Full-time employees get 10 paid days a year. The detail underneath the number trips up most SMBs: accrual, carry-over, part-time pro-rata, casuals, and evidence. This guide gives you the rules in plain English.
Last updated May 2026. General information, not legal advice.
Paid personal and carer's leave per year for full-time employees.¹
Part-time employees accrue on their ordinary hours.
Unused leave rolls into the next year. No annual reset.
Australia rolls sick leave and carer's leave into one entitlement, called paid personal and carer's leave. The same balance covers your own illness or injury and time spent caring for an immediate family or household member.
A full-time employee gets 10 days of paid personal and carer's leave for each year of service.¹ The entitlement starts from day one of employment.
Leave builds up progressively through the year, based on ordinary hours worked. A new full-time starter does not get all 10 days on the first morning. The balance grows week by week.
Unused leave rolls into the next year and keeps building. There is no annual reset. Paid personal and carer's leave is not paid out when employment ends.
Part-timers get the same 10-day entitlement on a pro-rata basis, scaled to their ordinary hours. Someone working half a full-time week accrues roughly half the days.
Casuals do not accrue paid personal and carer's leave. They receive casual loading instead. Casuals do get up to 2 days of unpaid carer's leave per occasion, and unpaid compassionate leave.
You ask for reasonable evidence of a genuine reason, such as a medical certificate or a statutory declaration. The request stays reasonable when you apply the same rule across the team. The rule applies even to a single day.
Employees give notice as soon as practical, which sometimes means after the absence starts, plus the expected length of the absence.
When the balance hits zero, an employee takes unpaid leave for a genuine illness. The general protections against dismissal for a temporary absence still apply.
The NES is the floor. An award, enterprise agreement, or contract sometimes gives more. Check the instrument that covers your role before you rely on the 10-day baseline.
Absence defaults to the NES 10-day entitlement, pro-rates by hire date, and shows how much each person has used. Free for teams of 5.
General information only, current as at May 2026, and not a substitute for legal advice. Awards, enterprise agreements, and contracts sometimes provide more than the NES. For your situation, contact the Fair Work Ombudsman on 13 13 94 or a qualified employment lawyer.
