Genuine redundancy payout estimate.
NES redundancy pay
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Tax-free limit
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Two separate questions when your role is made redundant
Losing a position to redundancy raises two money questions that people frequently muddle. First, how much redundancy pay are you legally owed? Second, how much of that money arrives tax free? This tool answers both. The redundancy pay itself comes from the National Employment Standards and is set by your years of continuous service. The tax free portion is a separate ATO concession that shelters part of a genuine redundancy payment from tax entirely.
How the NES scale rewards service
The minimum redundancy entitlement under the NES rises with tenure, then plateaus. One full year earns four weeks of pay, two years earns six, and the scale climbs to a peak of sixteen weeks at nine to ten years of service. After ten years the statutory figure steps back to twelve weeks, a quirk that exists because long serving staff historically also accrued long service leave. Your award, enterprise agreement, or contract can be more generous, and many are, so treat the NES figure as a floor rather than a ceiling. Small business employers with fewer than fifteen staff are often exempt from NES redundancy pay altogether.
One detail trips people up: only completed years of continuous service count, so eleven months on the job rounds down to zero NES weeks, not a partial entitlement. The weekly pay figure should be your ordinary weekly rate, the base wage before overtime, bonuses, and allowances, since that is what the standard uses. Periods of unpaid leave generally do not break continuity but may not count towards service either, which is worth checking if you have had a long career break with the same employer.
Eight years of service on $2,000 a week
Picture someone earning $2,000 a week who is made genuinely redundant after eight completed years. The NES scale gives fourteen weeks of redundancy pay, and the tax free limit is built from a base amount plus a per year amount, using the 2025-26 figures of $12,524 plus $6,264 for each full year of service.
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The whole $28,000 of redundancy pay sits well under the $62,636 tax free limit, so in this case none of it is taxed. The chart shows how much room is left before tax would apply.
Where the tax actually starts
Only a genuine redundancy attracts the tax free treatment, and only if you are below the age pension age on the day you finish. Genuine means the position itself is abolished and not filled, not that you resigned or were dismissed for cause. Any redundancy pay above the tax free limit becomes an employment termination payment, taxed at concessional rates up to the ETP cap and then at your top marginal rate. Unused annual leave and long service leave are paid out separately and taxed under their own rules, so do not lump them in with the redundancy figure. The tax free limit indexes upward each financial year, which is why the base and per year amounts in this tool carry the 2025-26 values.
Frequently asked questions
Is the tax free part counted in my taxable income?
No. The tax free portion of a genuine redundancy is not assessable and not even reported as taxable income, so it does not push your other earnings into a higher bracket. Only the excess above the limit, taxed as an ETP, interacts with your marginal rate.
Does redundancy pay attract the superannuation guarantee?
Generally no. Redundancy pay and ETPs are not ordinary time earnings, so the 12 percent super guarantee does not apply to them. Your final ordinary wages and any leave that counts as OTE may still attract super, which is a detail worth confirming on your final payslip.
What if my agreement pays more than the NES scale?
You receive the larger of the two. The NES sets a minimum, so a contract or enterprise agreement offering, say, three weeks per year of service overrides the statutory weeks. Enter your own weekly pay here to value the NES floor, then compare it against what your agreement promises.