Recreation leave

Members of the Permanent Forces and members of the Reserves on SERVOP C can accrue up to 25 days of basic recreation leave each year.  

Depending on your circumstances, you may also be eligible for: 

• additional recreation leave
• trainee leave. 

You can apply for leave through PMKeyS Self Service (PSS).   

Recreation leave accrues each fortnight. You’re expected to take the recreation leave you accrue each year. You can request an extension if you’re unable to take leave for service reasons.

If you have more than 50 days, you need to negotiate a leave remediation plan with your supervisor to reduce your leave balance.

Before you apply for leave, you and your supervisor should consider ongoing operational requirements. 

How you can take recreation leave

If you apply for recreation leave and you have war service leave credits, they'll be deducted first.

If you’re not on a flexible service determination, you can take leave as a:  

• full day at full pay, using 1 leave credit
• half day at full pay, using half a leave credit

You can't take half a day of recreation leave at half pay. 

You may also apply to take a minimum of 7 calendar days of recreation leave at half pay.  

While you're on leave at half pay, your salary will be halved. Some allowances, including Military Factor allowances and higher duties allowance, will also be halved.  

Your employer and member superannuation contributions will be based on your reduced salary while you're on leave at half pay. Contact your super fund if you have any questions.  

If you're performing continuous full-time service (CFTS) in the Permanent Forces (SERCAT 7), your leave credits will be reduced by 4 hours for each day of leave at half pay.  

If you're on a flexible service determination (SERCAT 6), each day at half pay will be reduced by 50% of the hours you work that day.   

You can apply to get recreation leave re-credited if you're recalled to duty. You may also get leave re-credited if you become sick or injured while on recreation leave and you:

• are approved for medical absence
• provide a medical certificate.

To get your leave re-credited, complete and submit an ADF Absence Application/Non-effective Service Notification (AF088) form. You can download this from the Forms portal on the Defence Protected Network (DPN). You should also attach any supporting documents.

You accrue additional recreation leave credits if you're posted to a remote location or you perform non-warlike service overseas.  

If you get a Military Factor allowance, you may get up to 10 days of additional recreation leave each financial year.  

Based on your pattern of service, you’ll get up to 10 days of additional recreation leave if you’re either:

• getting Military Factor allowance in connection with your posting
• eligible for Special Forces Operator Sustainment allowance but not posted to a Special Forces Operator position.  

If you don't receive a Military Factor allowance every day, you’ll get one additional day of recreation leave for every 10 days you receive a Military Factor allowance. You’ll accrue the additional recreation leave regardless of which Military Factor allowance you’re getting, up to a maximum of 10 additional days a year. 

You can apply for this leave if you're on a training course but don't have enough recreation leave to cover the course break.

If you have any recreation leave, you must take this before you can get trainee leave.

You can purchase recreation leave credits so you can take more time off.

You can purchase up to 20 days of recreation leave in a financial year. 

There are two ways to purchase recreation leave:

• pay-as-you-go
• credit in advance. 

Recreation leave can only be purchased in whole days. A whole day is 8 hours. 

When you're not eligible

You won't be eligible to purchase leave under any method if you: 

• are performing warlike, non-warlike or foreign service
• will have more than 50 days' recreation leave (including basic, additional and extra) once the leave has been purchased. 

You can't purchase leave under the credit in advance method if you have more than 10 days' of recreation leave when you apply. 

Pay-as-you-go

Under the pay-as-you-go method, your leave credits accrue as you pay for them. You can purchase up to 20 days and repay over a maximum of 26 pay periods. 

The agreed fortnightly amount will be deducted from your pay each payday and the equivalent number of hours will be credited to your account. The number of hours you'll get each fortnight is worked out using the following formula:

(a×8)÷b= leave credits you get 

where

a= total number of leave credits in days you were approved to purchase

b= the number of pay periods you'll be paying for the leave

Your arrangement to purchase leave under the pay-as-you-go method will be cancelled if you: 

• request to cancel the arrangement
• go on warlike, non-warlike, or foreign service  
• are no longer entitled to salary, such as if you’re on leave without pay.

Once your arrangement is cancelled, the deductions will stop coming out of your pay. You’ll keep the leave you’ve already paid for, but you’ll stop accruing the purchased leave. You’ll continue to accrue any other type of leave you may be entitled to.  
 

Credit in advance 

Under the credit in advance method, you’ll get the leave credits up front and pay for them over a set period of time. You can purchase up to 10 days and pay off over up to 13 pay periods .  

Your leave balance will increase by the number of days you purchased on the first day the payment is deducted from your salary.  

If you’re no longer receiving salary, any outstanding purchased leave that was credited to you will be recovered as a debt.

Payment for purchased leave 

For both methods, the amount deducted from your salary each fortnight is worked out using the following formula:

(a ÷ 365 × b) ÷ c  

where

a= your annual salary

b= the number of days leave you’re purchasing

c= the number of pay periods you’ll use to make up the payment.

Apply to take purchased leave

You can apply to purchase leave in the PMKeyS Portal. If you can’t access PMKeyS, To apply to purchase leave, you can complete a Request to purchase Annual Leave (APS/ASD) or Recreational Leave (ADF) (AF145) form. You can download this from the intranet Forms tab on the Defence Protected Network (DPN) .  

You can’t:

• donate purchased leave to your partner
• purchase leave while you’re already paying off purchased leave. Example: if you pre-purchase 5 days of leave you must pay for those 5 days before purchasing any more time.  

If you’re part of a Service couple When you and your partner are both ADF members. , you can transfer some of your leave to your partner.

You and your partner must both:

• be on CFTS
• serve at least another 6 months of CFTS after the leave is transferred.  

You can only transfer leave in whole days, and you’ll need to keep at least 10 days of leave for yourself.  

You can apply to transfer leave in PSS. If you’re unable to access PSS, complete the Transfer of Recreation Leave – Dual Serving Couple (AF245) form. You can download this from the Forms Portal on the DPN.  

You’ll need to submit the form at least 4 weeks before the leave transfer can happen. This means your partner won’t be able to apply to take the leave for at least 4 weeks after you submit the form.  

Once you’ve transferred leave to your partner, you’ll need to wait at least one year before you can do it again.