Delaware: Bereavement Leave Requirements
The short answer
No. Delaware does not require an ordinary private-sector employer to provide a separate bereavement, funeral, memorial, or reproductive-loss allotment. Delaware Paid Leave covers bonding, serious-health-condition caregiving, an employee's own serious health condition, and a qualifying military exigency—not death as such. A five-day paid pregnancy-loss benefit exists for state and public-school employees, but it is outside ordinary private employment.
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This is the general rule in Delaware. Ezel applies current Delaware law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and type of leave | No general private-sector bereavement mandate. Delaware Paid Leave under 19 Del. C. ch. 37 does not list death, funeral, memorial, grief, reproductive loss, or post-death tasks as covered reasons; separate 5-day paid pregnancy-loss provisions apply to state and public-school employees |
|---|---|
| Covered employers and employees | No private-sector bereavement employer-size or employee-eligibility test. Delaware Paid Leave's separate rules generally require 12 months and 1,250 hours; employers with 10-24 employees provide parental coverage only and employers with 25+ provide parental, family-caregiving, and medical coverage |
| Qualifying deaths, relationships, and events | No private-sector statutory covered-death, relationship, funeral, memorial, grief, reproductive-loss, or post-death-task category. An employee's own serious health condition after a loss may independently qualify for medical leave |
| Leave amount, timing, and caps | No state-required private-sector days, per-death amount, annual cap, consecutive-use rule, or completion window. Any Delaware Paid Leave used for an independently qualifying serious health condition is not a bereavement allotment |
| Paid or unpaid; use of existing leave | No required paid or unpaid private-sector bereavement bank. Employer policy or agreement controls voluntary leave; Delaware Paid Leave wage replacement does not become payable merely because a death or pregnancy loss occurred |
| Notice, documentation, and proof | No private bereavement-specific call-in rule, request form, obituary or death-certificate requirement, proof deadline, or privacy rule. Employer policy controls voluntary leave; an independent Delaware Paid Leave claim follows that program's medical-certification procedures |
| Job protection, attendance, and confidentiality | No bereavement-specific private restoration, attendance, retaliation, or confidentiality right. Chapter 37 protections apply only when the absence independently qualifies as covered family, medical, parental, or exigency leave |
| Enforcement, remedies, and deadlines | No bereavement-specific private complaint, civil action, penalty, or filing deadline. Chapter 37 remedies do not reach a death-related absence unless it independently satisfies that chapter's covered-leave rules |
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Delaware's public pregnancy-loss leave is not a private mandate
Delaware does not require an ordinary private-sector employer to create a paid
or unpaid bereavement, funeral, memorial, or reproductive-loss allotment. The
state's paid family and medical leave program does not change that result. The
coverage tests appear in 19 Del. C. § 3701(3), while 19 Del. C. § 3702(a)
lists four benefit triggers: caring for a child during the first
year after birth, adoption, or foster placement; caring for a family member
with a serious health condition; the employee's own serious health condition;
and a qualifying military exigency. Death, a funeral, a memorial, grief, and
post-death tasks are not separate triggers.
An employee may qualify after a loss for a different reason that the statute
does name. For example, a serious health condition that makes the employee
unable to perform the job may independently support medical leave. That is
medical leave based on the health condition, not bereavement leave based on
the death or loss.
The five-day statute is easy to misapply. Section 5125 defines “state
employee” as a full-time or part-time employee of the State and gives that
employee up to five paid days for a miscarriage, stillbirth, or other pregnancy
loss suffered by the employee. Section 1318(l) extends the same circumstances
to employees covered by the public-school chapter. Neither provision sets the
minimum for an ordinary private employer.
Without a private-sector mandate, an employer's policy or agreement supplies
the days, pay status, covered relationships or losses, use of PTO, notice,
proof, confidentiality treatment, and attendance consequences for voluntary
bereavement leave.
What trips people up
“Delaware Paid Leave” is not leave for every serious life event. The
program's name and agency description are broad, but section 3702's operative
list controls. Death as such is absent.
Five paid days are not a statewide private benefit. Sections 5125 and
1318(l) are public-employment provisions, and section 5125 is limited to a
pregnancy loss suffered by the employee.
A health consequence and bereavement are different triggers. A qualifying
serious health condition after a loss may support medical leave. It does not
turn every funeral, memorial, or grieving absence into protected leave.
Common questions
Must a Delaware private employer provide three or five bereavement days?
No. Delaware sets no general private-sector minimum number of bereavement days.
Does Delaware's five-day pregnancy-loss law cover private employees?
No. The five-day laws cover state employees and employees under the public-
school chapter. They do not create an ordinary private-sector entitlement.
Can an employer request an obituary or death certificate?
Delaware has no general private-sector bereavement statute supplying a proof
list or deadline. A voluntary policy or agreement supplies that procedure. A
separate medical-leave claim follows Delaware Paid Leave's certification rules.
Statutes and sources
- 19 Del. C. §§ 3701 and 3702. Delaware Paid Leave coverage and the
exhaustive list of benefit triggers, which does not name death-related
absence. Official current chapter
(accessed July 15, 2026). - 29 Del. C. § 5125. Five paid days for a state employee's specified
pregnancy loss. Official current chapter
(accessed July 15, 2026). - 14 Del. C. § 1318(l). The matching public-school employee provision.
Official current chapter
(accessed July 15, 2026). - Delaware Code Online. The official-code notice states that the online
version includes acts enacted through June 11, 2026, up to 85 Del. Laws
chapter 292. Official notice (accessed July
15, 2026).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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