Portable long service leave in Australia
Last reviewed: 14 August 2026. Every figure checked against every scheme's own website. Information only. Each scheme is the authority on its own entitlements.
Why this is worth ten minutes of your time
Long service leave normally rewards staying put. Stay with one employer long enough, usually seven to ten years, and you get a paid break. Leave early and you generally get nothing. That works badly for industries where moving between employers is normal rather than exceptional, and in construction it is the entire shape of the job: you follow the work, the contract ends, you move on. Under ordinary rules, a thirty-year career could produce no long service leave at all.
Portable schemes fix that by attaching the entitlement to the industry instead of the employer. Your employers pay into a central fund, a scheme records your service, and when you have enough of it the scheme pays you to take a break, no matter how many employers it took to get there.
The catch is that these are separate schemes, in separate jurisdictions, with separate registers, separate qualifying periods and separate websites. Nobody publishes the whole picture, because no scheme has any authority outside its own borders. That is what this guide is: the national view, with every figure traced back to the scheme that set it.
Construction: covered everywhere, and portable between states
Building and construction is the one industry covered in all eight states and territories, and the one where moving between them is safest. Every scheme has signed a National Reciprocal Agreement so that interstate construction work counts towards an entitlement in another state.
| Where | Scheme | Qualifying period | Entitlement | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | Long Service Corporation: Building and Construction Industry | 10 years of recognised service in the building and construction industry | 8.67 weeks of pay | Official site |
| VIC | LeavePlus (formerly CoINVEST) | 10 years of accrued service (service accrued after 1 July 2002) | 13 weeks after 10 years, accruing at 1.3 weeks per full year of service after 1 July 2002 | Official site |
| QLD | QLeave: Building and Construction Industry | 2,200 service credits (at least 10 years in the Scheme) | 8.67 weeks of long service leave | Official site |
| SA | SA Portable Long Service Leave: Construction | 2,600 service days (equivalent to 10 years full-time employment) | 13 weeks, plus another week for every additional 200 service days recorded | Official site |
| WA | MyLeave: Construction Long Service WA | 10 years of service, with a pro rata entitlement after at least 7 years of service in the construction industry | 8⅔ weeks of leave | Official site |
| TAS | TasBuild | Not stated on the scheme's site; check with the scheme | Up to 13 weeks leave, based on the salary at the time of reaching the entitlement | Official site |
| ACT | ACT Leave: Building and Construction Industry Scheme | 10 years of service (for service accrued on or after 1 January 1997) | 13 weeks for every 10 years of service | Official site |
| NT | NT Build | 65 days of long service leave credit, which is 10 years of service | 13 weeks (65 days) of long service leave | Official site |
| Coal | Coal LSL (national) | 8 years of qualifying service, sooner in some cases | 455 hours for a full-time employee after 8 years of qualifying service | Official site |
The qualifying period is ten years almost everywhere, but the entitlement is not the same everywhere: some schemes pay 13 weeks and some pay 8.67 weeks for the same decade of work. Which scheme you claim through therefore matters, and it is not always the state you live in. This is what happens when you have service in more than one.
Other industries: covered in some places, not in others
Outside construction, portable long service leave is a patchwork. Contract cleaning, community services and security are covered in several jurisdictions and absent in others, the qualifying periods are shorter, and, critically, the interstate portability that construction workers can rely on does not always exist.
| Where | Industries | Scheme | Qualifying period | Entitlement | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | Contract cleaning | Long Service Corporation: Contract Cleaning Industry | Not stated on the scheme's site; check with the scheme | Not stated on the scheme's site; check with the scheme | Official site |
| NSW | Community services, Disability services | Community Services Industry Portable Long Service Leave Scheme | 7 years of service to the industry (2,555 service credits) | 6 weeks of paid long service leave | Official site |
| VIC | Community services, Contract cleaning, Security | Portable Long Service Authority: Portable Long Service Benefits Scheme | At least 7 years of recognised service under the Scheme | 1 week of leave for every 60 weeks of recorded work | Official site |
| QLD | Contract cleaning | QLeave: Contract Cleaning Industry | 10 years of service recorded with QLeave | 8.67 weeks of long service leave | Official site |
| QLD | Community services | QLeave: Community Services Industry | 7 years of service recorded with QLeave | 6.1 weeks of long service leave | Official site |
| SA | Community services | SA Portable Long Service Leave: Community Services | 120 months of service (equivalent to 10 years) | 13 weeks, then a further 1.3 weeks accrued each year after that | Official site |
| ACT | Community sector | ACT Leave: Community Sector Scheme | 5 years of service (if registered in the ACT community sector scheme on or after 1 July 2010) | 4.33 weeks of leave for 5 years of service, then 0.867 weeks for every year after that | Official site |
| ACT | Security | ACT Leave: Security Industry Scheme | 7 years of service (if registered in the ACT security industry scheme on or after 1 January 2013) | 6.06 weeks of leave for every 7 years of service | Official site |
| ACT | Services industry | ACT Leave: Services Industry Scheme | 7 years of recorded service in the industry | 6.06 weeks of leave after 7 years, then 0.867 weeks for every year after that | Official site |
| ACT | Contract cleaning | ACT Leave: Contract Cleaning Industry Scheme | Not stated on the scheme's site; check with the scheme | Not stated on the scheme's site; check with the scheme | Official site |
Every scheme, by jurisdiction
- New South Wales: Long Service Corporation (LSC). Also covers community services, contract cleaning, disability services.
- Victoria: CoINVEST Limited as Trustee for the Construction Industry Long Service Leave Fund, trading as LeavePlus. Also covers community services, contract cleaning, security.
- Queensland: QLeave. Also covers community services, contract cleaning.
- South Australia: SA Portable Long Service Leave (Construction). Also covers community services.
- Western Australia: MyLeave (Construction Industry Long Service Leave Payments Board).
- Tasmania: TasBuild Ltd.
- Australian Capital Territory: ACT Leave. Also covers community sector, contract cleaning, security, services industry.
- Northern Territory: NT Build.
- Black coal mining (national): Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Corporation.
Two things people get wrong
“CoINVEST” still exists, under a different name
Victoria's construction scheme changed its trading name from CoINVEST to LeavePlus on 14 August 2023. The legal entity, the member numbers and the records are unchanged; only the name and website moved. If you are searching for CoINVEST and finding a redirect, you are in the right place, and your member number still works.
Portable and ordinary long service leave are not the same entitlement
You can accrue portable long service benefits at the same time as traditional long service leave. What you cannot do is claim both for the same period of service. If your employer also offers long service leave under an award, agreement or state Act, ask which one your service is counting towards before you assume.
Where to start
- Work out which scheme covers you, by the state you worked in and the industry you worked in, not where you live now.
- Check you are registered and that your service is recorded against you. Every scheme has a process for missing service.
- If you have worked in more than one state, tell the schemes. Reciprocal recognition is not automatic; someone has to connect the records. Here is how that works.
Employing people in a covered industry? Employer obligations, and which scheme to levy into, are set out here.