If you’re working full-time or part-time, you are entitled to at least:
Part-time employees are entitled to a pro-rata amount of the full-time annual leave and paid personal / carer’s leave entitlements. These amounts are based on their ordinary hours of work. They have the same unpaid carer’s leave, compassionate leave and unpaid parental leave entitlements as full-time workers.
Some employees may also be entitled to long service leave.
On public holidays, employees who would usually be working that day are entitled to a day off with pay. There are exceptions where an employer can request an employee to work. However the request needs to be reasonable. See Reasonable requests to work for details.
Full-time and part-time employees are also entitled to community service leave.
If you’re employed under an award or agreement you may be entitled to more leave, but you can’t get less than the National Employment Standards.
If you’re a casual you’re not entitled to paid personal leave or paid annual leave under the National Employment Standards. You are entitled to:
- 2 days unpaid carer’s leave (when needed)
- 2 days unpaid compassionate leave (when needed)
- community service leave (except paid jury service)
- reasonably seek a day off on a public holiday
- parental leave in some cases.
Any award that applies might have extra leave entitlements. See the Casual employees section for more information.
If you’re a full-time or part-time employee, when you’re on leave you’re entitled to get paid at your base rate of pay for the hours you would normally have worked during that time. This doesn’t include any penalty rates, allowances or overtime.Some agreements or awards state that an employee gets paid at a higher rate when they are on annual leave. This could be ‘annual leave loading’ or the penalty rates you might normally be paid when you work.
Leave adds up progressively during the year based on your ordinary hours of work. Your employer should be able to tell you how much leave you have at any time.
After 2 months you will have accumulated some annual leave. You can use the Leave calculator to work out how much leave you should have.
Remember taking annual leave is generally by agreement between you and your employer.
If you’re employed under an agreement or award your entitlements may be different.
It’s up to you and your employer to agree on when you can take annual leave and how much you can take. However, some awards and agreements let your employer tell you to take annual leave at certain times, such as:
- during a period of shut down (such as between Christmas and New Year)
- if you have a large amount of annual leave that you haven’t taken.
If you’re covered by an award or agreement you should check it. An employer can only tell you to take annual leave if this is covered in the award or agreement.
If you aren’t covered by an award or agreement, your employer may be able to tell you to take annual leave as long as the request is reasonable. See Directing an employee to take annual leave for details.
You don’t normally take or accrue leave while you are on workers compensation.
However, if it’s allowed under a workers compensation law in your state or territory then you can take or accrue leave. Check with the Occupational health and safety agency in your State or Territory.
If you’re covered by an award or an agreement you should check it first – conditions may be slightly different.
If you’re not covered by an award or agreement you and your employer can agree to cash out your annual leave. The following rules apply:
- when you cash out leave, you must be paid at least the same amount you would have been if you had taken the leave
- you must keep a balance of at least 4 weeks paid annual leave
- there must be a separate agreement in writing each time you cash out leave
If you’re covered by an award or agreement you should check it first – some may not let you cash out leave and they may have different requirements.
Your award will explain the rates that you should be paid while you’re on leave. If it doesn’t, or if you’re not covered by an award, when you take personal leave you should be paid your base rate of pay for the hours you would normally work during that time. The base rate means the rate without any loadings, penalty rates, allowances or overtime. So if you take personal leave on a weekend when you usually work, you should be paid your base rate without the weekend penalty rates that you’d usually get for working on the weekend.
If you’re covered by an agreement you need to check it for your conditions.
If you work full-time or part-time and have been in the job for 12 months, you are entitled to 12 months unpaid parental leave if you are the main person looking after the child.
Casual employees are also entitled to 12 months unpaid parental leave if they have been regularly working with an employer for at least 12 months.
You could be entitled to paid parental leave under an agreement or contract. You should check the terms to find out if there is an entitlement.
There is also a government-funded paid parental leave scheme. This entitles you to paid leave (at the rate of the national minimum wage) for a maximum of 18 weeks. You can use this before, at the same time, or after any other leave you have.
Your employer may also pay you extra paid parental leave under an agreement or contract.
The National Employment Standards give you 2 days of ‘compassionate leave’. You can take this if someone in your family dies.
Full-time and part-time employees are entitled to be paid for the hours they would have worked during the leave. Casual employees are entitled to unpaid leave only.
You can also take compassionate leave to spend time with someone in your immediate family or household who is critically sick or injured.
Long service leave is generally governed by state and territory laws. It is usually taken after 10 or more years of continuous service. If you leave your job, you are usually paid out any long service leave that you haven’t taken.
If you are employed under an award or agreement you should check what it says.
Permanent Employees
Your permanent full-time employees are generally entitled to at least:
Permanent part-time employees are entitled to a pro-rata amount of the full-time annual leave and paid personal / carer’s leave entitlements. These amounts are based on their ordinary hours of work. They have the same unpaid carer’s leave, compassionate leave and unpaid parental leave entitlements as full-time workers.
Some employees may also be entitled to long service leave.
On public holidays, employees who would usually be working that day are entitled to a day off with pay. There are exceptions where an employer can request an employee to work. However the request needs to be reasonable. See Reasonable requests to work.
Permanent full-time and part-time employees are also entitled to community service leave.
Casual Employees
Your casual employees are entitled to:
- 2 days unpaid carer’s leave (when needed)
- 2 days unpaid compassionate leave (when needed)
- community service leave (except paid jury service)
- reasonably seek a day off on a public holiday
- parental leave in some cases.
You can ask your employees to give you evidence that shows the reason they took personal leave.
Evidence can include a medical certificate, statutory declaration or anything else that would satisfy a reasonable person.
If your employee can’t give you evidence, then you don’t have to pay them for the sick day, but you do have to pay them for the public holiday.
An award or agreement may include terms about the kind of evidence an employee must provide to be entitled to the leave.