Paid sick leave laws by state: accrual, caps, and carryover

How many states require paid sick leave?

There is no federal paid sick leave law for private employers. Coverage comes from state and local law, and as of 2026 roughly 17 states plus Washington, D.C. have a mandatory paid sick leave law: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

On top of those, dozens of cities and counties have their own ordinances. Where a local rule overlaps a state one, the employer generally has to apply whichever is more generous to the employee, which is not always the local rule.

Rules below are summarized for retail and similar hourly workplaces. Local ordinances in cities such as Seattle, Chicago, New York City, and several California municipalities can be more generous than state law, and where they overlap the more generous rule applies.

What accrual rate applies?

One hour of leave for every 30 hours worked is the dominant rate. California, Colorado, New York, and many others use it. A second group, including Illinois and Washington, uses the slower rate of one hour per 40 hours worked.

A full-time employee accruing at one per 30 earns roughly 40 hours over a year of 1,200 worked hours. At one per 40, the same employee earns about 30 hours over that period. The distinction matters most for part-time staff, whose accrual tracks actual hours rather than a headcount assumption.

Nearly every one of these laws lets you front-load the full annual amount at the start of the year instead. Front-loading is administratively simpler and generally removes the carryover obligation, at the cost of granting time to people who might not have accrued it.

Where the laws actually diverge

Four variables account for most of the difference between jurisdictions: the annual use cap, the total accrual cap, whether unused time carries into the next year, and whether there is a waiting period before newly accrued time can be used.

California caps annual use at 40 hours and total accrual at 80. Colorado caps at 48 hours with carryover up to 48. Illinois provides 40 hours of paid leave usable for any reason. Washington sets no annual use cap but requires carryover of up to 40 hours. New York scales the cap by employer size: 40 hours for employers with 5 to 99 employees, and 56 hours for those with 100 or more.

Employer size and net income can also change whether the leave has to be paid at all. In New York, employers with four or fewer employees and net income at or below $1 million provide the annual amount as unpaid leave rather than paid.

What you generally cannot require

Most of these laws limit what an employer can demand in exchange for leave. Advance notice generally cannot be required for unforeseeable illness, though reasonable notice can be required when the need is foreseeable, such as a scheduled appointment.

Documentation requirements are usually capped as well. Many jurisdictions permit requiring a doctor note only after a set number of consecutive days, commonly three. Requiring documentation for a single sick day is prohibited in a number of places.

Requiring an employee to find their own replacement as a condition of using sick leave is prohibited under many of these statutes. That is worth knowing before you build it into a call-out policy.

Setting accrual up per store

In TimelyHours, sick leave settings live under Store settings, then Time off and sick hours, and they are scoped to the individual store. Configure the accrual rate, caps, and any waiting period against the rule for that location.

Balances then move in a ledger tied to the store and the employee, drawing down when time is approved rather than when someone remembers to update a spreadsheet. The hours that drive accrual are already in the system, which removes the manual calculation entirely.

When you add a location in a new state, set its rules from that state requirements instead of duplicating an existing store. Copying settings across state lines is the most common way a compliant operator becomes a non-compliant one.

Verify before you set policy

This guide is general information for store operators, not legal advice. Break and paid sick leave rules change, and city ordinances can be stricter than state law. Verify the current requirements with your state labor agency or an employment attorney before setting policy.