California: Paid Sick Leave Requirements
The short answer
Most California employees who work for the same employer at least 30 days in a year accrue at least one hour of paid sick leave per 30 hours worked and may begin using it on day 90. Employers may generally cap annual use at 40 hours or five days and the bank at 80 hours or 10 days, or frontload the full 40 hours or five days and avoid accrual and carryover. Leave covers the employee's or a family member's health and preventive care, specified jury, court, victim and safety needs, and certain agricultural smoke, heat, or flood emergencies.
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This is the general rule in California. Ezel applies current California law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and local interaction | Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act, Lab. Code §§ 245-249. State article is additive. § 249(d) preserves laws/policies with greater accrual, use, or protections; § 246(r) preempts contrary local rules only on separation payout, lending, balance notice, pay calculation, request timing, and payment deadline. Local paid-sick ordinances may therefore add rights. |
|---|---|
| Employer and employee coverage | Employer generally means any person employing another, including public entities; specified railroad employers excluded. Employee qualifies after working in CA for same employer ≥30 days in one year. Exclusions: qualifying paid-leave CBA employees (but § 246.5 use/retaliation protections still cover § 245.5(a)(1)); qualifying construction CBA employees; adequately compensated air crew; certain retired public employees; specified railroad employees (§§ 245.5, 246(a), 246.5(d)). |
| Accrual and annual entitlement | Standard: ≥1 hour per 30 hours worked from employment start. Overtime-exempt administrative/executive/professional employee deemed 40 hours/week unless normal week is shorter. Alternative regular accrual must yield ≥24 hours by day 120 and ≥40 hours by day 200; another option makes 24 hours/3 days usable by day 120 and 40 hours/5 days by day 200. Use begins day 90 (§ 246(a)-(c)). |
| Frontloading, caps, and carryover | Accrued leave carries over; employer may limit use to 40 hours/5 days per year and bank to 80 hours/10 days. Frontloading full 40 hours/5 days at each year start eliminates accrual/carryover. Compliant PTO can substitute only if same purposes/conditions and accrual, carryover, use floor are met; a protected legacy pre-2015 accrual method has separate benchmarks (§ 246(d), (f), (j)). |
| Qualifying uses and family | Oral/written request: employee/family diagnosis, care, treatment, preventive care; jury service, subpoenaed witness appearance, victim protective relief, 25+-employee violence-related medical/services/counseling/safety/relocation/care/legal/childcare uses, and since 2026 specified crime proceedings; outdoor agricultural employee may avoid emergency smoke/heat/flood conditions. Family: child any age/dependency, parent, spouse, registered domestic partner, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, and one designated person per 12 months (§§ 245.5(c), 246.5(a); Gov. Code § 12945.8). |
| Requests, notice, documentation, and increments | Request may be oral or written. Foreseeable need: reasonable advance notice; unforeseeable: as soon as practicable. No replacement worker may be required. Employee chooses amount, but employer may set reasonable minimum increment ≤2 hours. Article states no general medical-document requirement and employer need not inquire into/record purpose; health and violence information remains confidential. Cross-referenced victim leave has separate certification rules for an unscheduled absence (§§ 246(k), (m), 246.5(a)-(b), 247.5(b), 249(a); Gov. Code § 12945.8(c)). |
| Pay, payout, reinstatement, and records | Nonexempt pay: regular-rate method for leave workweek or prior-90-day wages ÷ hours, excluding overtime premium; exempt pay mirrors other paid leave. Pay due by next regular payday. No payout of unused statutory sick leave at separation; rehire within 1 year restores it unless PTO was paid out. Each payday give available balance in writing/wage statement. Keep hours worked/accrued/used ≥3 years, allow access; inadequate records presume maximum accrual unless clear-and-convincing rebuttal (§§ 246(g), (i), (l), (n), 247.5(a)). |
| Posting, retaliation, enforcement, and remedies | Conspicuous workplace poster; willful failure penalty ≤$100/offense. No denial, discharge, threat, demotion, suspension, or discrimination for use, attempted exercise, complaint, cooperation, or opposition; rebuttable retaliation presumption for adverse action within 30 days of listed protected conduct. Labor Commissioner may order temporary relief, reinstatement, backpay, withheld leave and penalties; withheld leave penalty = 3× amount or $250, greater, aggregate ≤$4,000; other-harm penalty $50/day, aggregate ≤$4,000. Commissioner/AG civil relief includes fees, costs, interest; remedies cumulative; isolated unintentional payroll/notice error exception (§§ 246.5(c), 247, 248.5). |
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Requirements one by one
Choose one complete accrual or frontload method
The standard method earns one hour per 30 hours worked. At that rate, 40 hours
requires 1,200 hours worked and an 80-hour bank requires 2,400 hours. The annual
use floor and the bank cap are different numbers: an employee may carry a bank
larger than the amount usable in one year.
The full frontload method places 40 hours or five days at the beginning of each
year and removes the accrual and carryover duties. The alternative day-120/day-
200 methods must independently reach each statutory checkpoint; providing 24
hours by day 120 does not eliminate the later 40-hour requirement.
Apply the 30-day coverage test and 90-day use wait separately
An employee becomes entitled after working in California for the same employer
for at least 30 days within a year. Accrual begins at employment commencement,
but statutory use may be delayed until the 90th day.
The collective-bargaining exclusions are conditional, not labels. The agreement
must contain the specified paid-leave, arbitration, overtime-premium, and wage
terms; construction has a separate clear-waiver route. § 246.5 expressly
restores its use and retaliation protections to the CBA employees described in
§ 245.5(a)(1).
Match the request to a current qualifying purpose
Health and preventive-care leave covers the employee and the statute's broad
family list, including one employee-designated person per 12 months. Current
law also incorporates jury service, subpoenaed witness appearances, victim
protective relief, specified violence-related needs, and—beginning in 2026—
certain crime proceedings involving an employee or family member who is a
victim.
For the broader violence-related list in Government Code § 12945.8(b), the
cross-referenced employer threshold is 25 employees. Outdoor agricultural
employees have an additional emergency route for smoke, heat, or flooding.
Pay, display, and preserve the balance correctly
Nonexempt leave pay uses either the workweek regular-rate method or the prior-
90-day average method that excludes overtime premium. Exempt leave pay follows
the employer's calculation for other paid leave. Payment is due by the next
regular payday.
The available balance must appear on the wage statement or a separate payday
writing. Hours worked and sick leave accrued and used must be retained for at
least three years. Missing adequate records creates a maximum-accrual
presumption rebuttable only by clear and convincing evidence.
Cal. Labor Code § 247 supplies the poster rule, and § 247.5 supplies the record
and missing-record presumption. Section 248.5 supplies the enforcement remedies;
§ 249 preserves confidentiality and more protective law.
What trips people up
Five days and 40 hours are paired floors. For an employee whose normal day
exceeds eight hours, the day measure can matter; do not automatically convert
every employee to five eight-hour days.
Carryover does not expand the annual use cap. A carried bank can reach the
80-hour/10-day cap while ordinary annual use remains capped at 40 hours/five
days.
A general PTO label changes nothing. The policy substitutes for statutory
sick leave only if the amount, purposes, conditions, accrual, carryover, and use
rules satisfy § 246.
Local ordinances can be more protective. California preserves greater local
accrual, use, and protections, while preempting contrary local rules only for
the specific § 246(r) subjects.
No-payout does not always mean no restoration. Unused statutory sick leave
need not be paid at separation, but it returns on rehire within one year unless
the relevant PTO was paid out.
Common questions
Can an employer require a doctor's note for every sick day?
The paid-sick-days article does not state a general medical-document rule and
says the employer need not inquire into or record the purpose. Separate
incorporated victim-leave provisions contain certification rules for certain
unscheduled absences, and another applicable law or a lawful policy may affect a
specific request.
Can the employer require four-hour increments?
No under the statewide article. An employer-selected reasonable minimum
increment may not exceed two hours, though a smaller increment is allowed.
Must unused statutory sick leave be paid when employment ends?
No. Section 246 does not require separation payout. A broader vacation/PTO plan
may have different payout consequences under other California wage law.
What happens if paid sick leave is unlawfully withheld?
The Labor Commissioner may order the leave paid and add the greater of three
times the dollar amount or $250, subject to the $4,000 aggregate cap stated in
§ 248.5. Other harm can add $50 per day up to a separate stated aggregate cap,
and civil enforcement can include reinstatement, injunctions, fees, costs, and
interest.
Statutes and sources
- Cal. Labor Code §§ 245-249. Coverage, accrual, carryover, use, pay,
requests, records, posting, retaliation, remedies, confidentiality, and local
interaction. California Legislative
Information
(accessed July 22, 2026). - Cal. Government Code § 12945.8. Cross-referenced jury, witness, victim,
family-victim, certification, and crime-proceeding purposes. California
Legislative Information
(accessed July 22, 2026).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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