Employer Contribution

Employers are required to report service for workers covered by the Scheme and make contributions to the Fund. The contribution fee is 2.7% of the total gross wages reported for your eligible workers every three months.

The contribution requirements for employers are a two step process:

Reporting service on Workers Days and Wages (WDW) submission

Employers submit their WDW at the end of each quarter, reporting the service days completed and total gross wages of each worker. The total wages reported in the WDW submission will determine the employer’s contribution fee.

Learn more about your WDW here

Paying the contribution invoice

You will be invoiced for 2.7% of the total gross wage reported on your WDW. The cost is not itemised per employee, and not to be deducted from any worker’s wages – this is an on-cost to employers.

Learn more about how to pay your invoice here

The steps for reporting service and paying the contribution invoice are separated because they have two different purposes.

The purpose of Long Service Leave Contributions from the employers is to fund the scheme and ensure CoINVEST is funded sufficiently to be able to pay out claims to all workers who have accrued an eligible entitlement.

There is no dollar value against any worker’s name, as any payment made to a worker when they claim Long Service Leave is entirely dependent on their rate of pay (as indicated by their payslips) at the time of when they make their claim. Therefore, a cumulative contribution amount would have absolutely no relation to how much a worker will be paid when they claim their Long Service Leave.

We use a percentage rather than a set dollar amount to keep the charges uniform and fair between the larger and the smaller employers, so that everyone pays their fair share proportionally to fund the scheme.

The rate is agreed in advance by our Board of Directors and reviewed yearly. The current rate of 2.7% has been in place since 1 July 2009. The contribution rate is agreed upon and implemented to match market conditions so that CoINVEST can provide the best service to its members in administering Long Service Leave.

The contribution rate does not apply to reported service for apprentices, as CoINVEST covers the liability for apprentices for up to four years of any covered apprenticeship.

Backdating Service

It is sometimes the case that an employer has not recorded service for one of their workers for previous periods. In order to comply with their obligations under the law, the employer must supply information to CoINVEST. Employers must provide the amount of days worked and total gross wages for each financial year in which that worker was under their employ performing covered work.

For apprentices, you still need to complete the form and advise of the days worked in each year where service may be missing, but you do not need to provide any details regarding wages – CoINVEST covers the liability of apprentices up to the first 1,040 days (4 years) of any covered apprenticeship, meaning there are no charges on the part of the employer for apprenticeship service.

Backdated adjustment charges may contain statutory interest charges due to non-compliance with your employer obligations. These charges are payable to CoINVEST in accordance with CoINVEST Rules as Trustee of the Long Service Leave Act.

Read more about how to backdate service for your workers at our employer missing service page.

Where an employer may have paid the full liability to a worker when claiming long service leave directly from their employer (typically when the worker has been with the same employer for more than 7 years), then there may be a liability which is to be reimbursed to the employer by CoINVEST, dependent on the service accrued by the worker in question.

Employers can submit an Employer Reimbursement claim in the CoINVEST Portal. Log in to the CoINVEST Portal and select My Claims from the main menu. Choose the worker from the list who the reimbursement claim relates to, then enter all the required information. The details you submit in your completed form enable CoINVEST to work out how much of the long service leave liability is to be reimbursed back to the employer.