California Paid Sick Leave Law: Accrual, Protections & Local Rules

California’s paid sick leave law requires nearly every employer in the state to provide at least 40 hours or five days of paid sick leave each year. The current minimum took effect on January 1, 2024, when Senate Bill 616 raised the floor from three days to five.¹ You qualify if you work for the same employer for 30 or more days within a year in California, whether you are full-time, part-time, temporary, or placed through a staffing agency.² Employer size does not matter.

Who Is Covered

Most workers in California are in. Part-time, per diem, and temporary employees all count once they hit the 30-day threshold. For workers placed through a staffing agency, either the agency or the client employer (or both, as joint employers) must provide the leave.

A few groups are fully exempt. Railroad employees are excluded because federal law governs their working conditions. Construction workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement with specified sick leave provisions are also outside the state law.¹ Workers in other industries covered by a qualifying collective bargaining agreement get a partial exemption, but even then the employer cannot demand a replacement worker, must allow leave for all the purposes state law covers, and remains bound by the anti-retaliation rules.

How You Earn the Leave

Accrual starts on your first day of work. You cannot actually use the leave until your 91st calendar day of employment. After that waiting period, one of two systems applies.

Hourly Accrual

Under the default method, you earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.¹ Your employer can cap your total banked hours at 80 hours or 10 days, and separately can limit what you actually use in a single year to 40 hours or five days. Unused hours carry over year to year, so a stretch of illness does not permanently deplete your balance.

An employer can use an alternative accrual formula, but any alternative must produce at least 24 hours of accrued leave by your 120th calendar day of employment and 40 hours by your 200th calendar day.

Front-Loading

The alternative is front-loading. Your employer gives you the full 40 hours or five days at the start of each benefit year, with no need to track hourly accrual and no carryover.¹ New hires under a front-loading policy must have at least 24 hours available by the 120th calendar day and the full 40 hours by the 200th calendar day.

Combined PTO Plans

A general PTO or vacation plan can satisfy the sick leave requirement, but only if it provides at least the same amount of leave, lets you use it for every purpose the sick leave law covers, and matches the same accrual, carryover, and usage rules. An employer cannot simply point at a PTO bank and call it compliant.

How Your Sick Pay Is Calculated

If you earn the same wage every hour, calculation is easy. If your pay varies (commissions, tips, piece rate, shift differentials), it gets more involved. For nonexempt employees, the employer picks one of two methods:³

The workweek method: your regular non-overtime rate for the workweek in which you use the leave, calculated as total non-overtime pay divided by total non-overtime hours that week.
The 90-day method: your total wages over the prior 90 days (excluding overtime premium pay), divided by non-overtime hours worked in full pay periods during that span.

For exempt employees, the calculation follows whatever method the employer uses for other paid leave. If your income swings week to week, the 90-day lookback usually produces a fairer number than a single week’s rate.

What You Can Use Sick Leave For

Once you clear the 90-day waiting period, you can use accrued leave for your own health or a family member’s. Covered reasons include diagnosis, care, and treatment of an existing condition, plus preventive care like annual physicals and vaccinations.¹

“Family member” is defined broadly. It covers a child (biological, adopted, foster, stepchild, legal ward, or a child you stand in loco parentis to, regardless of age), parent, spouse, registered domestic partner, grandparent, grandchild, and sibling.⁴ You can also designate one additional person per 12-month period, which lets you care for someone outside those categories, like a close friend or unmarried partner.

Sick leave also covers absences tied to being a victim of a qualifying act of violence. As of January 1, 2025, this category extends beyond domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking to include any act in which someone causes or threatens bodily injury, uses a weapon, or engages in a pattern of threatening conduct.⁵ You can use leave for obtaining legal relief, accessing a shelter or crisis center, or safety planning.

Your employer can set a minimum increment on how much leave you use at a time, but that minimum cannot exceed two hours. So a one-hour appointment might cost you two hours of your bank, but the employer cannot force you to take a full day.

Your Protections When You Use It

Your employer cannot fire you, threaten to fire you, demote you, suspend you, or discriminate against you for using accrued sick leave, trying to use it, filing a complaint, or cooperating in an investigation.¹ An attendance policy that counts protected sick leave as an unexcused absence is unlawful. Point-based attendance systems that dock points for lawful sick leave use are a textbook violation.

Your employer also cannot require you to find a replacement worker before taking leave. For a foreseeable absence like a scheduled surgery, give reasonable advance notice. For unexpected illness, notify your employer as soon as you reasonably can.

Can your employer demand a doctor’s note? Generally, no. An employer cannot deny paid sick leave based solely on the lack of medical certification, and you are entitled to take leave immediately upon making an oral or written request. The narrow exception is when the employer has specific information suggesting the request is not for a legitimate purpose. Your employer is also not entitled to know the specific reason for your absence.

What Happens When You Leave the Job

Unused sick leave does not have to be paid out when you quit, get fired, or retire.³ Your accrued sick hours simply lapse. This surprises people because California requires payout of unused vacation at separation, but the sick leave statute carves out an exception.

Combined PTO plans that lump vacation and sick time together are different. That full balance must be paid out at separation, because California treats PTO usable as vacation as earned wages.

If you are rehired by the same employer within 12 months, your previously accrued and unused sick leave must be reinstated. The only exception is if your balance was already paid out when you left (typical only with combined PTO plans). For seasonal workers and anyone who cycles back to the same employer, this matters.

What Your Employer Must Tell You

Every pay period, your employer must show your available sick leave balance on your pay stub or on a separate written document issued the same day as your paycheck.¹ If your employer offers unlimited sick leave, the pay stub can simply say “unlimited.” Missing balance information can trigger separate wage statement penalties under Labor Code section 226.

Your employer must post the official Paid Sick Leave notice in a visible workplace location. At hire, you must receive a written notice under Labor Code section 2810.5 that specifies how the employer satisfies the sick leave requirement, whether through accrual, front-loading, or a compliant PTO plan.⁶

Employers must keep accrual and usage records for at least three years. If they don’t, the law presumes you were entitled to the maximum leave allowed. That presumption puts the burden on the employer in any dispute.

Penalties and How to File a Complaint

Under Labor Code section 248.5, if your employer unlawfully withholds sick leave, the administrative penalty is three times the dollar value of the withheld leave, or $250, whichever is greater, up to $4,000 total.⁷ If the violation causes further harm, like being fired for requesting leave, an additional $50 per day the violation continues can be added, capped at the same $4,000 total. The Labor Commissioner can also order reinstatement, back pay, and payment of the withheld sick days. If the employer does not comply, the Labor Commissioner or Attorney General can sue and recover attorney’s fees and costs on top.

To file a complaint, submit a wage claim to the Labor Commissioner’s Office online, by email, by mail, or in person. The office investigates and typically schedules a settlement conference; if the dispute is not resolved there, a hearing officer reviews the evidence and issues a decision.⁸ You have three years from the date of the violation to file.

When a Local Ordinance Gives You More

State law is a floor. Several California cities have their own paid sick leave ordinances that exceed the state minimum, and where they do, your employer must follow whichever rule is more generous to you.¹

Los Angeles requires either 48 hours front-loaded annually or accrual at one hour per 30 hours worked, with a carry-over cap of at least 72 hours. San Francisco’s ordinance lets employees at companies with 10 or more workers accrue up to 72 hours, with no annual usage limit, meaning you can spend down your full bank rather than being capped at 40 hours of use per year the way state law allows. San Diego and Berkeley also have their own standards.

Since 2024, state law preempts local ordinances on six specific topics: lending of paid sick leave, pay stub statements, calculation of sick leave pay, notice requirements for foreseeable leave, timing of payment, and whether sick leave must be paid out at termination. On those six issues, the state rule governs everywhere. On everything else, including accrual caps, usage limits, covered family members, and accrual rates, a more generous local ordinance still controls. If a local ordinance is silent on an issue, state law fills the gap.

1
California Department of Industrial Relations. California Paid Sick Leave: Frequently Asked Questions
2
California State Senate. SB 616 Gonzalez Paid Sick Days for All Working Californians Fact Sheet
3
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 246 – Paid Sick Days
4
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 245.5
5
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 246.5
6
California Department of Industrial Relations. Wage Theft Protection Act of 2011 – Notice to Employees – Frequently Asked Questions
7
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 248.5 – Enforcement of Paid Sick Leave
8
California Department of Industrial Relations. How to File a Wage Claim