Jury Duty in Melbourne and Victoria: Summons, Excusal, Pay and Your Employer

In Victoria, anyone aged 18 or over who is enrolled to vote can be summoned for jury service and must attend unless deferred or excused, or face a fine of up to 30 penalty units ($6,273 from 1 July 2026) or 3 months' imprisonment; jurors are paid $40 a day for the first 6 days and $80 a day after that, and employers must pay the difference between that and what the employee would have earned, for the whole of the service.

Checked on 23 October 2026 against the Juries Act 2000 (Vic) and Juries Victoria.

How you are called for jury service

• Random selection: on the Juries Commissioner's request, the Victorian Electoral Commission draws several thousand names at a time at random from the electoral roll. Anyone aged 18 or over who is enrolled to vote in Victoria is qualified and liable for jury service, unless they are disqualified or ineligible (see below).
• Notice of Selection: Juries Victoria posts you a notice with an Eligibility Form. You must complete it, online through the Juror Portal or on paper, even if you think you are not eligible or not available. You are asked to return it within 14 days; Juries Victoria allows a grace period, but send it as soon as you can.
• Jury Summons: if you are eligible and not excused, a summons names the court, date and time. The Act requires it to be served at least 10 days before your date; Juries Victoria says it sends summonses 2 to 3 weeks ahead. In the Juror Portal, add your email address, turn on SMS updates and enter your bank details, and tell your employer the date.
• The business day before: confirm that you still need to attend. Depending on the court's needs, your date may move by a day or two, or to another month.
• Plan for up to 2 weeks: Juries Victoria asks you to be available for up to 2 weeks from your summons date. Under the Act you cannot be made to attend for more than 5 court days in a row unless you are on a trial that has not finished, or a court orders it in special circumstances.

Each year about 25,000 people attend court for jury service in Victoria, and about 6,500 of them serve as jurors on around 600 trials. Juries decide criminal trials in the Supreme and County Courts and some civil cases: 12 jurors in a criminal trial and 6 in a civil trial.

Who cannot serve

The Juries Act 2000 lists people who are disqualified (Schedule 1) and people who are ineligible (Schedule 2). The table summarises both; a conviction for which a free pardon was granted is disregarded.

Say so on your Eligibility Form. If you are summoned and you know you are disqualified or ineligible, you must tell the Juries Commissioner as soon as practicable, with the reason. Victoria Police checks each jury list for offending, to find anyone who is disqualified. If you are ineligible, or you are excused, Juries Victoria gives you a 12-month exemption, after which you can be selected again.

Deferring or being excused

Deferral: you can ask to have your service moved to another time within the next 12 months, at any time after you receive the Eligibility Form and before you are placed on a jury panel. On the Eligibility Form you can also list dates that don't suit you, and Juries Victoria will block them out; if you can't attend for most of the proposed period, you can choose a month within 3 months after it ends. Juries Victoria says it typically gives only 1 deferral for work reasons.

Being excused: the Juries Commissioner can excuse you for all or part of the jury service period if there is good reason. Under section 8 of the Act, good reason includes:

• illness, poor health or incapacity;
• distance: more than 50 km to the court if it is in Melbourne, or more than 60 km if it is outside Melbourne, or travel that would take excessive time or cause excessive inconvenience;
• substantial hardship or substantial financial hardship to you, or substantial inconvenience to the public;
• caring for dependants when other care is not reasonably available;
• advanced age;
• being a practising member of a religious society or order whose beliefs are incompatible with jury service; and
• any other matter of special urgency or importance.

Juries Victoria's form lists the reasons it accepts in practice: medical reasons (with a medical certificate); distance; being self-employed or an independent contractor (give your ABN and trading name); casual work with unpredictable shifts or hours; working for a small business; being a primary carer, or a student or apprentice, during business hours; and other reasons you explain. Work commitments are not a valid reason unless you are self-employed or work for a small business. You must support an application with evidence: a statutory declaration, evidence on oath or affirmation, or another form the Juries Commissioner accepts.

• Permanently: you can apply at any time to be permanently excused, for example because of continuing poor health, disability or advanced age. Juries Victoria says people aged 70 or over, and people with medical reasons (with a certificate), can be permanently exempted.
• After a summons: complete the statutory declaration on the back of your summons, asking for a deferral or to be excused and saying why. It must be witnessed by an authorised witness, such as a police officer, pharmacist or doctor, and reach Juries Victoria by email, fax or the Juror Portal by 10am on the business day before your summons date.
• If you are refused: you can appeal to the Supreme Court or the County Court before you become a member of a jury panel. The appeal is lodged with the Juries Commissioner.
• On the day, for a particular trial: when the judge describes the trial, you can ask to be excused from it if you know someone involved (the accused, a witness, a lawyer, the judge or the judge's staff), you know something about the trial, or its nature would cause you significant discomfort.

If you don't respond or attend

• A penalty unit is $209.10 from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027. Juries Victoria's pages still say "over $4,800" for not returning the form or not attending; at today's value, 30 penalty units is $6,273.
• A reasonable excuse for not attending includes having applied to defer or be excused and not being told of a refusal before your summons date. Don't rely on silence, though: check the Juror Portal or call Juries Victoria on (03) 8636 6800.
• You stay liable: if you don't attend when summoned, you can still be called for jury service later.
• Running late: call Juries Victoria as soon as you can. A short delay may be fine; a long one may mean your service is moved to another day.

On the day

• Getting there in Melbourne: if you are summoned to the Melbourne County Court (250 William Street), Juries Victoria recommends public transport (the building is close to Flagstaff station and several tram stops) or booking a parking space online, because there is no dedicated juror parking. Juries also sit at regional courts in Bairnsdale, Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Horsham, the Latrobe Valley, Mildura, Sale, Shepparton, Wangaratta, Warrnambool and Wodonga; check parking before your date, and avoid timed or metered spots, because you can't leave once checked in.
• Bring your summons and photo ID. You pass through airport-style security; knives, knitting needles, scissors, glass food containers and cutlery are taken and returned at the end of the day. Wear neat, smart-casual clothes and closed-toe shoes.
• The jury pool: after check-in and an orientation, you wait with the jury pool; Juries Victoria says up to 150 people may attend on a given day. Before each trial, a ballot chooses a panel to go to the courtroom.
• In the courtroom: the judge outlines the trial: its estimated length, the accused, the charges or dispute, and the witnesses and others involved. Jurors are then chosen at random: 12 to 15 for a criminal trial, 6 to 8 for a civil trial. The prosecution and the defence can challenge or stand aside jurors without giving a reason; it is nothing personal. The jurors chosen take an oath or make an affirmation, which are equally binding.
• Not chosen: you go back to the pool. On most days, if you have not been chosen by the time no more trials are ready to start, your jury service is complete, though occasionally you are asked to return the next day. You can download a Certificate of Attendance for your employer from the Juror Portal.

If you are chosen for a trial

• Hours: usually 10am to 4:30pm, every business day the trial sits, until it ends. Courts don't sit on weekends or public holidays. Most trials finish within 2 weeks; the judge gives an estimate at the start.
• If you are sick or running late, call the number the judge's staff give you on your first day. Without a reasonable excuse, a juror who fails to attend faces up to $12,546 or 6 months' imprisonment.
• Phones and contact: phones, tablets and laptops must be switched off in court. In an emergency, your family can ring Juries Victoria, which will pass a message on.
• Going home: jurors go home each night. Only rarely does a judge keep a jury together while it decides its verdict, and you would be given plenty of notice.
• No research: from the time you are put on a panel, you must not make your own enquiries about the parties or the case: no internet searches, no asking other people, no visiting the scene and no experiments. The maximum penalty is 120 penalty units ($25,092). Questions go to the court.
• Deliberations are confidential: what is said, argued and voted in the jury room must not be published, and a juror must not disclose it if they have reason to believe it will be published. The maximum penalty is 600 penalty units ($125,460) or 5 years' imprisonment. It is also an offence to publish anything that identifies a person attending for jury service. You may still talk about your jury experience with a registered doctor or psychologist treating you for it.
• Afterwards: if the jury returned a guilty verdict, sentencing details are usually available 4 to 6 weeks later; ring the number on your Certificate of Attendance and quote the case number.

Juror pay and your employer

• Juror payments: $40 a day for the first 6 days and $80 a day after that, paid by direct deposit to the account you enter in the Juror Portal. Everyone who attends is paid, whether or not they are chosen for a trial, including people who are retired, unemployed or receiving a pension.
• When you are not paid: if you attend and are then excused, you receive nothing if you knew of the reason but did not apply to the Juries Commissioner at the first reasonable opportunity, or if you knowingly gave untrue or misleading answers on your form.

Your employer's obligations. Section 52 applies despite anything in your employment contract, and Juries Victoria says jury service in Victoria, including what employers must do, is governed by the Juries Act 2000, not the Fair Work Act 2009:

• Make-up pay (section 52): your employer must pay you the difference between the juror payment and what you could reasonably have expected to earn at work, which can include overtime, penalty rates, loadings or allowances you would have received. It applies for the whole of your jury service, however long it lasts, and whatever the size of the business. It covers full-time and part-time employees and casuals who work consistent, regular hours; a casual whose hours vary considerably may not be paid, so call Juries Victoria. Independent contractors are not employees for this rule.
• Release you: your employer must let you attend, and cannot demand or pressure you to ask to be excused or deferred. It can discuss real business concerns with you, such as a peak period, but the decision to ask is yours.
• No leave, no roster changes: jury service must not be taken from your annual leave, sick leave or other leave, and your usual roster must not change except to cover your attendance dates.
• Shift workers: you don't have to work an evening shift, or any part of a night shift, on a day you attend jury service, or weekend shifts when your trial sits on the Friday before and the Monday after; you are still paid the difference. If you are summoned on your day off, you must still attend; you receive the $40 juror payment but no make-up pay, because you would not have earned that day.
• No dismissal or disadvantage (section 76): an employer must not dismiss you, threaten to, or otherwise disadvantage you because you are, were or will be away on jury service. The maximum penalty is 600 penalty units ($125,460) for a company and 120 penalty units ($25,092) or 12 months' imprisonment for an individual. If the employer is found guilty, the court can also order back pay, reinstatement or, if reinstatement is impracticable, compensation of up to 12 months' pay.
• Your part (section 53): tell your employer the date as soon as possible, tell them the estimated length if you are chosen for a trial, and at the end give them written details: Juries Victoria's Certificate of Attendance and payment remittance show your dates and payments.

Support after jury service

Juries Victoria's Juror Support Program offers free, confidential counselling with registered psychologists: up to 6 one-hour sessions by phone or video, for anyone who attended for jury service, chosen for a trial or not. It is available once your jury service has ended; book through Juries Victoria's website. For urgent support at any hour, including weekends and public holidays, call 1300 307 912 and ask for the Court Services Victoria Juror Support Program.

Free help

Jury service works differently in each state. See our pages for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, or our guide to criminal law across Australia.

How Go To Court Lawyers can help

Our free line, 1800 577 015, answers at any hour. Jen, our AI legal information assistant, gives general legal information and takes your details; Jen is not a lawyer and does not give advice about your case. A 60-minute consultation with a lawyer who practises in Victoria is a fixed $295, by phone, video or in person where the lawyer offers it. The lawyer can advise on an application to defer or be excused, an appeal against a refusal, a fine or charge for not attending, and what to do if your employer refused to release you, withheld make-up pay or treated you unfairly because of jury service. Requests are taken at any hour; how soon a lawyer can see you depends on who is available. Request a $295 consultation.

General information only, not legal advice. Updated 23 October 2026. Checked against the Juries Act 2000 (Vic), Authorised Version No. 060 (amendments as at 10 February 2025, the current version on the Victorian legislation website); Juries Victoria's pages on what jury service is, the Notice of Selection, the Jury Summons, attending for jury service, serving on a jury, work and payment, employer work and payment obligations, support for jurors, court locations and contact details; the Department of Justice and Community Safety's penalty unit value for 2026-27; and Victoria Legal Aid's contact page, on 23 October 2026; and the County Court of Victoria's contact page on 22 October 2026. Juries Victoria's pages give older dollar amounts for the fines; the amounts here are the Act's penalty units at the current value.