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Annual Leave
Under the NES, all employees (except casual employees) get paid annual leave based on their ordinary hours of work.
An employee’s entitlement to annual leave under the NES accrues progressively during a year of service according to their ordinary hours of work and accumulates from year to year.
On termination of employment an employer must pay an employee for any untaken annual leave which has accrued. Leave continues to accumulate while employees are taking paid annual leave and paid personal leave. However, leave does not normally accumulate during periods of unpaid leave, such as unpaid parental leave, or unpaid authorised absences.
You can use the fairwork Leave Calculator to calculate personal leave entitlements under the NES.
Note: An annual leave entitlement that comes from an award or agreement may be different from that provided for in the NES, but cannot be less than the NES entitlement.
Sick Leave
Sick leave is leave that employees can take when they can't attend work because they are sick or injured.
Sick leave is a type of Personal Leave under the National Employment Standards (NES).
Under the NES, full time employees are entitled to 10 days’ paid personal leave (for sick and paid carer’s leave) per year. Part-time employees receive a pro-rata entitlement to sick leave based on the number of hours they work. Paid personal leave accumulates from year to year.
You can use the Leave Calculator to calculate personal leave entitlements under the NES.
For employees covered by an award or agreement (including transitional award or agreement based instruments), cashing out of paid personal / carer’s leave (such as sick leave) is permitted if all of the following apply:
- the award or agreement allows it
- there must be a separate agreement in writing on each occasion that leave is cashed out
- the employee must retain a balance of at least 15 days of untaken paid personal / carer's leave
- the employee must be paid at least the full amount that would have been payable had the employee taken the leave that the employee has cashed out.
An employer must not exert undue influence or undue pressure on an employee to cash out a period of personal / carer’s leave.
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Leave Accrual
Under the NES, an employee’s entitlement to annual leave accrues progressively during a year of service based on their ordinary hours of work.
The ordinary hours of work for an employee will normally be determined by a transitional instrument, modern award or enterprise agreement. You can use the Leave Calculator to calculate annual and personal leave entitlements under the NES.
Employers are required to keep a record that sets out the balance (if any) of an employee’s leave entitlement “from time to time”.
If an employee requests leave or their employment ends, the employer must be able to find out the employee’s entitlement at that time.
An employee doesn't have to wait until the end of a particular period to be entitled to annual leave.
It is best practice for an employer to record the accrual of leave at least once a month (or more often if required by the applicable award or agreement). Find out more about record-keeping requirements, including leave records.
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Personal Leave
From 1 January 2010, the National Employment Standards (NES) replace the non-pay rate provisions of the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard (the Standard).
Entitlements to personal / carer’s leave and compassionate leave under the NES are:
Paid Personal / Carer’s Leave
- Who: for all employees except casuals.
- When: when the employee is sick or injured or when the employee needs to care for an immediate family or household member who's sick, injured or has an unexpected emergency.
- Immediate family is an employee's:
- spouse
- de facto partner
- child
- parent
- grandparent
- grandchild
- sibling, or a
- child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of the employee's spouse or de facto partner.
You can use the Leave Calculator to calculate personal leave entitlements under the NES.
Unpaid Carer's Leave
- Who: for all employees, including casuals.
- When: same as for paid carer’s leave. (Full and part-time employees can only use this when they have used up all of their paid personal / carer’s leave).
Paid Compassionate Leave
- Who: for all employees except casuals.
- When: an immediate family or household member:
- gets an injury or illness that threatens their life; or
- dies.
Unpaid Compassionate Leave
- Who: for casual employees only.
- When: same as for paid compassionate leave.
Note: An employee is not entitled to take or accrue any personal / carer's leave or compassionate leave while getting worker's compensation payments. This applies unless there's an applicable federal, state or territory law about workers compensation that says otherwise.
Parental Leave
All employees in Australia are eligible for up to 12 months unpaid parental leave if they have completed at least 12 months of continuous service with their employer. Parental leave includes maternity leave (for mums), paternity leave (for dads and partners) and adoption leave as well as other types of special leave.
The minimum entitlements to parental leave apply to all employees in Australia, even if they aren’t covered by the National workplace relations system.
Employees can also have extra entitlements, such as paid parental leave, under an award, agreement, company policy or another law (e.g. the Australian Government Paid Parental Leave scheme). These entitlements can’t be less than the entitlements in the National Employment Standards.
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