Workers compensation in Queensland: where you are on the schedule
This is the Queensland workers compensation line, drawn from end to end. Queensland has no fixed week where a capacity test lands. Its shape is two step-downs, a five year end point, and the Notice of Assessment as the moment that matters most. Knowing where a point falls is not a decision about your claim.
- Queensland has no fixed-week capacity test: payments step down at 26 weeks and again at 2 years. WCR Act s 150.
- The Notice of Assessment is the moment that matters most. A decision period applies, silence counts as deferral, and some responses cannot be changed once given. WCR Act ss 185 to 189, 239.
- Weekly payments end at the first of: the incapacity ends, 5 years of payments, or the statutory maximum. WCR Act s 144A.
Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld). Queensland has no fixed week cutoff with a work capacity test. Its shape is step-downs, a 5 year end point, and the Notice of Assessment as the pivotal moment.
Your line is drawn heavy. The lines that can run beside it are drawn lighter, and they stay labelled and clickable. Weight shows focus, not importance, and colour never carries a meaning on its own. Every marked point is repeated as text below, with its source.
Nothing on this map marks where you are. A position on a scheme timetable is a fact about the scheme. Where you sit on it is yours, and it is not something this page decides.
The marked points on this line
- Week 1
Payments begin
For the first 26 weeks, the greater of 85% of NWE (normal weekly earnings) or the amount payable under the industrial instrument.
Source: WCR Act s 150 · Checked August 2026 - Week 26
First step-down
From 26 weeks to 2 years, the greater of 75% of NWE or 70% of QOTE (Queensland full time adult ordinary time earnings). The QOTE figure is set each July.
Source: WCR Act s 150 · Checked August 2026 - Year 2
Second step-down
From 2 years to 5 years, payments drop to the single pension rate, unless the worker demonstrates the injury could result in a DPI (degree of permanent impairment) of more than 15%, in which case the higher rate continues.
Source: WCR Act s 150 · Checked August 2026 - Timing varies
Notice of Assessment
Once DPI is assessed, the insurer gives a Notice of Assessment within 10 business days, with any lump sum offer attached. A decision period applies, silence counts as deferral, and some responses cannot be changed once given. The decision period and its consequences are set out in the sections cited.
Source: WCR Act ss 185, 187, 189, 239 · Checked August 2026 - Year 5
Where weekly payments end
Weekly payments stop at the first of: the incapacity ends, 5 years of payments, or the maximum statutory amount is reached. If the 5 year or maximum amount point is reached, further compensation for the injury ends.
Source: WCR Act s 144A · Checked August 2026
Lines that can run beside yours
These are separate systems with their own rules. One can run at the same time as the line above.
- Income protection (IP)
- Total and permanent disability and life cover
- Superannuation and incapacity
- Centrelink
- Return to work
One line does not decide another
The test that ends one scheme is not the test a total and permanent disability (TPD) or income protection policy uses. A termination under one scheme does not decide the other. A TPD policy is assessed under its own definition, set out in the policy document, not under a scheme’s whole person impairment percentage.
None of this means you have a claim, and nothing on this page is an assessment of one. It means the end of one entitlement is not a verdict on all of them. Here is how to find out what cover you hold, free, in one phone call.
Where to go next
- Back to What happens next, where you can switch systems and states.
- Claim pathways: where a line can lead next
Other lines with checked data
- Workers compensation, Victoria
- Workers compensation, New South Wales
- Workers compensation, South Australia
- Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Victoria
- Comcare (national)
- Disability Support Pension (DSP), national
Check everything on this page
Every marked point above carries its own citation. These are the instruments and regulator pages behind them, all checked August 2026.
If something here has changed since it was checked, tell us and we will fix it: contact.
Enquiries open soon. When they do, the contact page is where to reach us: we'll explain which doors exist for your situation and, if you want, introduce you to a firm on our panel. You never pay us. Panel firms do.
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