Paid sick leave by state: 2026 laws, accrual rates and caps

Paid sick leave by state is one of the few HR questions where the answer really is “it depends where the employee works.” Federal law sets no minimum. State law does, in 20 states plus the District of Columbia, and each law has its own accrual rate, annual cap, employer size threshold and start date. This guide collects the sick leave laws by state as of November 12, 2026, verified against each state’s labor department or statute where we could reach it, then explains the rules that matter day to day: accrual, carryover, what the time can be used for, notice and documentation limits, and the no-retaliation rules that decide how your attendance policy has to treat a sick day.

Is paid sick leave required by federal law?

No. The U.S. Department of Labor’s sick leave page says it plainly: “Currently, there are no federal legal requirements for paid sick leave.” The Fair Labor Standards Act covers minimum wage, overtime and records, not time off. The Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees at covered employers up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for serious health conditions, and lets paid leave run alongside it, but it does not create paid sick days.

Two federal exceptions touch some employers. Certain federal contractors must provide paid sick leave under Executive Order 13706 and its Department of Labor regulations, and federal employees have their own sick leave system. For everyone else, paid sick leave is a state and city question, which is why the table below is the heart of this guide. Our paid time off guide covers the broader PTO rules, including vacation payout at termination.

Paid sick leave by state: the 2026 table

As of November 2026, these 20 states and Washington, D.C. require most private employers to provide paid sick leave: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Illinois, Maine and Nevada require paid leave that can be used for any reason, which a PTO bank fits naturally. The remaining 30 states have no statewide law, although a few have cities with their own ordinances, covered in the next section.

The table shows the accrual rate, the annual cap on paid use, the employer size that triggers paid leave, and when the law took effect. “All employers” means the law covers employers of any size, subject to each law’s exclusions for certain workers. Hours are minimums; employers can always give more.

Missouri, repealed. Voters approved paid sick leave in November 2024 and it took effect May 1, 2025, but HB 567 repealed it effective August 28, 2025. Missouri employers may offer sick leave but are no longer required to. Check the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations for guidance on hours earned before the repeal.

A few rows need a footnote. Connecticut’s expansion is still phasing in: employers with 11 or more employees came under the law on January 1, 2026, and every employer with at least one employee is covered from January 1, 2027, so a five-person Connecticut shop has about seven weeks left to set up accrual. Michigan’s Earned Sick Time Act took effect February 21, 2025, and small businesses with 10 or fewer employees had until October 1, 2025 to start accruing. Maryland and Massachusetts require the time but not the pay at smaller employers, so an eight-person Maryland employer still has to give unpaid, protected sick leave. Several states also exclude specific groups, such as employees under a qualifying union contract or those working very few hours. Maryland, for instance, excludes employees who regularly work fewer than 12 hours a week, and Minnesota covers only employees expected to work at least 80 hours in a year.

We confirmed the figures above on each state’s labor department site or in its statute where the page was reachable. Several official sites block automated lookups, so for Alaska, Massachusetts and Nebraska we relied on the same figures our PTO guide already states, and the Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico and Oregon start dates come from the enacting laws rather than a current agency page. Confirm with your state labor department before you set a policy.

City sick leave laws

Cities and counties layer their own ordinances on top of state law, and where the two differ the employer follows the rule that is better for the employee. Six to know:

• New York City. The Earned Safe and Sick Time Act mirrors the state tiers (56 paid hours at 100 or more employees, 40 paid at 5 to 99, 40 unpaid at 4 or fewer with net income under $1 million) and adds 32 hours of unpaid protected time off a year plus a separate bank of 20 hours of paid prenatal leave, according to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.
• Chicago. Since July 1, 2024, Chicago’s Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance requires two separate banks: 1 hour of paid leave and 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 35 hours worked, up to 40 hours of each a year. Chicago employers follow this ordinance instead of the state act. We could not reach the city’s page to reconfirm these figures, so check the Office of Labor Standards.
• Philadelphia. The Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces ordinance requires 1 hour of sick leave per 40 hours worked, up to 40 hours a year, paid at employers with 10 or more employees and unpaid below that. Confirm current terms with the city’s Office of Worker Protections.
• Seattle. Paid Sick and Safe Time uses three tiers. Employers with 1 to 49 full-time equivalents accrue 1 hour per 40 worked with 40 hours of carryover; 50 to 249 accrue 1 per 40 with 56 hours of carryover; 250 or more accrue 1 per 30 with 72 hours of carryover (108 with a PTO plan). The ordinance dates to 2012.
• San Francisco. The Paid Sick Leave Ordinance, in force since 2007, accrues 1 hour per 30 hours worked with a balance cap of 48 hours at employers with fewer than 10 employees and 72 hours at 10 or more.
• Los Angeles. The city’s minimum wage ordinance requires 48 hours of paid sick leave a year, more than the state’s 40, by accrual at 1 hour per 30 worked or a 48-hour frontload. Confirm with the Office of Wage Standards, whose site we could not reach.

Other cities with ordinances include Oakland, Berkeley, San Diego, Emeryville and several other California cities, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Bloomington in Minnesota, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, and Montgomery County in Maryland. Some states, including Texas and Florida, preempt local sick leave laws entirely, which is why Austin’s 2018 ordinance never took effect. If you employ people in a city with its own rule, put that city on your compliance list next to the state.

How sick leave accrual works

Every state law uses one of two methods, and most let you choose: accrual as hours are worked, or a frontloaded lump sum at the start of the year.

Accrual. The employee earns a fraction of an hour for every hour on the clock. At the most common rate, 1 hour per 30 hours worked, a full-time employee working 2,080 hours a year would earn 69.3 hours before any cap, and an employee working 30 hours a week (1,560 hours a year) earns 1,560 ÷ 30 = 52 hours. Because most laws let you cap use at 40 hours, the cap, not the rate, usually decides what the employee can actually take. Accrual counts hours worked, not paid hours, so sick time and PTO taken do not themselves earn more sick time. For salaried exempt staff, most laws assume a 40-hour week unless the normal schedule is shorter.

Here is an illustrative example. Suppose Northfield Coffee opened a second shop in Denver and barista Jordan Lee transferred there, working 32 hours a week. Under Colorado’s Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, Jordan earns 32 ÷ 30 = 1.07 hours of paid sick leave a week, about 2.1 hours per biweekly pay period (64 ÷ 30) and 55.5 hours over 52 weeks. Northfield can limit Jordan’s use to 48 hours in the year and allow up to 48 unused hours to carry over. If Jordan takes two eight-hour sick days in March, 16 hours come off the balance and payroll pays them at Jordan’s regular rate, with no overtime premium because sick hours are not hours worked.

Part-time and seasonal staff accrue too. Nearly every law covers part-time employees on the same per-hour basis, which is why a written definition of part-time hours does not change sick leave eligibility. The exceptions are explicit minimums like Maryland’s 12-hours-a-week rule and Minnesota’s 80-hours-a-year rule, and waiting periods for new hires, which range from none in New Mexico to 90 days in Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and D.C., 106 days in Maryland, 120 days in Connecticut, Maine, Michigan and New Jersey, and up to a year in Vermont. Accrual still starts on day one; only use is delayed.

Because accrual is driven by hours worked, it is only as accurate as your time records. A manager estimating hours from the schedule will under-accrue anyone who picked up a shift and over-accrue anyone who left early. Accruing from time clock punches fixes both.

Carryover, frontloading and caps

Three numbers control the balance: the annual use cap, the carryover limit and the total accrual cap. States combine them differently, and the vocabulary trips people up.

• Annual use cap. The most hours an employee can take in a year. Most states set it at 40; Colorado 48, Alaska and Nebraska 56 at larger employers, New Mexico 64, Michigan 72. Washington sets no cap on use at all.
• Carryover. Unused accrued hours roll into the next year. Nearly every accrual-based law requires it, usually up to the annual cap (40 hours in New Jersey, Connecticut, Oregon and Washington; 48 in Colorado; 72 in Michigan). Carryover does not raise the use cap, so an employee who carries 40 hours into January and accrues 40 more can still be limited to using 40.
• Total accrual cap. A ceiling on the balance, after which accrual pauses. California allows 80 hours or 10 days, Minnesota 80 hours, Maryland 64, Oregon 80.

Frontloading is the alternative. You grant the full annual amount on the first day of the year (or of employment, prorated in some states) and skip accrual tracking. Most laws then let you skip carryover too, because the employee starts every year with the full bank. Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Michigan, Minnesota and Connecticut all allow it on those terms, and Minnesota lets you frontload 48 hours if you pay out the unused balance at year end, or 80 hours if you do not. Two cautions: California requires frontloaded new hires to have 24 hours available by day 120 and 40 by day 200, and New York says a frontloaded amount cannot be reduced if the employee ends up working fewer hours than expected. Frontloading is simpler to administer, but it means a new hire can use the whole bank in month two.

Use-it-or-lose-it, where the balance expires at year end without being frontloaded, generally does not work under an accrual-based sick leave law because carryover is required. Arizona, Rhode Island and Minnesota offer a middle path: pay out unused hours at year end and provide the full amount for immediate use on January 1. Payout at separation is not required by any state sick leave law in the table, but if your sick time lives inside a PTO bank, state vacation payout rules may apply to the whole bank, a point the PTO guide covers in detail.

What sick time can be used for

Every law covers the employee’s own illness, injury, medical diagnosis, treatment and preventive care. Beyond that, most cover three more categories:

• Family care. Caring for a family member with the same needs. Definitions are broad and growing: child, parent, spouse or domestic partner, sibling, grandparent and grandchild are typical, and Washington and several other states add anyone who lives with the employee or depends on them for care, or a “designated person.”
• Safe time. Time to deal with domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking affecting the employee or a family member: medical care, counseling, relocation, legal help and court appearances. Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington, Rhode Island, Michigan and D.C. all include safe time, which is why many laws are called “sick and safe” leave.
• Closures and public health. The employee’s workplace, or a child’s school or care provider, closed by a public official for a health reason. New Jersey also covers attending a child’s school meeting, Colorado added bereavement and weather-related closures, and California added jury duty and court appearances in 2025.

Illinois, Maine and Nevada are different: the leave can be taken for any reason, and Illinois and Nevada forbid employers from asking why. A policy that says “sick leave is for illness only” does not comply in those states. In the other states, employees still do not have to share a diagnosis; they only need to say the absence is for a covered reason.

Notice, documentation and no retaliation

This is where attendance policies collide with sick leave law. Three rules recur in almost every state.

Notice. For foreseeable leave, such as a scheduled appointment, you may require advance notice, usually up to 7 days (Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey) and sometimes more. For unforeseeable leave, you may only require notice “as soon as practicable,” and several states require you to have a written notice policy before you can enforce one. A policy that demands two hours’ notice for every absence and treats anything less as a no call, no show cannot apply that penalty to someone who woke up with the flu at 5:00 a.m. for a 6:00 a.m. shift. You also cannot require the employee to find their own replacement; Connecticut, New Jersey, Nevada, Michigan, Oregon and Washington say so expressly.

Documentation. Most laws limit when you can ask for a doctor’s note. Colorado, for example, lets employers ask for documentation only after four or more consecutive workdays of paid sick leave, and other states set their own limits: three consecutive days or shifts in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington (Washington only with a written policy), more than two consecutive scheduled workdays in Minnesota and Maryland, and never in Illinois. California says an employer cannot deny leave solely because the employee has not produced a certification. Where a note is allowed, you cannot require it to state the diagnosis, and you must accept an employee’s own written statement when a provider’s note is unreasonably costly or slow to get. Keep any medical notes in a confidential file, separate from the personnel file.

No retaliation, no attendance points. Every law prohibits firing, disciplining or otherwise penalizing an employee for using protected sick leave, and many states and cities with paid sick leave laws make it illegal to count protected sick time against employees. California’s Labor Commissioner says that if an employee has accrued and available sick leave and uses it for a purpose the law covers, the employer may not give an “occurrence” for the absence, because that is a form of discipline. New York Labor Law 215 treats “assessing any demerit, occurrence, any other point, or deductions from an allotted bank of time” for a legally protected absence as retaliation. Colorado’s Healthy Families and Workplaces Act makes it unlawful to count paid sick leave taken under the law as an absence that may lead to discipline, and Minnesota Statutes 181.9447 bars an absence control policy or attendance point system from counting earned sick and safe time as an absence that may lead to adverse action. The practical rule for any point system: an absence protected by law cannot earn a point, a demerit or an occurrence. California’s FAQ adds a useful limit: an occurrence can still apply to any part of an unscheduled absence not covered by available sick leave, so once the balance is exhausted the normal policy applies. Our attendance policy templates build this exclusion in, and the no call, no show guide explains how to handle a missed shift without penalizing protected leave.

Using a PTO bank to satisfy the law

You do not need a separate “sick leave” bucket in most states. Connecticut, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, California and others say an employer complies if it offers paid time off that can be used for the same purposes and under the same conditions, and accrues at least as fast. The trap is in “same conditions.” A PTO bank fails the test if any one term is less generous than the law. If your PTO bank is meant to satisfy a sick leave law, check it line by line: accrual rate, when new hires can start using it, the smallest increment of use, notice and documentation rules, carryover, and reinstatement for rehires. A PTO policy that asks for a week’s notice for any absence would fail a sick leave law that allows same-day use for illness.

Two more consequences follow from a combined bank. First, every hour in it is protected: if an employee uses PTO for a covered sick reason, that absence cannot earn an attendance point, even though the same bank also covers vacations. Second, in states that treat earned vacation as wages, such as California and Colorado, the whole bank, sick hours included, may have to be paid out at separation, which a stand-alone sick bank would not. Employers in those states often keep sick leave separate for exactly that reason. Whichever you choose, the balance should be visible to employees: California, Washington and several other states require the available balance on the pay stub or a regular statement, and a PTO tracker that employees can see themselves ends most of the “how many hours do I have” questions.

Compliance checklist and policy outline

Work through this list for every state and city where you have employees, including remote staff, who are covered by the law where they physically work. Start from the paid sick leave by state table above, then add any city ordinance.

1. Map your locations. List every state and city where employees work, including remote staff, and check the sick leave rules for each. Note the employer size test for each law, because headcount is usually counted across all locations, not per site.
2. Pick accrual or frontloading per state. Set the rate, the annual use cap, the carryover limit and any balance cap to at least the legal minimum. If you operate in several states, the simplest policy adopts the most generous terms everywhere.
3. Set the waiting period and increments. New hires accrue from day one; set the first-use date to the legal maximum or earlier. Allow use in the smallest increment payroll handles, and no larger than the law allows (two hours in California, four in Nevada and Minnesota).
4. List every covered reason. Self, family, safe time, closures, and “any reason” in Illinois, Maine and Nevada. Define family member as broadly as the widest law that applies to you.
5. Write the notice and documentation rules to the legal limit, not stricter. Foreseeable leave: up to 7 days’ notice. Unforeseeable: as soon as practicable. Documentation only after the number of consecutive days your state allows, never a diagnosis.
6. Exclude protected sick time from attendance discipline. Any point or occurrence system must exclude absences protected by law: FMLA leave, state and city paid sick leave, disability and pregnancy accommodations, jury duty, military leave and similar. Train managers to check the balance before recording a point.
7. Pay it right. Sick time is paid at the regular rate (not below minimum wage) by the next regular payday. It is not hours worked, so it does not count toward overtime.
8. Show the balance and keep records. Put accrued, used and available hours on the pay stub or a monthly statement. California requires sick leave records to be kept for 3 years; set your retention to the longest period that applies.
9. Post the notice. Every state issues a required poster or a written notice to employees at hire. Add the current version to your new hire paperwork.
10. Handle rehires. Most laws reinstate unused balances for employees rehired within a set window (6 months in New Jersey, 9 in Arizona, 12 in California, New Mexico, Washington and D.C.).
11. Review every January and July. Caps and coverage change on those dates. Connecticut’s final step lands on January 1, 2027.

The outline below is a starting point for the sick leave section of your handbook. Replace the bracketed items with your state’s figures, delete what does not apply, and have an employment attorney review it. Pair it with the full employee handbook template and a time off request form.

Frequently asked questions