Jury Duty in Australia: Employer Obligations and Payment by State

Every Australian state protects a juror from being dismissed for attending jury service, but whether an employer must keep paying a juror's normal wage differs sharply between jurisdictions, and Victoria goes further than any other state examined.

Information last verified on 21 July 2026 against the primary legislation and, where noted, the relevant government agency page. This page presents general legal information, not legal advice.

Jurisdiction scope: This page covers jury service employer obligations in Victoria and New South Wales, verified 21 July 2026 against the Juries Act 2000 (Vic), the Jury Act 1977 (NSW), the Jury Regulation 2022 (NSW), and the Juries Victoria website. It does not state a position for South Australia's employment protection, or for Western Australian or South Australian juror payment rates, none of which could be independently confirmed.

Jury duty is compulsory, and every state protects against dismissal

Every Australian state and territory can compel an eligible adult to attend for jury service once summoned, subject to a list of statutory exemptions and excusal grounds that differ by jurisdiction. What every state examined has in common is a baseline protection against an employer punishing a person for attending: dismissing them, demoting them, or otherwise prejudicing their employment because they were summoned. Where states genuinely differ is on the separate question of pay: whether the employer has to keep paying a juror's ordinary wage while they serve, on top of whatever the government pays the juror directly.

Victoria: the employer must make up the difference, and the duty overrides the contract

Victoria has the strongest employer pay obligation of the states examined on this page. Section 52 of the Juries Act 2000 provides that an employee who has been summoned and has attended court, whether or not they actually served on a jury, "is entitled to be reimbursed by his or her employer an amount equal to the difference" between the government juror payment under section 51 and what the employee could reasonably have expected to earn from the employer for that period. Critically, section 52(2) opens with the words "despite any inconsistent term in a contract of employment," meaning an employer cannot contract out of this duty. Juries Victoria's own guidance confirms the obligation applies "regardless of its length" of jury service "and applies no matter the size of the business" the juror works for, and states it overrides both the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and enterprise bargaining agreements. The direct government payment itself, under section 51, is fixed by notice in the Government Gazette; as published by Juries Victoria and fetched on 21 July 2026, the rate is $40 per day for the first six days of attendance and $80 per day after that. Because this rate is set administratively rather than in the Act itself, a reader should confirm the current figure on the Juries Victoria site before relying on it for a specific calculation.

New South Wales: dismissal protection, not a pay top-up duty

New South Wales takes a narrower approach. Section 69 of the Jury Act 1977 makes it an offence for an employer to dismiss an employee, injure them in their employment, or alter their position to their prejudice, because they were summoned to serve as a juror, and it reverses the onus of proof onto the employer once the other facts are established. Section 69A adds further protection: an employer must not require an employee to use paid leave to cover a jury summons, must not require the employee to work on a day they are serving as a juror, and must not require the employee to make up lost hours because of jury service. Neither provision requires the employer to keep paying the employee's ordinary wage during jury service. Instead, jurors are paid directly by the state under Schedule 1 of the Jury Regulation 2022: as that Schedule reads on AustLII, the attendance allowance is $106.30 per day for days 1 to 10 (payable to both employed and non-employed jurors), rising to $247.40 per day from day 11 onward for a juror who is an employed person (a non-employed juror continues at $106.30). This regulation text was fetched from AustLII's current consolidated regulations on 21 July 2026; its currency for FY2026-27 specifically was not separately confirmed against an "as at" date, so a reader relying on the exact figure should check the current NSW jury information for confirmation.

South Australia: this page does not state a position

An earlier, incomplete search into South Australian jury law did not find an equivalent employer pay obligation, but that search was not exhaustive, and treating an apparent absence as a confirmed "no protection" carries real risk: it could tell a South Australian reader they lack a right that, in fact, exists somewhere in South Australian legislation not yet located. This page deliberately omits a position on South Australia rather than asserting either that a duty exists or that it does not. A South Australian reader should check directly with the South Australian courts or Legal Services Commission of SA, or a local legal practitioner, rather than relying on an inference from this page.

Rates this page does not state

Juror daily payment rates for Western Australia and South Australia could not be confirmed against a primary source in the course of preparing this page, and are not stated here. A reader in either state should check the relevant state courts website for the current rate rather than assuming it matches Victoria's or New South Wales's figures.

What none of this means for a specific reader

Nothing on this page should be read as telling a specific reader they will be excused from jury service, or that a specific pay outcome is guaranteed. Eligibility exclusions (commonly covering legal practitioners, police officers, sitting judicial officers and people with certain criminal history) and age-based exemptions (such as an upper age limit in some states) differ by jurisdiction and by the individual juror's circumstances, and whether a specific financial hardship or health ground justifies an excusal is a decision made by the relevant jury administration body on the facts of the application, not something this page can predict.

This page is general legal information about everyday law in Australia, verified on 21 July 2026. It is not legal advice, and it does not cover every situation. For advice about your own circumstances, consult a legal practitioner admitted in the relevant Australian state or territory.