Claiming long service leave

Types of claims

Are you taking a break?

You need to make a taking leave claim.

• this claim can be made after 10 years of service (3,650 service credits)
• provides you with 8.67 weeks of paid long service leave
• you must not be working during the claim period
• You must claim a minimum of five days leave unless it's your final claim.

Are you leaving the contract cleaning industry?

You need to make a leaving the industry claim.

• can be made if you have permanently stopped working in the contract cleaning industry
• you must have accrued 2,555 service credits or more
• your registration will be cancelled if you make this type of claim. If you return to the contract cleaning industry after making a leaving the industry claim you will have to start building service credits again from zero.

Find out how to make a taking leave claim or leaving the industry claim, and the supporting documentation you'll need to provide.

Are you making a claim on behalf of someone else?

You need to make a personal representative claim.

• if one of the above entitlements exist, an authorised representative may make a long service leave claim for a deceased worker.
• a person listed as a beneficiary of a deceased worker's superannuation may not necessarily be an executor or administrator (this is because a deceased worker may opt to leave their superannuation to a beneficiary not included in a will).

You will need to contact us if you're making a personal representative claim. Please email cci@qleave.qld.gov.au or call 1300 QLEAVE (1300 753 283).

Please note: Workers cannot be paid by both QLeave and their employers for the same long service leave period.

Single Touch Payroll (STP)

When your long service leave claim is paid, it will be reported through Single Touch Payroll (STP) to the Australian Tax Office. This means you won't receive a PAYG payment summary when your claim is paid, but you can check these details by logging in to your MyGov account.

Find out more about Single Touch Payroll.

Completing a paper claim?

If you're completing a long service leave claim by paper form, ensure you select yes or no for the question 'are you claiming the tax-free threshold?'. If left blank, we'll process the claim as if you are claiming the tax-free threshold, which could carry tax implications. Once a claim has been paid this cannot be altered.

How much tax will I pay on my long service leave payment?

We deduct tax from long service leave payments at the applicable rate as required by Australian tax laws. The rate used to calculate the tax payable on your claim depends on the type of claim you’ve made and your gross weekly wages.

For taking leave and standard leaving the industry claims, we use your gross weekly wage to calculate the amount withheld from the ATO’s weekly tax table. The amount withheld is not calculated on the lump sum of your leave payment.

If you’re making a leaving the industry claim and you’ve selected genuine redundancy, invalidity or early retirement as your reason for leaving the industry, your payment will be taxed at the applicable withholding rate of 32% as required by Australian tax laws. You can find out more about this on the ATO website. Please note, if you don’t provide evidence to support one of these leaving the industry reasons, your tax will be calculated on your gross weekly wage using the ATO’s weekly tax table, as above.