Personal/carer’s leave is one entitlement, not two, and that is the first thing worth understanding. The same balance covers an employee being unwell and an employee caring for an immediate family or household member who is unwell or affected by an unexpected emergency.

The entitlement

Full-time employees are entitled to ten days of paid personal/carer’s leave per year. It accrues progressively and it accumulates — unused leave carries forward indefinitely and is not paid out on termination unless an award, agreement or contract says otherwise (most do not).

Part-time employees get a pro-rata entitlement based on ordinary hours. Ten “days” for a part-timer means ten of their days, so the entitlement is best tracked in hours to avoid the arithmetic going wrong. Casuals do not accrue paid personal leave, but they are entitled to unpaid carer’s leave.

Unpaid carer’s leave

Once paid leave is exhausted — or where the employee is a casual — every employee is entitled to two days of unpaid carer’s leave per occasion. This is separate from and additional to the paid entitlement, and it is easy to overlook.

Compassionate leave is different again

Two days of paid compassionate leave (unpaid for casuals) applies per occasion where an immediate family or household member dies or suffers a life-threatening illness or injury. It also covers stillbirth and miscarriage in defined circumstances. It does not come out of the personal leave balance and it does not accrue — it exists per occasion.

Evidence

An employer can require reasonable evidence that the leave was taken for a permitted reason. What counts as reasonable depends on the circumstances: a medical certificate is the obvious example, but a statutory declaration is also acceptable, and for a single day’s absence many employers reasonably ask for nothing at all.

Two cautions. First, an award or agreement may set its own evidence requirements, and those apply. Second, requiring a certificate for every single-day absence is legal in principle but tends to be expensive, resented and counterproductive in practice. A clear, consistently applied policy does more good than a strict one applied selectively.

Notice matters too: employees must tell you as soon as practicable, which may be after the leave has started.

Family and domestic violence leave

Separately, all employees — including casuals — are entitled to ten days of paid family and domestic violence leave per twelve-month period. It is available in full from the first day of employment, renews on each anniversary, and does not accumulate. Confidentiality obligations around it are strict: information about the leave must not appear on a pay slip, and access to any records should be tightly limited.

Practical points that cause trouble

  • Tracking days instead of hours for part-timers. Almost always ends in an incorrect balance.
  • Deducting a full day when someone leaves at lunchtime. Leave is deducted for the hours actually taken.
  • Paying out personal leave on termination. Not required, and once you do it for one person it is difficult to argue it is not a term of employment.
  • Recording FDV leave visibly. A genuine confidentiality obligation, and one that payroll software does not always handle by default.
  • Treating a pattern of absence as a performance issue without a process. Absences for a permitted reason are protected. There may be a legitimate conversation to have about capacity or reliability, but it needs to be handled carefully — see managing underperformance fairly.

Getting the mechanics right is mostly a payroll configuration exercise. Getting the conversations right is the harder half, and it is usually where a small business benefits most from having someone to ask.