Paid Sick Leave Laws by State (2026)

Twenty states and the District of Columbia require private employers to provide paid sick leave. Three of those states, Illinois, Maine and Nevada, go further and require paid leave the employee can use for any reason. The other 30 states have no law, Texas has blocked its cities from passing one, and Missouri's voters passed one in November 2024 that the legislature repealed nine months later. There is no federal requirement for private employers at all.

The table below gives, for every jurisdiction with a law in force, the accrual rate, the annual cap, the carryover rule, the employer size threshold, the waiting period and a link to the statute or the state labor department's own guidance. Every row was checked against an official source on 14 October 2026. Where an agency page could be read but the statute text could not, the cell says so, because the vendor pages that rank for this question disagree with each other on a dozen cells and none of them say which ones they are sure of.

The federal baseline

The Department of Labor's sick leave page says it in one sentence: "Currently, there are no federal legal requirements for paid sick leave." The FMLA provides up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job protected leave in a 12 month period, at private employers with 50 or more employees, for employees with a year's service and 1,250 hours. Our guide to FMLA forms and eligibility covers the mechanics.

One federal rule does require paid sick leave, and only for contractors. Executive Order 13706 and its regulations at 29 CFR part 13 require covered federal contractors to provide one hour per 30 hours worked on covered contracts, up to 56 hours a year, with carryover and no payout at separation. The Department of Labor's Fact Sheet 84 still describes it as enforced. The March 2025 executive order that revoked the contractor minimum wage order did not list it, and we found no rescission as of October 2026.

The state table

"PSL" means a paid sick and safe leave law. "Any reason" means the employee need not give one. Caps are per year unless stated. Waiting periods are the maximum the employer may impose before new hires can use leave; accrual starts on day one everywhere unless noted.

Not on the table, on purpose. Missouri's Proposition A sick leave took effect 1 May 2025 and was repealed by HB 567 effective 28 August 2025; the state labor department says employers "may continue to offer earned paid sick time after Aug. 28, 2025, but are no longer required to do so." Virginia's law at Va. Code 40.1-33.3 covers only home health workers. Pennsylvania has no state law but Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County do, covered below.

Notes on the states people get wrong

Michigan. The Earned Sick Time Act that took effect in February 2025 is not the one the courts reinstated in 2024. House Bill 4002, signed and effective 21 February 2025, rewrote it: one hour per 30 stays, the paid cap is 72 hours for employers with 11 or more employees and 40 for smaller ones, frontloading is permitted, and new hires can be made to wait 120 days. Small businesses had until 1 October 2025. Two of the five vendor pages that rank for this topic still give the pre-amendment rules.

Connecticut. The 2024 amendment phased the law in by size. Employers with 11 or more employees came under it on 1 January 2026, and every employer with at least one employee will on 1 January 2027. The count is taken from the payroll for the week containing 1 January. The state FAQ also lists a "mental health wellness day" among the permitted uses, and bars employers from requiring documentation.

Maryland. Three different numbers apply and they are not interchangeable: employees earn up to 40 hours a year, may use up to 64, and may hold up to 64. The vendor tables that give a single figure are wrong whichever one they pick.

New York. The tier for employers with four or fewer employees depends on net income: unpaid leave normally, paid if the prior year's net income exceeded $1 million. Separately, since 1 January 2025, employees get 20 hours of paid prenatal leave per 52 weeks, which is not sick leave and does not come out of it.

Nebraska. The initiative voters passed in 2024 was amended by LB 415 before it took effect. The state labor department's guidance now describes the law as applying to employers with 11 or more employees, with "small business" meaning 11 to 19, and accrual starting only after 80 consecutive hours of employment. We could not read the amended statute text directly, so treat the threshold as the department's reading until you have.

Washington. There is no cap on accrual and no cap on annual use, only a 40 hour carryover limit, which makes it the most generous accrual rule in the country despite the 1 per 40 rate. Since 27 July 2025 the permitted uses include preparing for or attending immigration proceedings.

What changed in 2025 and 2026

• 1 January 2025: California added jury duty, court appearances and expanded violence related uses. New York's 20 hour paid prenatal leave began.
• 21 February 2025: Michigan's Earned Sick Time Act amended and in force for employers with 11 or more employees.
• 1 July 2025: Alaska's law took effect.
• 27 July 2025: Washington added immigration proceedings as a permitted use.
• 28 August 2025: Missouri's sick leave requirement repealed.
• 1 October 2025: Nebraska's law took effect. Michigan's small business compliance date.
• 1 January 2026: Connecticut reached employers with 11 or more employees. California added further judicial proceeding uses. Pittsburgh moved to one hour per 30 and a 72 hour cap for employers with 15 or more employees.
• 22 February 2026: New York City's Local Law 145 added care for a child or care recipient, legal proceedings about housing and benefits, public disasters and workplace violence as reasons, plus 32 hours of unpaid protected time off available from the first day of employment.
• 1 January 2027: Connecticut reaches every employer.

States without a law, and their cities

Pennsylvania has three local ordinances and no state law. Philadelphia's, in force since May 2015, requires one hour per 40 at employers with 10 or more employees, capped at 40 hours a year, with carryover unless the employer frontloads; employers with nine or fewer must give unpaid leave. A 2025 ordinance added a pay formula for tipped workers. Pittsburgh's Paid Sick Days Act, since March 2020, moved on 1 January 2026 to one hour per 30 and a 72 hour cap for employers with 15 or more employees. Allegheny County's ordinance, since December 2021, covers employers with 26 or more employees at one hour per 35, capped at 40. The city's and county's guidance pages are the sources to work from.

Texas is the opposite case. Austin, San Antonio and Dallas each passed paid sick leave ordinances between 2018 and 2019 and each was enjoined by the courts. In 2023 the legislature passed HB 2127, which pre-empts local regulation of employment leave; a trial court struck it down, and in July 2025 the Third Court of Appeals reversed. As of October 2026 no Texas city ordinance is enforceable.

Inside states that already have a law, stricter local layers exist in New York City and Westchester County, Chicago and Cook County, which are exempt from the Illinois state law and run their own, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Seattle and Tacoma, Portland, Montgomery County in Maryland, Bernalillo County in New Mexico, and at least eight California cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland and San Diego. Where a local law is stricter, the stricter rule applies.

How accrual actually works

Take a part time employee in New Jersey working 24 hours a week. At one hour per 30, she earns 0.8 hours a week and 41.6 hours in 52 weeks, which the 40 hour cap trims to 40. If her employer frontloads 40 hours on 1 January instead, nothing accrues and nothing carries over. If it uses accrual, up to 40 unused hours carry into the next year, but she still cannot use more than 40 in that year. The three numbers that vendors conflate, accrual cap, use cap and balance cap, are different levers, and California, Maryland, Minnesota and New Mexico set them at different values.

Salaried exempt employees are usually deemed to work 40 hours a week for accrual, which is the rule in Alaska and Illinois among others. Overtime hours count in Vermont. Our PTO accrual calculator runs the arithmetic for any rate and cap, and the work hours calculator gives the hours worked that feed it.

Multi-state and remote employees

The law that applies is the law where the employee works, not where the company is registered. A Colorado employer with one remote employee in Minnesota owes that employee Minnesota's 48 hour accrual, 80 hour balance and no waiting period, regardless of the Colorado policy. California adds a residency test of its own: 30 days worked in the state within a year. The practical approach most multi-state employers take is a single policy set at the most generous rule they are exposed to, which for accrual is one per 30, for the cap is 56 or 64 hours, and for the waiting period is none. The attendance policy template and the unlimited PTO policy guide cover how to write that down without accidentally promising more than the statute requires.

Two separate systems sit next to these laws and are often confused with them. Paid family and medical leave programs, such as Paid Leave Oregon, New York Paid Family Leave and DC's program, are insurance style benefits for longer absences, funded by payroll contributions and administered by the state. And the final paycheck rules on whether unused leave must be paid out generally do not reach statutory sick leave, which the table above shows is almost never payable at separation, unless it has been merged into a vacation bank.

Key takeaways

• Twenty states and DC require paid sick leave; Illinois, Maine and Nevada require paid leave for any reason. There is no federal requirement for private employers.
• One hour per 30 hours worked is the rule in 14 jurisdictions. The annual cap is most often 40 hours, with 48 in Colorado, 56 in Alaska, Nebraska and New York for larger employers, 64 in Maryland and New Mexico, and 72 in Michigan.
• Accrual caps, use caps and balance caps are separate numbers. California, Maryland, Minnesota and New Mexico set them differently.
• Waiting periods range from none in Colorado, Minnesota and New York to a year in Vermont. Ninety and 120 days are the common choices.
• Payout at separation is not required under any of these laws, but merging sick leave into a PTO bank can trigger vacation payout rules.
• 2025 and 2026 brought new laws in Alaska and Nebraska, a repeal in Missouri, a rewrite in Michigan, a phase-in in Connecticut, and expansions in New York City and Pittsburgh.
• The employee's work location decides which law applies. Multi-state employers usually adopt the most generous rule they face.