Recognised activities can include any of the following:
- paid work including being self employed
- paid or unpaid leave, including paid or unpaid parental or maternity leave
- unpaid work in a family business
- unpaid work experience or unpaid internship
- actively setting up a business.
They can also include any of these:
- doing an approved course of education or study
- doing training to improve work skills or employment prospects
- actively looking for work
- volunteering
- other activities on a case by case basis.
We’ll only recognise some of these activities for a certain amount of time. We’ll only count:
- periods of unpaid leave for up to 6 months, this doesn’t apply to unpaid parental leave
- setting up a business for 6 months out of every 12 months
- 16 hours per fortnight if your only activity is volunteering or actively looking for work.
If you’re setting up a business and then start working in the business, you need to update your activity details. You need to update your activity from setting up a business to paid work.
For help, use our online guide to update your activity details.
Parental or maternity leave
We’ll count any paid or unpaid parental and maternity leave you take. We’ll continue to count this as long as you’re expected to return to work after your leave ends. When including this as a recognised activity you should give us the hours you worked before you started your leave.