Former Queensland cabinet minister Gordon Nuttall has been jailed for seven years for corruption.

He will be eligible for parole in two and a half years - on January 2, 2012.

The one-time Sandgate MP, 56, was found guilty on Wednesday of corruptly receiving $360,000 in secret commissions from two wealthy Queensland businessmen between 2002 and 2005.

He had had faced a maximum of seven years' jail on each of 36 separate charges.

Nuttall and his family cried as the sentence was handed down by Chief Judge Patsy Wolfe just after 11.30am on Friday.