Oregon: Paid Sick Leave Requirements
The short answer
Oregon employers with at least 10 employees generally provide paid sick time; smaller employers provide the same protected time unpaid, while an employer with a Portland location reaches the paid threshold at six employees. Leave accrues at least one hour per 30 hours worked, is usable beginning on day 91, and may be limited to 40 hours of accrual and use per year, an 80-hour bank, and 40 hours of carryover. Uses include health and family care, safe leave, bereavement, public-health emergencies, and qualifying voluntary blood donation.
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This is the general rule in Oregon. Ezel applies current Oregon law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and local interaction | Oregon Sick Time Law, ORS 653.601-.661. State law preempts local sick-leave requirements, while the statewide statute preserves Portland's lower paid-leave threshold through its special 6-employee rule (§§ 653.606(13), 653.661). |
|---|---|
| Employer and employee coverage | All OR employers must provide protected sick time: paid at 10+ employees statewide, unpaid below 10; an employer with a Portland location provides paid time at 6+ (§ 653.606). Employee includes hourly, salary, commission, piece-rate and home-care workers; exclusions include federal-paid-sick-time recipients, independent contractors, assistance-program trainees, work-study students, Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act-exempt workers, and a person employed by parent/spouse/child (§ 653.601). Qualifying multiemployer CBA/trust plans may satisfy the law (§ 653.646). |
| Accrual and annual entitlement | Accrual starts day 1 at ≥1 hour/30 worked or 1⅓ hours/40; employer may cap annual accrual at 40 hours. Use starts on calendar day 91. FLSA executive/administrative/professional exempt employee presumed 40 hours/week unless normal week is shorter (§ 653.606(1), (3), (5)-(6)). |
| Frontloading, caps, and carryover | Employer may frontload 40 hours and avoid ordinary accrual/carryover. Otherwise up to 40 unused hours carry over; policy may cap total bank at 80 hours and annual use at 40. Mutual-consent year-end payout/refill alternative applies to paid time; compliant PTO must meet the law for its first 40 hours (§§ 653.606(1), (3)-(4), 653.611). |
| Qualifying uses and family | Employee/family illness, diagnosis, treatment or preventive care; sick-child home care or qualifying closure and bereavement under § 659A.159; safe-leave purposes under § 659A.272; coworker donation if employer policy allows; public-health-emergency closure, jeopardy or exclusion; and approved/accredited voluntary blood donation (§ 653.616). Family includes spouse/domestic partner; child, parent, sibling/stepsibling, grandparent or grandchild and specified partners; and a blood-or-affinity equivalent (§§ 653.601(4), 659A.150(4)). |
| Requests, notice, documentation, and increments | Employer must grant available accrued time on request and may use usual procedures if they do not interfere. Foreseeable notice ≤10 days; unforeseeable notice as soon as practicable. Hourly increments, except an undue-hardship policy may use increments ≤4 hours only if ≥56 paid-leave hours are available. Verification generally only after >3 consecutive scheduled workdays; 15-day medical-verification deadline after request when prior notice was absent; employer pays reasonable uncovered costs; no diagnosis/details; abuse-pattern exception. No replacement or make-up shift may be required (§§ 653.606(8), 653.621, 653.626). |
| Pay, payout, reinstatement, and records | Paid time is at regular rate without benefit reduction; commission/piece-rate-only worker gets at least minimum wage, and mixed base-plus-commission/piece-rate worker gets base wage or minimum wage, greater. No separation payout required. Rehire within 180 days restores unused balance; sale/transfer and internal transfer preserve it. Written available-balance notice at least quarterly; health/safe-leave information confidential (§§ 653.601(6)-(7), 653.606(5), (7), (10)-(12), 653.631). |
| Posting, retaliation, enforcement, and remedies | Individual written notice plus quarterly balance notice in employer's usual communication language. Denial, interference, nonpayment, retaliation, discrimination and counting protected sick time under an adverse attendance policy are unlawful. BOLI enforces; employee complaint/civil action is expressly available for retaliation and attendance-policy violations; willful enumerated violations may draw civil penalty ≤$1,000 (§§ 653.256, 653.631, 653.641, 653.651). |
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Requirements one by one
Paid at 10 employees statewide, or six with a Portland location
Every covered Oregon employer must provide protected sick time. The difference is
whether it is paid: the statewide threshold is at least 10 Oregon employees, while
an employer with a location in Portland reaches the paid threshold at six. The
employee-count test looks for the threshold average during 20 workweeks. Oregon
preempts local sick-leave requirements, so Portland's lower threshold operates
through ORS 653.606(13), not a separate local accrual system.
One hour per 30 worked, with three different 40-hour limits
Accrual begins on the first day at one hour per 30 hours worked, or 1⅓ hours per
40. Use begins on calendar day 91. An employer may separately limit annual
accrual to 40 hours, annual use to 40 hours, and carryover to 40 hours, while
also capping the total bank at 80 hours. A 40-hour frontload avoids the ordinary
accrual and carryover rules. Those numbers answer different questions; a
40-hour carryover does not itself require more than 40 hours of use in the next
year.
Health, safety, bereavement, emergency, and blood-donation uses
ORS 653.616 covers the employee's or a family member's illness, diagnosis,
treatment, and preventive care. It also incorporates qualifying sick-child and
bereavement leave under ORS 659A.159 and safe leave under ORS 659A.272. The
family definition reaches listed relatives and partners plus a person related by
blood or affinity whose close association is equivalent to family. Current law
also permits accrued sick time for blood donation through an approved or
accredited voluntary program.
Notice, proof, and increments
For foreseeable leave, an employer may require no more than 10 days' advance
notice; unforeseeable leave requires notice as soon as practicable. The normal
minimum increment is one hour. The undue-hardship exception is narrow: the
employer must offer at least 56 hours of qualifying paid leave and still may not
require increments longer than four hours.
Verification generally begins only after more than three consecutive scheduled
workdays. The employer pays reasonable uncovered costs, including lost wages,
and may not demand the diagnosis or the details of protected safety leave. A
documented abuse pattern permits verification regardless of duration.
Pay, restoration, notice, and enforcement
Paid sick time is compensated at the regular rate without reducing benefits.
Commission-only and piece-rate-only employees receive at least minimum wage;
employees with a base wage plus commission or piece-rate pay receive the base
rate or minimum wage, whichever is greater. Separation payout is not required,
but rehire within 180 days restores unused time.
Employers must give each employee an individual rights notice and written
available-balance notice at least quarterly, using the language normally used to
communicate with that employee. ORS 653.641 bars denial, interference,
nonpayment, retaliation, discrimination, and adverse attendance points for
protected sick time. BOLI enforces the law; retaliation and attendance-policy
violations may also support a complaint or civil action under ORS 653.651.
What trips people up
Small employers still provide protected time. Below the paid threshold, the
same accrual and use framework generally applies as unpaid sick time; the law is
not a complete small-business exemption.
A general PTO bank must preserve the sick-time rules. ORS 653.611 treats the
first 40 hours as the statutory floor. A larger bank does not permit narrower
uses, longer notice, more demanding proof, or retaliation for those protected
hours.
No separation payout does not mean the balance always disappears. Oregon
does not require cash-out, but rehire within 180 days restores the unused
balance, and a sale or transfer of the business preserves it.
Common questions
Can an employer require a doctor's note for one sick day?
Ordinarily no. Verification generally requires more than three consecutive
scheduled workdays, although the statute has an exception when the employer
suspects abuse, including a pattern of unscheduled leave next to weekends,
holidays, vacation days, or paydays.
Does carried-over time increase the 40-hour annual use limit?
Not necessarily. An employer may allow up to 40 hours to carry over while still
maintaining a separate 40-hour annual use limit and an 80-hour total bank cap.
Can an employer make the employee find shift coverage?
No. ORS 653.606 bars requiring a replacement worker or an alternate make-up
shift as a condition of using sick time. The employee and employer may mutually
agree to additional hours instead of using the balance.
Are Oregon cities allowed to create different sick-leave rules?
No. ORS 653.661 expressly preempts local sick-leave requirements. Portland's
six-employee paid threshold is already written into the statewide law.
Statutes and sources
- ORS 653.601, 653.606, and 653.611. Coverage, accrual, thresholds,
frontloading, caps, carryover, pay, payout, restoration, and PTO substitutes.
2017 SB 299 enrolled
(accessed July 23, 2026). - ORS 653.616 and 653.626. Current uses, including blood donation, and
verification limits. 2025 SB 1108 enrolled
and current ORS chapter
(accessed July 23, 2026). - ORS 659A.150. Current family definition. 2023 SB 999
enrolled
(accessed July 23, 2026). - ORS 653.621, 653.631, 653.641, 653.651, 653.661, and 653.256. Requests,
notice, increments, employee notices, confidentiality, unlawful practices,
enforcement, preemption, and civil penalties. Oregon
Legislature
(accessed July 23, 2026).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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