Redundancy Pay Calculator Australia 2026-27
Use this redundancy pay calculator Australia to work out your statutory redundancy pay and minimum notice under the National Employment Standards — straight from the Fair Work Act scale.
Last updated: July 2026 · Fair Work Act 2009 ss 117, 119, 121, 123 · FY 2026–27
Got your number? Two things worth checking next
→ Everything else in your final pay — unused leave, pay in lieu, and what to check on the last payslip. → The full year-by-year scale — redundancy and notice weeks for every length of service.What Counts as a Genuine Redundancy?
Redundancy pay applies when your job itself disappears — a restructure, a site closure, insolvency, your duties automated or absorbed — and the National Employment Standards in the Fair Work Act set the minimum every national-system employer must pay. It’s calculated at your base rate of pay for ordinary hours: overtime, penalty rates, allowances and bonuses are all excluded, which is why your redundancy week can be noticeably smaller than your usual take-home week.
Eligibility has three gates. You need 12 months of continuous service (periods worked as a casual don’t count). Your employer must have 15 or more employees — smaller employers are generally exempt from redundancy pay, though notice still applies. And the termination must actually be a redundancy: dismissal for misconduct or performance, the end of a fixed contract or season, and casual arrangements sit outside the scheme entirely.
Notice is the separate entitlement people forget to count: 1 to 4 weeks depending on service — one more if you’re over 45 with at least two years in — and your employer chooses between having you work it or paying it out in lieu on top of everything else. Add wages to the last day and your untaken annual leave paid out in full, and the true value of a redundancy package is usually several weeks larger than the headline number.
The Statutory Scale This Calculator Uses
| Continuous Service | Redundancy Pay | Minimum Notice |
|---|---|---|
| Under 1 year | — | 1 week |
| 1 – 2 years | 4 weeks | 1–2 weeks |
| 2 – 3 years | 6 weeks | 2 weeks |
| 3 – 4 years | 7 weeks | 2–3 weeks |
| 4 – 5 years | 8 weeks | 3 weeks |
| 5 – 6 years | 10 weeks | 3–4 weeks |
| 6 – 7 years | 11 weeks | 4 weeks |
| 7 – 8 years | 13 weeks | 4 weeks |
| 8 – 9 years | 14 weeks | 4 weeks |
| 9 – 10 years | 16 weeks | 4 weeks |
| 10+ years | 12 weeks | 4 weeks |
Fair Work Act 2009 ss 117 and 119. Notice ranges reflect the year boundaries inside each service band; add 1 week to notice if over 45 with 2+ years of service.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the scale drop from 16 to 12 weeks at 10 years?
It’s genuinely in the Act — item 10 of the s 119 table — inherited from the award test cases the NES codified, where long-serving employees were assumed to have long service leave entitlements kicking in. Whatever the history, the law is the law: 9 years and 11 months of service pays more redundancy than 11 years. Many awards and agreements override it with something more generous, so check yours before resigning yourself to the dip.
Is redundancy pay taxed?
A genuine redundancy payment has a tax-free component up to limits the ATO publishes each year (a base amount plus an amount per year of service); anything above the limit is taxed concessionally as an employment termination payment. We don’t reproduce those caps here — they’re on the ATO’s site — but for most workers with modest payouts, little or no tax comes out.
Do casuals get redundancy pay?
No — casual employees are excluded, and periods you worked as a casual don’t count toward continuous service even after you convert to permanent. If you converted two years ago after five years casual, your redundancy clock reads two years, not seven.
My employer offered me another job instead — do I still get paid?
If the employer obtains other acceptable employment for you, they can apply to the Fair Work Commission to reduce the redundancy pay — potentially to nil (s 120). The same applies if they genuinely can’t pay. It’s not automatic: the FWC has to order the reduction, so don’t accept a unilateral “we found you a job so you get nothing” without checking.
Also in Australia:
📋 Entitlements verified — Official sources: Fair Work Act 2009 ss 117–123 · Fair Work Ombudsman — P.A.C.T.
⚠️ This is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice. KnowMyGovt is an independent service with no affiliation with or endorsement by the Fair Work Commission, the Fair Work Ombudsman or the Australian Government, and is not responsible for decisions you make based on it.
