Workers

Portable long service leave allows you to accrue service even if you change employers in the construction industry. After 7 years of continuous service, you can be paid a long service leave benefit to fund a well-earned break.

Why does this scheme exist?

Construction workers often work for multiple employers across different projects and sites. Without portable leave, you’d lose your service every time you worked somewhere else.

The Construction Industry Long Service Leave Act 1997 is an Act of parliament that creates a portable long service leave scheme for Victorian construction workers, so they can be paid to take a break.

CoINVEST Limited (that’s us, trading as LeavePlus) is the regulator and administrator of the scheme. We look after your long service leave, and it keeps growing as you continue working in the construction industry. It’s the leave that moves with you.

Why this matters to you

It’s your legal right
Long service leave isn’t a nice bonus. It’s the law, and you’ve earned it.

It protects your wellbeing
Construction work is physically and mentally demanding. Taking a proper break helps you stay healthy and avoid burnout.

It keeps the industry strong
When workers can take well-earned breaks, they come back stronger. That’s good for you, your employer, and the construction industry.

How it works

1. Your employer reports your days
Every three months, your employer tells LeavePlus how many days, paid leave, paid sick leave, unpaid personal leave, trade school days for apprentices, and WorkCover days. We keep a central record of all your service across every employer.

2. Employers pay charges to LeavePlus
Employers pay a charge to the Long Service Leave Fund. This is not taken from your wages. The current rate is 2.7% of the total[LW25.1] ordinary pay (wages) for all workers.

3. You build up service
Your service builds up as you work in the construction industry. We keep a central record of all your service, so nothing is lost when you change employers.

4. You claim your leave
Once you accrue 7 years of continuous service, you qualify for a long service leave benefit. When you’re ready to take leave, you lodge a claim with LeavePlus. Your benefit is based on your current weekly rate of pay.

For service after 1 July 2002: You get 1.3 weeks of leave for every full year of service recorded. After 7 years, that’s 9.1 weeks of leave. For service before 30 June 2002: You get 0.866 weeks for each full year of service. That’s equivalent to 6.1 weeks of leave after 7 years.

Learn more about making a claim

When can I claim?

You can claim your long service leave benefit once you have 7 years (1820 days) of continuous service, or a mix of service with LeavePlus and interstate partner schemes. If your service record includes interstate service, your claim must be submitted to the scheme in the state or territory where your most recent 60 days of service were recorded.

Special circumstances

Working interstate
Time spent performing construction work outside Victoria still counts. Here’s what to do: Register with the long service leave scheme in the state or territory where you’re working. Let LeavePlus know you’re working interstate. When you make a claim, we’ll contact the other scheme to recognise your interstate service.

Taking a break
You can take a break from construction work for up to 4 years without losing your service. If you return to the industry within that time, your service continues from where it left off.

Shared liability
If you’ve worked for your employer for 7 years or more and your long service leave balance looks too low, it may be because you’ve done other work for them that isn’t reportable to the portable long service leave scheme. If this has happened, your employer may also need to pay for part of your long service leave, on top of the benefit you can get from LeavePlus. Contact us to find out how to start a claim.

Working as a sub-contractor
If you work for yourself as a working sub-contractor, you can choose to pay charges to LeavePlus for your own long service leave.

This time counts as service. If you don’t pay charges for a period, that time won’t count. But you can ask us to treat it as an approved break. You’ll need to give us full copies of your tax returns for that period to show you did construction work in Victoria.
This helps protect any service you earned earlier.

Mixed work (the two-thirds rule)
Some jobs involve both covered work (like commercial landscaping) and non-covered work (like domestic landscaping). If you spend two-thirds or more of your time with a single employer engaging in covered work, your employer must report 100% of your time for that return period. You get full-service credited even though you did some non-covered work.

Illness and death
If you have less than 12 months to live and at least 55 days of continuous service recorded with LeavePlus, you can apply to be paid in lieu of a long service leave benefit. If you pass away and have 55 or more days of continuous service (and that service was recorded after 1 July 2002), the payment in lieu can be paid to your estate.

Learn more about managing your service

Ready to get started?

Register with LeavePlus
Start tracking your service with an online profile.