How to prepare your NSW portable long service returns from Xero

For employers and bookkeepers in community services and contract cleaning in New South Wales. Both schemes are run by the Long Service Corporation. Last checked October 2026.

The two NSW schemes are the simplest to work out: each quarter they ask for one money figure per worker, gross ordinary wages, plus start and end dates. No hours, no days. The work is in getting that figure right from Xero's pay items, which are not the same as Victoria's, and in getting it into the portal: community services is keyed in worker by worker, while contract cleaning can be uploaded as a CSV file. This guide covers both.

When the returns are due

Quarter	Return due (both schemes)
July – September	14 October
October – December	14 January
January – March	14 April
April – June	14 July

Scheme	Levy
Community services	1.7% of gross ordinary wages from 1 July 2026 (it was 1.3% for 2025–26)
Contract cleaning	1% of gross ordinary wages (since 1 July 2021); due with the return

The levy is paid by the employer on top of wages; the contract cleaning scheme states plainly that it must not be deducted from workers' pay. Community services employers with no eligible workers in a quarter still lodge a return showing zero.

What counts as gross ordinary wages

Gross means before tax and before salary sacrifice. The two schemes' lists are close, and both differ from Victoria in one important way: penalty rates on normal rostered shifts count.

Payment in Xero	Community services	Contract cleaning
Award and over-award pay, casual loading	Yes	Yes
Weekend, shift and public holiday penalties on rostered ordinary hours	Yes	Yes
Public holidays	Yes	Yes
RDOs	Not listed	Yes
Annual, sick, personal/carer's, bereavement leave taken	Yes	Yes
Family and domestic violence, community service, ceremonial, study and jury service leave	Yes	Jury service yes; others not listed
Long service leave taken (not as a lump sum)	Yes	Yes
Parental leave paid by the employer	Yes	Yes
Workers' compensation paid by the employer (or reimbursed to it)	Yes	Yes
Allowances that count	All-purpose, on-call, sleepover, broken shift, first aid / medication, nauseous work, bilingual / interpreting	Toilet / refuse, broken shift, first aid
Overtime	No	No
Travel, meal and protective clothing allowances; materials and equipment	No	No
Leave loading; annual, sick or long service leave paid out as a lump sum or on termination	No	No
Pay in lieu of notice, redundancy, Christmas, ex-gratia and one-off bonuses	No	No
Workers' compensation paid directly by the insurer; Government Paid Parental Leave; super	No	No

The lists are not exhaustive. For a pay item that isn't on them, ask the Long Service Corporation.

A worked example

A community services worker on $35 an hour works 30 ordinary weekday hours and a rostered 8-hour Saturday shift at time and a half. They also work 4 hours of overtime and receive a $20 travel allowance.

NSW gross ordinary wages: 30 × $35 + 8 × $52.50 = $1,470. The Saturday penalty is included; overtime and travel are not.
For comparison, Victoria's community services scheme would take the Saturday hours at the base rate only: 38 × $35 = $1,330. A spreadsheet set up for one state gives the wrong answer in the other.

Who goes on the return

Community services

Every eligible worker on your payroll in the quarter, part time and casual included.
Workers with no wages in the quarter are still included: select the reason for the $0 in the portal.
Start and finish dates where someone started or left in the quarter.

Contract cleaning

Every worker doing cleaning work in NSW, part time and casual included.
The 5-day rule: a worker who is not yet registered and worked fewer than 5 days in the quarter can be left off, with no levy. A worker who is already registered is reported even for one day.
New workers with $0 wages are left off. $0 for an existing worker is only for extended leave without pay; if you didn't engage someone at all in the quarter, end them on their last working day instead.
Work outside NSW is not reported here; it belongs to that state's scheme.
Workers who mainly supervise, do admin, or clean only for their employer's own premises are generally not covered. Check the scheme's definition if unsure.

Commonwealth places are excluded in both schemes. Work on Commonwealth land can't be credited under the NSW schemes. For cleaners this catches common contracts: the Long Service Corporation gives Sydney Airport, Western Sydney Airport, Holsworthy Barracks, RAAF Base Williamtown, RAAF Base Wagga Wagga and Commonwealth-owned office buildings as examples. Xero doesn't record where work was done, so those wages need to be taken out by hand, or kept on separate pay items.

Step by step

1. Export from Xero

Xero report	Why you need it
Payroll Activity Details	Every pay item for every employee in the quarter, with amounts. The source of ordinary wages.
Employee Remuneration	Start and termination dates, and employee groups so you can leave out staff who aren't covered.
Timesheet Details (cleaning)	Days worked, for the 5-day rule on workers who aren't registered yet.

Xero reports pay runs by payment date. A pay run paid on 2 October for the last week of September falls into October–December. Pick one approach to pay runs that straddle the quarter end and keep to it.

2. Decide how each pay item is treated

List the distinct pay items in Payroll Activity Details and mark each one against the table above. Names like "Saturday", "Sunday", "Night Shift" and "Public Holiday Worked" are usually rostered penalties and count; "Overtime", "Time and a Half" and "Double Time" don't. Check anything ambiguous against a payslip.

3. Total each worker

Sum the amounts of the items that count for each worker, with a pivot table or SUMIFS on employee and pay item. Take out any wages for Commonwealth places or work outside NSW.

4a. Community services: key it into the portal

Log in to the Employer Portal and enter each worker's gross ordinary wages, start and finish dates, and a reason for anyone at $0. There is no spreadsheet upload for this return, so have a list ready, sorted by surname, before you log in.

4b. Contract cleaning: fill the CSV and upload it

If your account is set up for the CSV method, download the return template from the portal. After your first return it comes with your existing workers already listed. Fill in GrossOrdinaryWages and any termination dates, save as CSV, and upload. The Long Service Corporation's CSV guide sets these rules:

Each worker appears once. A second row creates errors and possible duplicate records.
Don't change names or dates of birth in the file. "Anthony" becoming "Tony" creates a duplicate worker. Contact details changed in the file are ignored; only the worker or the Corporation can change them.
Start dates: for an existing worker, the first day of the return period; for a new worker, their actual start date (not before 1 July 2011).
Phone numbers are 10 digits or blank. Excel drops the leading zero when it opens a CSV, so a file opened and re-saved in Excel can fail.
New workers need an address (line 1, suburb, state, postcode, country), date of birth and a valid email.

Mistakes that cost time

Using a Victorian spreadsheet for NSW. NSW includes rostered penalties at the full amount.
Including overtime, travel or leave loading.
Leaving $0 workers off the community services return. They stay on, with a reason.
Cleaning: opening the CSV in Excel and saving it again, losing leading zeros in phone numbers and changing date formats.
Cleaning: reporting a Sydney Airport or RAAF base contract.
Cleaning: renaming a worker to match Xero. Keep the portal's spelling and match names by hand instead.

Do steps 2 to 4 in a few minutes
PLSL Return Helper reads your Xero exports, suggests how each pay item is treated under each NSW scheme, and totals gross ordinary wages per worker. For community services it gives you an entry list sorted by surname, with $0 workers flagged. For contract cleaning it fills the CSV you downloaded from the portal in place, leaving every other column, phone number and date exactly as it was, and saves it under the same file name ready to upload. It runs in your browser and your payroll data never leaves your computer. Free for up to 5 workers; press Try it with sample data to see it first.
Open the helper

The helper only fills rows that are already in the cleaning CSV. Add new workers in the portal first, then download the template, and their wages will be filled in. It can't tell where work was done, so Commonwealth places and work outside NSW are still yours to take out.