Under the National Employment Standards, every employee in Australia, including casuals, gets 2 days of compassionate leave each time a member of their immediate family or household dies or develops a life-threatening illness or injury. Compassionate leave is the same thing as bereavement leave. Full-time and part-time employees are paid for it, and casuals take it unpaid.
An award, enterprise agreement or contract can give you more. The 2 days are the minimum as at October 2026.
When can you take bereavement leave?
The Fair Work Ombudsman says you can take compassionate leave when
- a member of your immediate family or household dies
- a member of your immediate family or household contracts or develops a life-threatening illness or injury
- a baby in your immediate family or household is stillborn
- you have a miscarriage, or your current spouse or de facto partner has one.
A stillbirth is the birth of a baby who weighed at least 400 grams or reached at least 20 weeks' gestation and hasn't breathed or had a heartbeat since delivery. A miscarriage is the spontaneous loss of an embryo or foetus before 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Who counts as immediate family?
Your immediate family is your spouse or former spouse, de facto partner or former de facto partner, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild and sibling. It also includes the immediate family of your spouse or de facto partner, current or former, plus step-relations and adoptive relations.
Other relatives, such as cousins, aunts and uncles, are not on the list. You can still take compassionate leave for them if they are part of your household or your employer agrees. A household member is anyone who lives with you.
Is compassionate leave paid?
Yes, for full-time and part-time employees. You are paid at your base pay rate for the ordinary hours you would have worked during the leave. That leaves out incentive-based payments and bonuses, loadings, allowances, overtime and penalty rates.
Casual employees get compassionate leave unpaid. Compassionate leave can't be cashed out.
How do you take the 2 days?
You can take them as one continuous 2-day period, as 2 separate single days or in other separate periods your employer agrees to. Splitting them lets you take one day straight away and keep the other for the funeral.
Compassionate leave doesn't build up over time, and it isn't taken from your sick and carer's leave. The entitlement is 2 days each time you meet the criteria, so a second death in the family brings another 2 days.
If you are already on another kind of leave, such as annual leave, you can use compassionate leave for those days instead.
What does bereavement leave pay look like?
Say you work full-time, 7.6 hours a day from Monday to Friday, on a base salary of $78,000. That is $1,500 a week, or $300 for each day you would have worked.
Your grandmother dies on a Saturday and the funeral is the following Thursday. You take the Monday and the Thursday as 2 separate days of compassionate leave. You are paid $600 for the two days, and nothing comes out of your annual leave or sick leave balances.
A casual in the same position can take the same 2 days and isn't paid for them.
What notice and evidence can your employer ask for?
Tell your employer as soon as you can, which may be after the leave has started. Let them know how much leave you are taking, or expect to take, and when.
Your employer can ask for evidence of the reason, such as a death or funeral notice or a statutory declaration. The request has to be reasonable. If you don't give the notice or evidence asked for, you may not get the compassionate leave.
What if 2 days isn't enough?
Check your award, enterprise agreement and contract first, because any of them can give more compassionate leave than the minimum.
You can also ask for annual leave. An employer can only refuse an annual leave request if the refusal is reasonable, and there is no minimum or maximum amount you have to take at a time.
If grief leaves you unable to work, paid sick leave covers personal illness, and the Fair Work Ombudsman says that can include stress. If a family member is ill and needs your care, paid carer's leave applies. Both come out of the same balance, which our guide to sick and carer's leave explains.
This is general information, not legal or financial advice.
Sources
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Compassionate and bereavement leave (when it can be taken, immediate family, 2 days per occasion, how it is taken, payment, casuals, notice and evidence)
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Sick and carer's leave (household member, carer's leave)
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Paid sick and carer's leave (sick leave can include stress)
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Taking annual leave (refusal must be reasonable, no minimum or maximum)
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