Full-time employees are entitled to 4 weeks off per year based on their ordinary hours of work, but it is common to receive 5-6 weeks of vacation.
Any accrued annual leave not taken during the year is paid when the employment ends.
In certain circumstances, the annual leave may be cashed out as long as the employee retains at least four weeks paid time off. This needs to be supported by a written agreement between the employer and employee. Employers should, however, check whether cashing isn't prohibited under the terms of specific Modern Awards.
Annual leave does not accumulate when a worker is on any form of unpaid leave.
There are seven national public holidays in Australia and additional state and territory public holidays. Holidays that fall on weekends are generally observed on the Monday after.
Depending on the Modern Award, enterprise agreement or employment contract, employees who are working on a public holiday could be entitled to one of the following:
All employees have a right to not work on public holidays; however, employers can ask them to work if the request is reasonable. Employees, in turn, can refuse it if they have their own reasonable grounds.
An employee doesn't get paid for a public holiday if they don't usually work on the day that the public holiday falls on.
| DATE | WEEK DAY | HOLIDAY | LOCAL NAME |
| 01/01/2024 | Monday | New Year's Day | New Year's Day |
| 26/01/2024 | Friday | Australia Day | Australia Day |
| 04/03/2024 | Monday | Labour Day | Labour Day |
| 11/03/2024 | Monday | Canberra Day | Canberra Day |
| 11/03/2024 | Monday | March Public Holiday | March Public Holiday |
| 11/03/2024 | Monday | Eight Hours Day | Eight Hours Day |
| 11/03/2024 | Monday | Labour Day | Labour Day |
| 29/03/2024 | Friday | Good Friday | Good Friday |
| 30/03/2024 | Saturday | Holy Saturday | Easter Eve |
| 31/03/2024 | Sunday | Easter Sunday | Easter Sunday |
| 01/04/2024 | Monday | Easter Monday | Easter Monday |
| 25/04/2024 | Thursday | Anzac Day | Anzac Day |
| 06/05/2024 | Monday | May Day | May Day |
| 06/05/2024 | Monday | Labour Day | Labour Day |
| 27/05/2024 | Monday | Reconciliation Day | Reconciliation Day |
| 03/06/2024 | Monday | Western Australia Day | Western Australia Day |
| 10/06/2024 | Monday | King's Birthday | King's Birthday |
| 05/08/2024 | Monday | Picnic Day | Picnic Day |
| 07/10/2024 | Monday | Labour Day | Labour Day |
| 07/10/2024 | Monday | King's Birthday | King's Birthday |
| 05/11/2024 | Tuesday | Melbourne Cup | Melbourne Cup |
| 25/12/2024 | Wednesday | Christmas Day | Christmas Day |
| 26/12/2024 | Thursday | St. Stephen's Day | Boxing Day |
Full list of public holidays per state.
Referred to as sick and carer's leave, this leave entitles employees to 10 days per year of paid time off that can be used during sickness or when taking care of a family member. The employer funds the break. Any untaken sick leave from a given year is added to the next. This means that if an employee only takes five sick days in a given year, they will be granted 15 the following. However, accumulated sick leave is not paid out at the end of employment.
Employers can request evidence that the employee took the leave for the right reasons with the following documents:
A massive set of improvements to the Paid Parental Leave Amendment came into force in 2023, which applies to all children born after July 1st, 2023. That includes combining the existing maximum 18 weeks' parental leave pay with the existing two weeks' father and partner pay to provide a single 20-week (100 days) scheme, repealing the concept of a fixed 12-week parental leave pay period and the requirement to not return to work in order to be eligible for this block of leave, while leaving the provisions providing for flexible parental leave pay days.
Employees are entitled to unpaid 12 months leave and can request an additional 12 months off, which can only be refused by employers on reasonable business grounds. To be eligible for the parental leave, the employee must have 12 months of continuous service as of the expected date of birth or the adoption. The allowance come regardless of how much the other spouse or partner takes, which means an employee couple could take unpaid parental leave at the same time.
Pregnant employees can start the leave up to 6 weeks before the expected date of delivery. The employee who isn’t pregnant can take parental leave at any time within 24 months of the birth or placement of the child, and it must end within 24 months of the birth or placement of the child.
Of that leave, the primary carer of a newborn or adopted child from 1 July 2023 is entitled to 20 weeks payment at the national minimum wage.
Employees are entitled to the same job they had before going on the leave. If an employee's job no longer exists or has significantly changed, they must be offered suitable alternative employment. If the employee's job no longer exists, they may be entitled to redundancy.
If an employee has a pregnancy-related illness or her pregnancy ends after 12 weeks because of miscarriage or stillbirth, she may be entitled to special maternity leave.
Employees who adopt a child under the age of 16 are entitled to the same parental leave. They are also entitled to two days of unpaid pre-adoption leave to attend interviews or examinations required for the adoption.
Employees are entitled two days paid leave for a compassion leave in the casea family member sustains a severe personal injury or develops a severe illness that poses a threat to life or where death occurs.
Employee is entiteled to 2 days of unpaid leave per permissible occasion, in case no paid personal leave (sick leave) is left.
Employees with work-related injuries may be eligible for payments under their employer's workers' compensation schemes. All employers must have workers' compensation insurance for their Australian employees.
Unique to Australia, employees who have spent between 5-10 years with the same company are entitled to paid leave that varies from 2 to 3 months, depending on the state or territory as follows:
When an employee ceases work with an employer, they are entitled to be paid the amount of leave entitlement not taken on termination on a pro-rata basis if they have worked the minimum period of service.
Employees are entitled to 10 days of paid leave each year (some companies elect to provide paid leave) in case they have been subjected to family and/or domestic violence.
Family and domestic violence refer to violent, threatening or other abusive behaviour by an employee's close relative that seeks to coerce, control or causes them harm or fear. A close relative is an employee's spouse, de facto partner, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling or in-laws.
Employees can take community service leave for voluntary emergency management activities (unpaid) or jury duty (paid). An employee is considered to be part of voluntary emergency management if:
An employee is entitled to take community service leave while they are engaged in the activity and for reasonable travel and rest time. There is no limit on the amount of community service leave an employee can take.
Employees must give their employers notice of the absence as soon as possible and the period or expected period of absence. Employers may request the employee to provide evidence that they're entitled to community service leave.
