How Many Paid Sick Days in Australia? 10 Days a Year + Part-Time Accrual Table
10 paid sick/carer's days a year full-time (76 hours, 1.46 hrs/week accrual). Part-time table by hours worked, casual rules, certificates, carry-over.
Senior Workplace Relations Writer · GradDip Employment Relations, Griffith University
How many sick days do you get per year?
Under the National Employment Standards, full-time employees are entitled to 10 days of paid personal/carer's leave per year. This is officially called personal/carer's leave because it covers both sick leave (when you're unfit for work due to illness or injury) and carer's leave (when you need to care for an immediate family or household member who is ill). Part-time employees receive a pro-rata entitlement based on their ordinary hours.
For example, if you work 25 hours per week: (25/38) x 10 = 6.58 days per year. Casual employees aren't entitled to paid sick leave, but they can take 2 days of unpaid carer's leave per occasion. Since the High Court's Mondelez decision (2020), the entitlement is counted in hours — 1/26 of your ordinary hours over a year, which is 76 hours for a 38-hour week, accruing progressively at about 1.46 hours a week.
| Ordinary hours per week | Paid sick/carer's leave per year | Accrues per week |
|---|---|---|
| 38 (full-time) | 76 hours = 10 days | 1.46 hours |
| 32 | 64 hours = 8.4 days | 1.23 hours |
| 30 | 60 hours = 7.9 days | 1.15 hours |
| 25 | 50 hours = 6.6 days | 0.96 hours |
| 20 | 40 hours = 5.3 days | 0.77 hours |
| 15 | 30 hours = 3.9 days | 0.58 hours |
| 10 | 20 hours = 2.6 days | 0.38 hours |
'Days' here are 7.6-hour days; if your ordinary day is longer you get fewer days but the same number of hours. Put your exact hours and start date into the sick leave calculator to see your current balance (source: Fair Work Act 2009 s96; FWO, Sick and carer's leave).
Does sick leave accumulate?
Yes. Unlike annual leave, there's no limit on how much personal/carer's leave you can accumulate. Unused sick leave carries over year after year without any cap.
Put simply, long-term employees can build up significant sick leave balances. However, unlike annual leave, accumulated sick leave is NOT paid out when you leave your job.
When your employment ends, any unused personal/carer's leave balance is simply lost. This is a key difference from annual leave, which must always be paid out on termination.
When can your employer ask for a medical certificate?
Your employer can request evidence of your illness if: the absence is for a single day or longer, or the day falls on a day adjacent to a public holiday or weekend (some awards and agreements specify this). Acceptable evidence includes a medical certificate from a registered health practitioner, or a statutory declaration. Your employer cannot unreasonably require you to see a specific doctor or disclose the nature of your illness beyond what is necessary.
Some awards and enterprise agreements have their own rules about medical evidence — for example, some only require evidence after 2 consecutive days.
Can your employer fire you for taking too much sick leave?
Taking genuine sick leave is a workplace right under the Fair Work Act. Taking adverse action (including dismissal) against an employee for exercising a workplace right is prohibited under the general protections provisions. However, excessive absences due to illness can potentially justify termination in some circumstances — particularly if the absences are so frequent or prolonged that the employee can no longer perform the inherent requirements of the role.
An employer considering termination on this basis should engage in a thorough process, including discussion with the employee, consideration of medical evidence, and exploration of alternative duties or accommodations. Termination should be a last resort.
If you're dismissed due to illness-related absences, you may have grounds for an unfair dismissal or general protections claim.
Official resources
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General information and estimates only — not legal, financial or tax advice. Always check your specific award, agreement or contract, or a qualified professional, before you rely on the result.
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Nine years in Australian workplace relations — Queensland hospitality HR, then retail ER in Brisbane and Northern NSW. Graduate Diploma in Employment Relations (Griffith University, 2018). Writes about award interpretation, underpayment recovery, and casual conversion. Member of the AHRI since 2019. Based in Paddington, Brisbane.