California Paid Sick Days: Accrual, Usage, and Your Rights

California paid sick days are guaranteed to nearly every worker in the state under the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act. Since January 1, 2024, the minimum is five days or 40 hours per year, whichever gives you more time. You start earning sick time on your first day of work, you can begin using it after 90 days on the job, and your employer cannot punish you for taking it.¹

Who Is Covered

You qualify if you work for the same employer for 30 or more days within a year in California. Full-time, part-time, temporary, and per diem workers all count. Accrual begins on day one of employment, but you cannot actually draw on the balance until you have been with the employer for at least 90 days.¹

A few groups fall outside the state law. Employees covered by certain collective bargaining agreements are exempt if the agreement expressly provides paid sick days, includes final and binding arbitration for disputes, and guarantees a regular hourly rate at least 30 percent above the state minimum wage. Flight deck and cabin crew for air carriers are also exempt as long as they receive equivalent compensated time off.¹

How You Earn the Time

Employers can choose one of three methods. The standard accrual rule gives you one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours you work, overtime included, starting on your first day.¹

Frontloading is the second option. Your employer deposits the full five days or 40 hours at the start of each year or employment period. No accrual tracking, no carryover.

The third option is an alternative accrual schedule. The employer can design its own formula as long as you reach at least 40 hours of accrued sick leave by your 200th calendar day of employment or each calendar year.¹

An existing paid-time-off policy can satisfy the law if it lets you use PTO for the same purposes and under the same conditions, and provides at least the same amount of time.

How Much You Can Use, and What Rolls Over

Even if your balance climbs higher, your employer can cap actual use at 40 hours or five days per year, whichever is greater.¹

Under the standard accrual method, unused hours carry into the next year, but employers can cap total accrued leave at 80 hours or ten days. In practice, you might build a ten-day bank over time while still being limited to five days of actual use in any single year.²

With frontloading, there is no carryover obligation. Any unused frontloaded time resets when the new allotment lands.

What You Can Use Sick Days For

Paid sick leave covers more than being home with a cold:

Your own diagnosis, treatment, or preventive care for an existing or potential health condition.
The same kinds of care for a family member.
Safe time if you are a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, including obtaining a restraining order, attending counseling, relocating, or participating in safety planning.³

The definition of family member is broad: child (biological, adopted, foster, or stepchild, regardless of age), parent or stepparent, spouse, registered domestic partner, grandparent, grandchild, and sibling. You can also designate one additional person per 12-month period, even if that person does not fit any of those categories.

How to Request a Sick Day

An oral request is enough. There is no required form, and your employer cannot invent one as a condition of approval. If the need is foreseeable, give reasonable advance notice. If it is not, notify your employer as soon as you can.¹

You can use sick leave in increments as small as two hours, or your employer’s smaller minimum increment for other leave, whichever is less. Employers are not required to let you take less than two hours at a time.

Doctor’s Notes

An employer cannot deny paid sick leave simply because you did not bring in a note. The law does not condition the benefit on medical certification. If an employer has specific reason to believe the leave is being misused, it may ask for documentation before paying out. A blanket note-for-every-absence policy is not what the law contemplates.

How Your Sick Pay Is Calculated

Sick leave is paid at your regular rate, calculated according to how you are classified.

For non-exempt (hourly) workers, employers use one of two methods: your regular rate of pay for the workweek in which you take the sick time, or a 90-day average that divides your total wages (excluding overtime premium pay) by the total hours worked in the full pay periods of the prior 90 days.¹

For exempt (salaried) workers, sick pay is calculated the way the employer calculates other paid leave. A full-time salaried employee’s daily rate is typically the annual salary divided by 52 weeks, then by 5 days.

Whichever method applies, payment for sick time must appear on your next regular paycheck. Your employer cannot defer it. Sick pay is taxed as ordinary wages, with the usual federal and state income tax, Social Security, and Medicare withholding.⁴

What Your Employer Must Tell You and Keep

Every pay period, your employer must show your available sick leave balance on your pay stub or on a separate document issued the same day. Missing this information is itself a violation.¹

Employers must also post a workplace notice about paid sick leave rights where employees can see it, and keep records of hours worked and sick days accrued and used for each employee for at least three years.⁵

If Your Employer Denies Leave or Retaliates

Complaints go to the California Labor Commissioner’s Office. You can file a wage claim for denied sick pay, or a separate retaliation complaint if you were punished for exercising your rights.

Retaliation is broader than firing. Cutting your hours, demoting you, or threatening any adverse action because you requested or used sick leave all count. The Labor Commissioner can order reinstatement, back pay, payment of the sick days you were denied, and administrative penalties of $50 for each day the violation continued, up to $4,000 per affected employee.⁶

The general statute of limitations for wage-related claims in California, including sick leave violations, is three years. File before that window closes or your claim can be lost.

How Sick Days Interact With FMLA and CFRA

If you qualify for unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act or California’s own Family Rights Act, your employer can require you to use accrued paid sick leave at the same time. The sick leave runs concurrently with the unpaid leave, so you get a paycheck during weeks that would otherwise be unpaid, but you also burn through your sick balance in the process.⁷

If you are counting on 12 weeks of job-protected leave for a serious medical event and expect to still have sick leave afterward, the concurrent-use rule is worth understanding in advance.

No Payout When You Leave

Your employer does not have to pay you for unused sick leave when you quit, get laid off, or retire. Accrued sick time disappears at separation. Vacation pay works differently in California and must be paid out, but sick leave does not.²

One exception matters. If the same employer rehires you within one year, your previously accrued and unused sick leave must be reinstated, and you continue accruing from there under the same caps.

Your City May Give You More

Several California cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Diego, have their own paid sick leave ordinances that go beyond the state minimum. Local rules can require faster accrual, higher caps, or broader coverage. Where a local ordinance applies, your employer must follow whichever law gives you the greater benefit. Check with your city’s labor office if the state minimum does not seem to match what you are owed.

1
California Department of Industrial Relations. California Paid Sick Leave: Frequently Asked Questions
2
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code LAB 246
3
California Labor Commissioner’s Office. Victims of Domestic Violence Leave Notice
4
Internal Revenue Service. Employer’s Supplemental Tax Guide
5
California Department of Industrial Relations. Healthy Workplace Healthy Family Act of 2014 (AB 1522)
6
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code LAB 248.5
7
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.207 – Substitution of Paid Leave