Service Leave Scheme. 

What are my entitlements?
For most employees, your entitlement to long service leave will be set out in the Long Service Leave Act 2018 (Vic). You accrue long service leave progressively at a rate of one week for every 60 weeks of continuous employment with one employer (approximately 0.866 weeks of long service per year). If your employment ends after you become eligible to take long service leave, any untaken leave must be paid out to you in your final pay. 

If you’re a casual employee, you are entitled to long service leave as long as you haven’t taken any unauthorised leave from work for more than 12 weeks. If you’re unsure if this is the case, reach out to the ASU for further advice. 

Some enterprise agreements have more generous long service leave entitlements than those under the Long Service Leave Act 2018 (Vic) – if your employer is covered by an enterprise agreement don’t forget to double-check if they have a provision for long service leave.

What about pay?
When on long service leave, you’ll receive your ‘ordinary weekly pay’, which is calculated based on what you would have earned if you had worked your ordinary weekly hours during your period of leave. Ordinary pay does not include most allowances, penalty rates or occasional overtime rates. 

If your hours of work have fluctuated from week to week during your employment, then your normal weekly hours for the purpose of calculating your LSL entitlement are taken to be the greatest of your average weekly hours over either the preceding 52 weeks, 260 weeks, or the entire period of continuous employment. If you’re not sure whether your employer has calculated your ordinary weekly pay correctly, contact the ASU for assistance. 

Requesting long service leave
You can make a request to take long service leave any time after you become eligible. Your employer can’t refuse to grant the request unless they have ‘reasonable business grounds’ to do so – this could include it being impractical for your employer to change the working arrangements of other employees or undertake recruitment to accommodate you taking long service leave at the time you’ve requested. The ASU can provide further advice or assistance if you’ve had your request for long service leave rejected and you don’t think your employer has provided reasonable grounds to refuse your request.

Portable long service leave
Many workers are employed in industries where contract work is common, meaning that even if they have been doing the same work in the same industry for many years, they may never qualify for long service leave because they haven’t stayed with one employer for long enough.

The Portable Long Service Leave Scheme was developed to allow workers in certain industries where movement between employers is commonplace to accrue long service leave similarly to workers who are able to stay with the same employer for 7 years. Many ASU members in the community services sector are covered by the scheme. 

When you commence work with an employer who is covered under the scheme, your employer must register you with the Portable Long Service Authority and submit information on your hours of work and ordinary pay to the Authority each quarter. You will receive a Worker ID which you can take with you if you leave one employer for another within the same industry to ensure that your PLSL continues to accrue. After at least 7 years under the scheme, you can apply for your long service leave.

The ASU is proud to be at the forefront of the push for the expansion of the Portable Long Service Leave Scheme to cover more workers, particularly in the not-for-profit industry where short term contracts and unstable funding are rife. Sign the petition below to join our campaign:

Portable Long Service Leave for all not-for-profit workers | Megaphone Australia

If you have any further questions, make sure you contact the ASU at [email protected] or on 03 9342 3300. The Business Victoria website has a handy tool to calculate how much long service leave you have accrued, and when you will be entitled to take it, which can be accessed here: https://business.vic.gov.au/business-information/staff-and-hr/long-service-leave-victoria/calculate-long-service-leave