Law + guidance
How long until workers compensation starts paying, in every Australian scheme
When you cannot work and the rent is due, the question is not what percentage of your wage the scheme pays. It is when the first payment lands. Safe Work Australia’s 2025 comparison sets that out scheme by scheme, and the answer is reassuringly specific: 7 days in New South Wales and Victoria, 14 in Western Australia and South Australia, 3 working days in the Northern Territory. Then there is the other half of the table, which nobody quotes. For paying your medical bills, nine of the twelve schemes specify no time at all.
This is the same biennial report behind our pages on how long you keep your full wage and the return-to-work plan clock. Table 5.1 is the one that answers the first practical question after an injury, and it is worth reading as two different tables that happen to share a page.
The wages clock is real and mostly short
Every scheme except three sets a period within which weekly payments must begin. The trigger differs, and that matters as much as the number: some schemes start the clock at notification, others only once liability is accepted.
| Scheme | When weekly payments must begin |
|---|---|
| NSW | Within 7 days of notification where provisional liability applies; promptly once the insurer accepts liability |
| Vic | Within 7 days of the claim for weekly payments being accepted |
| NT | Within 3 working days from accepting liability |
| WA | Within 14 days of claim acceptance. The first payment includes accrued payments back to the date of injury or incapacity |
| SA | Within 14 days of the claim |
| Qld | Day of assessment, or the day after the assessment day |
| Tas | On the first pay day after the claim is received. If that day falls within 14 days of receipt and payment is not reasonably practicable, payment must begin no less than 14 days from receipt |
| ACT | From notification of injury |
| NZ | The employer pays the first week of compensation for loss of earnings; the Corporation pays from the day after the first week of incapacity |
| Seacare | Within 30 days of determination for injuries resulting in death or permanent impairment. For all others, no time specified |
| Comcare | No time specified |
| DVA | No time specified |
Source: Safe Work Australia, Comparison of Workers’ Compensation Arrangements in Australia and New Zealand 2025 (30th edition), Table 5.1, read 20 August 2026. Wording is summarised. The provisions the table cites are NSW Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998 ss267(1) and 74A(1), Vic s178(3), Qld ss141(1) and 141(2), WA s47(2), SA s64(9), Tas s81(1), ACT s38(1)(a), NT s85(2), Seacare s130, and NZ s98 with Schedule 1, Part 2, s32.
The Northern Territory is the fastest and the trigger is the catch. Three working days is the shortest period in the country, but it runs from the day liability is accepted, and nothing in this row says how long acceptance itself may take. New South Wales is the opposite shape: seven days, but running from notification where provisional liability applies, which is the mechanism that gets money moving before the merits are settled. A short clock from a late trigger can pay later than a longer clock from an early one, and the table alone will not tell you which you are in.
The medical clock mostly does not exist
Now the same table, one row down. For when the insurer must actually pay a medical expense, this is the complete picture:
| Scheme | When medical expenses must be paid |
|---|---|
| Tas | 28 days |
| ACT | 30 days of the insurer receiving notice |
| NT | As soon as practicable |
| NSW, Vic, Qld, WA, SA, Comcare, Seacare, DVA, NZ | No time specified |
Same source and table. The provisions cited are Tas ss77AA(1) and 77AB(2), ACT s90(1), NT s85(3), and Qld s210 (which the table lists against “no time specified”).
Nine of twelve. In the three largest schemes by population, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, the legislation sets a deadline for starting your wages and none for paying the physiotherapist, the surgeon or the pharmacy.
Our view, and it is a view rather than a finding. This asymmetry is defensible in theory. Income replacement is a fixed, predictable, recurring obligation to one person, while a medical account is variable and arrives from a third party who has their own terms. But the practical effect lands on the injured worker anyway, because in most schemes the bill is either fronted by the worker or chased by a provider who eventually stops treating people whose insurer pays slowly. A deadline on wages and none on treatment quietly decides which of those two failures the system tolerates.
The related clocks, which are also worth knowing
Two more rows in the same table cut the other way, imposing deadlines on the worker or the provider rather than the insurer.
- Getting the invoice to the insurer. Victoria requires it within 6 months of the service, Queensland within 2 months, and Tasmania within 7 days of the employer receiving the account. Everywhere else, no time is specified.
- Claiming medical expenses. New South Wales sets 21 days of the claim and Victoria 28 days. The other ten schemes specify no period.
- Passing payments on. Where the employer receives the money first, the ACT requires it be handed to the worker immediately, Victoria within 7 days of the end of the week in which payments are due, New South Wales as soon as practicable, and Tasmania specifies no time.
The pattern across all of it is that the sharpest deadlines attach to the steps that are easiest to define, and the vaguest language attaches to the steps that cost the most to get wrong.
How we sourced this
Every figure here comes from Table 5.1 of Safe Work Australia’s Comparison of Workers’ Compensation Arrangements in Australia and New Zealand 2025, the 30th edition, published 30 June 2026 and current as at 31 December 2025. We read the table in the report’s own HTML edition rather than the PDF, because the PDF renders this table as twelve narrow columns that text extraction interleaves into nonsense; the HTML version is a real table and the cells can be read cleanly. The legislative references are the ones the report gives, reproduced so you can check us. Wording is summarised throughout rather than quoted, and the count of nine schemes with no specified time for paying medical expenses is our count of that row.
This page describes what the schemes prescribe. It is not legal advice, and it cannot tell you what is happening on your claim. If a payment is late, the scheme regulator in your jurisdiction is the body to ask.
Sources
- Safe Work Australia, Comparison of Workers’ Compensation Arrangements in Australia and New Zealand 2025, Table 5.1: Prescribed time periods for payments (HTML edition, read 20 August 2026): every row used on this page, and the legislative references cited under each cell.
- Safe Work Australia, Comparison of Workers’ Compensation Arrangements in Australia and New Zealand 2025 (publication page): the 30 June 2026 publication date, the 30th edition designation, and that the report is current as at 31 December 2025.
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