Arizona Paid Sick Leave: Accrual, Usage, and Carryover

Arizona paid sick leave gives nearly every private-sector worker in the state the right to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to 24 or 40 hours a year depending on how many people the employer has on payroll.¹ Voters created the law through Proposition 206 in 2016, and it reaches full-time, part-time, temporary, and seasonal employees alike.²

Who Qualifies

If you work for a private employer in Arizona, you almost certainly qualify. The statute defines “employer” to include corporations, partnerships, LLCs, trusts, and political subdivisions such as cities and counties. Full-time, part-time, temporary, and seasonal workers are all covered.³

Two categories sit outside the law: the State of Arizona itself and the United States government. If your paycheck comes from a state agency or a federal employer, this statute does not apply to you. Independent contractors are also excluded, since the law covers employees. Misclassification is common though, and a label on your paperwork does not settle the question of whether you’re actually an employee.

Who Counts as a Family Member

You can use the time for yourself or to care for a family member, and Arizona reads that term broadly. It includes a spouse or domestic partner; biological, adopted, foster, or step children; parents and stepparents; grandparents, grandchildren, and siblings. It also covers anyone related by blood or by a close personal relationship that is the equivalent of family.³ That last category is intentionally flexible, so a chosen-family relationship or a relative not named by the statute can still qualify.

How You Earn Hours

You accrue one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, starting on your first day of employment.¹ The annual cap depends on employer size:

Employers with 15 or more employees must allow up to 40 hours per year.
Employers with fewer than 15 employees must allow up to 24 hours per year.

Those are floors. An employer can offer more.

Counting employees isn’t always obvious. Everyone on the payroll counts, including part-time and temporary workers. If headcount rises and falls throughout the year, the 40-hour cap applies as long as the employer had 15 or more people on payroll for any part of a day in at least 20 different calendar weeks during the current or preceding year. Those weeks do not have to be consecutive.¹

Frontloading Instead of Accrual

Employers can skip the hour-by-hour tracking by handing out the full annual balance at the start of the year. If a larger employer frontloads 40 hours, or a smaller one frontloads 24, it does not have to track accrual or allow carryover.⁴ For a mid-year hire, the employer can frontload a prorated amount based on projected hours through year-end, adjusting later if actual hours exceed that estimate.

The 90-Day Wait for New Hires

Accrual begins on day one, but employers can require you to wait up to 90 calendar days before actually using any of it. This waiting period only applies to employees hired after July 1, 2017, and it is optional for the employer.¹ You still accumulate hours during those 90 days. You just can’t spend them yet. This surprises a lot of new hires.

What You Can Use It For

Arizona’s law covers more situations than many people realize. Permitted uses fall into three categories:⁵

Your own illness, injury, or health condition, including preventive care like an annual checkup or a flu shot, and the same for a covered family member.
Public health emergencies, including a public-official closure of your workplace or your child’s school, or a determination by a health authority that you or a family member should stay home because of exposure to a communicable disease.
Domestic violence, sexual violence, abuse, or stalking, whether you are the victim or you’re helping a family member. Covered uses include medical care, counseling, legal help, victim services, and relocating for safety.

Your employer cannot require you to find a replacement worker as a condition of using the time. You can also take it in small increments. The minimum is the smaller of one hour or whatever increment the payroll system uses for tracking absences, so if your employer tracks time in 15-minute blocks, you can take sick time in 15-minute blocks.

What You Get Paid

You are paid at your normal hourly rate. For workers with multiple pay rates, commissions, or piece-rate earnings, the employer generally uses the rate you would have earned during the missed hours or a weighted average from the previous pay period. Salaried employees whose regular pay is not reduced for the absence owe nothing further. In no case can the rate drop below Arizona’s minimum wage, which is $15.15 per hour as of January 1, 2026.⁶

Notice and Documentation

For foreseeable absences, like a scheduled surgery, you must make a good-faith effort to give advance notice and to schedule the time in a way that doesn’t unduly disrupt operations.⁵ For unexpected absences, you just have to notify your employer as soon as it’s practical.

Your employer can adopt a written policy explaining how to give that notice, but with a catch: if the employer never provided you a copy of the policy, it can’t discipline you for not following it. Unwritten call-in procedures are effectively unenforceable.

Employers can request documentation only when you use sick time for three or more consecutive workdays. A note from a health care professional confirming the need for leave is enough. For shorter absences, no proof can be demanded. When the leave relates to domestic violence, sexual violence, abuse, or stalking, you choose the documentation: a police report, a protective order or other court document, a signed statement from a victim services provider or from a counselor or attorney, or your own written statement affirming that the leave was used for a covered purpose. Your personal statement does not need to be notarized.

Whatever the reason, your employer cannot demand that documentation reveal the nature of the health condition or the details of a domestic violence situation. A note saying “the employee needed medical care” is sufficient. Your diagnosis is your business.

Carryover, Payout, and Leaving Your Job

Unused sick time carries over to the next year, but the employer is never required to let you use more than the annual cap (24 or 40 hours) in a single year.¹ Carryover mostly means you don’t start January at zero.

As an alternative, an employer can pay out your unused balance at year-end and then grant the full annual amount for immediate use in the new year. The payout has to cover every unused hour, and the new-year grant must meet or exceed the statutory minimum.

When you leave a job, whether you quit, are fired, or retire, the employer does not have to pay out unused sick time. But if the same employer rehires you within nine months, your previously accrued and unused balance must be reinstated, and you can use it right away while continuing to accrue.

Retaliation and Attendance Policies

Arizona law prohibits retaliation against anyone who uses or tries to use earned paid sick time. Your employer cannot fire you, demote you, cut your hours, or take any other adverse action because you requested or used it.⁷ The protection extends beyond using leave. You are also protected if you file a complaint, cooperate with an investigation, or tell a coworker about their rights. A good-faith complaint that turns out to be wrong is still protected.

One provision matters more in practice than most workers realize: an attendance policy cannot count protected sick leave as an absence that triggers discipline. If your workplace uses a point-based attendance system, earned paid sick time cannot add points. This is where a lot of real violations happen, because automated systems often treat every absence identically. A policy that assigns points for lawful sick leave is itself illegal in Arizona.

Filing a Complaint

If your employer denies you sick time, retaliates against you, or otherwise violates the law, you can file an administrative complaint with the Industrial Commission of Arizona. Anyone can file, not just the affected worker.⁸ The Commission keeps the complainant’s name confidential as long as it can, and will only disclose it with the employee’s consent if disclosure becomes necessary.

The financial exposure for employers is real:

Recordkeeping or posting violations carry a minimum $250 penalty for a first offense and at least $1,000 for each subsequent or willful violation. Repeat offenders can face special monitoring.
Failure to pay earned sick time requires the employer to pay the full balance owed with interest, plus an additional penalty equal to twice the unpaid amount.
Retaliation carries a penalty sufficient to compensate the worker and deter future violations, with a floor of $150 per day for every day the violation continued.

A worker who prevails is also entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs. You can skip the administrative process and file a civil lawsuit directly instead. The fee-shifting provision matters because it makes lawyers willing to take cases that would otherwise be too small to justify the cost of litigation. If you have never seen an earned paid sick time poster in your workplace, that itself is a compliance red flag.⁹

Where This Law Stops and Others Begin

Arizona’s sick leave law does not by itself protect a long medical absence. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year, but only if you’ve worked for the employer for at least 12 months, logged at least 1,250 hours in the previous year, and work at a location with 50 or more employees within 75 miles.¹⁰ Many Arizona workers don’t hit those thresholds, and for them state sick leave is the only statutory protection for health-related absences.

When both laws apply, your employer can require you to use your accrued Arizona sick time during FMLA leave, or you can choose to on your own. The leave runs concurrently, counting against both balances at once.¹¹ The practical effect is that the portion of your FMLA leave covered by accrued sick time is paid rather than unpaid.

If you have a disability and burn through your sick time, the Americans with Disabilities Act may still offer protection. The EEOC has said that employers must consider additional unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation, even after standard leave is exhausted, as long as it does not create an undue hardship.¹² A policy demanding that employees be “100 percent healed” before returning can itself violate the ADA by refusing accommodations that would let someone come back with reasonable modifications.

1
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 23-372 – Accrual of Earned Paid Sick Time
2
Industrial Commission of Arizona. Frequently Asked Questions About Wage and Earned Paid Sick Time Laws
3
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 23-371 – Definitions
4
Industrial Commission of Arizona. Frequently Asked Questions About Minimum Wage and Earned Paid Sick Time
5
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 23-373 – Use of Earned Paid Sick Time
6
Industrial Commission of Arizona. New 2026 Minimum Wage
7
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 23-374 – Exercise of Rights Protected; Retaliation Prohibited
8
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 23-364 – Enforcement
9
Industrial Commission of Arizona. Posters Employers Must Display
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Notice of Eligibility and Rights and Responsibilities
11
U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Frequently Asked Questions
12
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employer-Provided Leave and the Americans with Disabilities Act