Claiming your portable long service

Accruing portable long service entitlements

Each quarter your employers provide the Portable Long Service Authority with the hours you worked. These service hours count towards an entitlement for portable long service benefits.

After at least 7 years of recognised service under the Scheme you will be entitled to 1 week for every 60 weeks of recorded work.

You can accrue portable long service benefits at the same time as traditional long service. However, you can’t claim both benefits for the same period of service.

For community service workers, once you have an entitlement available under traditional long service, or another alternative source (for example, an industry award or enterprise agreement), you cannot elect to receive portable long service benefits for the same period of service.

If you have taken traditional long service leave from your employer, this may reduce the balance of portable long service available to claim.

Important information for contract cleaning and security workers

If you are entitled to both portable and traditional long service leave, you must choose which entitlement you wish to access.

If you decide to take traditional long service leave, your employer will ask you to complete a leave nomination form(opens in a new window).

This form allows your employer to claim reimbursement for traditional long service leave paid for a service period recorded with the Authority.

You continue to accrue portable long service during your portable long service leave. Your employer reports your portable long service hours to us in their quarterly return.

Tracking your entitlements

Log in to the worker portal(opens in a new window) to track your portable long service entitlements.

It's important to check the worker portal to make sure your employer has reported your service correctly. If you are missing work hours, you may miss out on portable long service entitlements. If you are missing hours you can make a claim for missing service.

Email enquiries@plsa.vic.gov.au(opens in a new window) if you don’t know your log in details.

Eligibility to claim

Workers can claim portable long service benefits if they have completed 7 years of recognised service under the Scheme.

You can view your recognised service on the worker portal.

If you do not perform covered work in your industry for more than 4 years in a row, your registration may become inactive. You must perform covered work for an employer covered by the Scheme to build up portable long service entitlements.

Once your registration is inactive, you may lose all your recognised service days and may not be able to claim your portable long service benefits.

We will contact you if you are approaching 4 years in a row without at least one service day being credited to you by your employer(s).

Claiming portable long service

Further information