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Estimate the annual leave you accrue, what remains and its gross value at your base rate.
Enter your ordinary hours and qualifying service, including part of a year. Leave loading is optional and personal/carer’s leave is shown separately.
For full-time and part-time employees covered by the NES. Casual leave entitlements are not modelled. Hours and pay are assumed unchanged over the service period.
Use ordinary hours from your award or agreement. Exclude overtime.
Used to show roster-day equivalents. For varied shifts, the hours balance is the useful measure.
Include paid leave and paid long service leave. Exclude unpaid periods that do not count as service.
Gross base pay for ordinary hours, without overtime, penalties or allowances.
Enter leave used from the service period above, including any cashed-out hours.
Separate from annual leave. Enter hours used from the same service period.
Working shifts alone does not establish eligibility. Check the definition in your award or agreement and the NES.
Select only if your entitlement uses this simple percentage on base pay. Award penalty comparisons and other loading rates are not modelled.
Enter ordinary hours, day length, qualifying service and base pay to estimate your leave balance.
Assume 38 ordinary hours a week, 7.6 hours per leave day and 26 weeks of qualifying service. Weekly base pay is $1,000. No leave has been taken.
The engine estimates 76 hours, equivalent to 10 leave days, with a base value of $2,000. If a simple 17.5% loading applies, it adds $350 for a gross total of $2,350.
This example assumes a percentage-loading entitlement only. It does not apply the Miscellaneous Award comparator and it does not calculate tax.
Estimates only. Not financial or tax advice. Full disclaimer for your rights and our limitations of liability.
This calculator exists to show you the arithmetic. It applies published Australian rates, thresholds and formulas to the numbers you enter and shows the working, so you can check it. That is all it does — it produces a number and describes what the number is. It does not recommend anything and it holds no opinion about any financial product.
What can move this result
This calculator is not intended to be relied on for the purposes of making a decision in relation to a financial product. Before you make a financial decision, consider obtaining advice from someone who holds an Australian Financial Services Licence. We do not, and we cannot advise you.
The National Employment Standards provide 4 weeks of paid annual leave per year of service, or 5 for qualifying shiftworkers. Section 87 makes accrual progressive, based on ordinary hours. Unused leave carries forward.
Ordinary hours come from the employment arrangements that apply to the employee. Section 62 limits the hours an employer may request or require, subject to reasonable additional hours; it does not set a universal ordinary-hours denominator for annual leave. Overtime does not increase the ordinary-hours balance in this estimate.
Section 90 values leave taken at base pay for ordinary hours. Awards and agreements may differ, including loading or a penalty-pay comparison. If an instrument uses a greater-of comparison between loaded base pay and pay including penalties, the total formula is max(base × (1 + loading), base + penalty rates the employee would have received). This calculator does not model that comparison.
The Miscellaneous Award cl 21.3 includes the words:
“a loading of 17.5% in addition to the payment required by the NES or the ordinary pay they would have received”
The full clause ends with a greater-of direction. Its wording admits different readings about where the loading attaches. This page leaves that interpretation unresolved and does not classify the clause as a simple loading entitlement. Check the full clause and award coverage.
This calculator is not intended to be relied on for the purposes of making a decision in relation to a financial product. Before you make a financial decision, consider obtaining advice from someone who holds an Australian Financial Services Licence. We do not, and we cannot advise you.
Annual leave is paid time away from work for eligible employees. This estimate covers NES accrual for full-time and part-time employees; casuals and entitlements outside the NES are not modelled.
Personal/carer’s leave is a separate balance for eligible illness, injury or caring responsibilities. It is not added to the annual leave value.
No. Leave loading depends on the applicable award, agreement or other employment entitlement. The NES does not require a universal loading. This calculator adds 17.5% to base pay only when selected; it does not decide whether that entitlement applies. Some instruments compare loaded base pay with the pay, including penalties, the employee would have received while working.
Under s 87, annual leave accrues progressively by ordinary hours. A part-time employee generally accrues 4 weeks of their own ordinary hours per year, with 5 weeks for eligible shiftworkers. The hours are lower than for a full-time employee, but the number of weeks is the same. Awards and agreements may provide more generous entitlements.
Not necessarily. Section 96 provides 10 days per year, accruing progressively by ordinary hours. Fair Work expresses the hours entitlement as a fraction of annual ordinary hours, so spreading the same weekly hours across longer shifts does not increase accrual. The days displayed here are roster-day equivalents, calculated from your entered day length.
Sections 92–94 allow cashing out only under qualifying award or enterprise-agreement terms, or a compliant agreement for an award/agreement-free employee. Each cash-out needs a separate written agreement, at least 4 weeks of accrued leave must remain and payment must be at least what would have been paid had the leave been taken. An instrument may impose further conditions. This calculator does not assess cash-out eligibility.
Section 90(2) requires payment at the amount that would have been payable had the unused leave been taken. Applicable leave loading is included where it would have applied. Personal/carer’s leave has different rules and is not normally paid out. Use the Leave Payout Calculator for a separate gross annual-leave and long-service-leave payout estimate.
Paid annual leave and paid long service leave count as service. Section 22(2)(b) generally excludes unpaid leave or unpaid authorised absence, rather than listing paid leave as an exception. The listed exceptions concern community service absence, specified stand-down and prescribed absences. Excluded periods generally do not break continuous service under s 22(3), but they do not lengthen the accrual period.
For employment ending, try the Leave Payout Calculator. State-based entitlements are covered separately in the Long Service Leave Calculator.