This sick leave accrual calculator estimates how much paid personal leave, often called sick leave, you have built up and how much is left after leave you have already taken. It is built for Australian employees who want a quick balance check between payslips, including part-time employees whose entitlement is smaller than the full-time figure they see quoted most often. Enter your ordinary hours per week, the weeks you have worked and the personal leave you have already used, and the calculator returns your accrued hours, the hours taken and your remaining balance in both hours and days. The calculation runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, stored or sent anywhere, so your work pattern and leave history stay on your own device.
How it works
The entitlement behind the numbers
Paid personal leave in Australia comes from the National Employment Standards, the minimum entitlements that apply to most employees under the Fair Work Act. The full-time entitlement is 10 days of paid personal leave, also called sick or carer’s leave, for each year of service. For someone working a 38 hour week, 10 days means 76 hours a year, because a standard day is 7.6 hours. Sick leave and carer’s leave are not two separate pools. They draw on the same balance, so leave taken to care for someone else reduces the hours available when you are sick yourself, and the other way around.
Part-time employees receive the same entitlement on a pro rata basis, based on their ordinary hours of work. Work half the full-time hours and you accrue half the hours. The entitlement is always worked out in hours first, even though most people talk about it in days. That is why two employees can both have, for example, 3 days of leave left but hold different hour balances: their usual day length is different. This calculator keeps the hours figure front and centre and converts it to days using your usual day length, so the result matches how your employer records the balance.
Inputs and method
You enter three things: your ordinary hours per week, how many weeks you have worked in the period you are checking, and how much personal leave you have already taken. Where the form asks for days per week, it uses that figure only to convert hours into days at your usual day length.
The method follows the way the entitlement builds up under the National Employment Standards. Personal leave accrues progressively through the year, from your first day of work, rather than arriving in one block on your anniversary. A full-time employee accrues about 1.46 hours per week, and this calculator spreads the yearly entitlement evenly across the weeks you enter. In plain terms, it works out the full year entitlement for your hours, takes the share that matches the weeks worked, then subtracts the leave you have taken. The balance it shows is an estimate of what should be sitting in your leave record for that period.
There is no financial year selector on this page, and that is deliberate. Leave accrual is not a tax calculation, so ATO tax rates and the 1 July financial year changeover do not affect it. The rules here are the National Employment Standards figures sourced from Fair Work guidance: 10 days a year, 76 hours at 38 hours a week, pro rata for part-time hours. All day conversions on this page assume your leave is taken in full days at your usual day length. If you regularly take part days, work out your balance in hours rather than days, because the hours figure is the one that stays accurate.
What the result does and does not cover
Unused personal leave rolls into the next year and keeps building up, so a balance can grow well beyond one year’s entitlement if you rarely take it. It is not paid out when your employment ends, unlike annual leave, which is why checking it while you are employed matters more than checking it on the way out.
Casual employees are not entitled to paid personal leave under the National Employment Standards, so this calculator does not apply to casual work. If your result differs from your payslip or your employer’s record, the most common reasons are a change in your weekly hours partway through the period, leave taken in part days, or a period of unpaid leave in the weeks you counted. Re-run the estimate with your current hours and the weeks since that change for a closer match, and treat your employer’s leave record as the official figure if the two still disagree.
Worked example
An employee works 38 hours a week and has worked for 26 weeks. In that time they have taken 2 days of personal leave, at 7.6 hours a day.
| Item | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Accrued leave | 26 weeks is half a year, and a full year at 38 hours a week earns 76 hours: 76 ÷ 2 | 38 hours |
| Leave taken | 2 days × 7.6 hours | 15.2 hours |
| Balance | 38 – 15.2 | 22.8 hours |
| Balance in days | 22.8 ÷ 7.6 | 3 days |
So after half a year of full-time work and 2 days taken, the estimated balance is 22.8 hours, or 3 days.
Common questions
How much sick leave do I get each year?
Full-time employees get 10 days of paid personal (sick or carer’s) leave a year under the National Employment Standards. For a 38-hour week that is 76 hours a year. Part-time employees get the same entitlement on a pro rata basis, based on their ordinary hours.
How does sick leave accrue?
It accrues progressively through the year, from your first day of work. A full-time employee accrues about 1.46 hours a week. This calculator spreads the yearly entitlement evenly across the weeks you enter, which matches how the entitlement builds up.
Does unused sick leave carry over?
Yes. Unused personal leave rolls into the next year and keeps building up. It is not paid out when your employment ends, unlike annual leave.
Do casual employees get sick leave?
No. Casual employees are not entitled to paid personal leave under the National Employment Standards. The casual loading in their hourly rate is partly there to cover the lack of paid leave.
What if I work the same hours but over fewer days?
Your entitlement is worked out in hours, so the total hours are the same. What changes is how many days the balance represents: this calculator uses your days per week to convert hours into days at your usual day length.
A note on estimates
The result on this page is an estimate based on the National Employment Standards accrual method described above. It is general information only, not legal or workplace advice, and your employer’s leave record remains the official balance. Read our full disclaimer at /disclaimer/ before relying on any result. If you are checking other entitlements as well, try the related calculators at /annual-leave-calculator/ and /super-calculator/, or use the /income-tax-calculator/ to estimate the tax on your pay.