To meet the CFRA qualifications, you need to work for an employer with at least five employees, have more than 12 months of service with that employer, and have worked at least 1,250 hours in the 12 months before your leave starts. Clear those three bars and you are entitled to up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period under the California Family Rights Act.
Does Your Employer Have to Offer CFRA Leave
CFRA applies to any private employer with five or more people on payroll. Full-time and part-time workers both count, and the headcount is companywide, not limited to one location. Public employers, including state agencies, cities, and counties, are covered no matter their size.
This is where California reaches much further than federal law. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act only covers employers with 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius, so workers at smaller companies have no federal protection. In California, a five-person business still has to comply.
Do You Personally Qualify
Two conditions have to be true on the day your leave begins.
First, more than 12 months of total service with the employer. The months do not have to be consecutive. If you left and came back, the earlier stretch still counts, as long as the combined total exceeds one year.
Second, at least 1,250 hours actually worked during the 12 months right before your leave starts. Only time on the job counts. Paid time off, vacation, sick leave, and holidays where you did no work are excluded. If you average around 24 hours a week, you cross the 1,250-hour line over a year, so many part-time employees qualify. Your employer is required to keep accurate time records, and if there is a dispute about whether you hit the number, the employer carries the burden of proving you did not.
Airline Flight and Cabin Crew
Flight deck and cabin crew members follow a different hours test. They qualify with at least 504 hours worked or paid during the preceding 12 months and at least 60 percent of their applicable monthly guarantee.
What You Can Use CFRA Leave For
Once you qualify, four categories of need open up:
- Your own serious health condition that keeps you from doing your job.
- A qualifying family member’s serious health condition.
- Bonding with a new child after birth, adoption, or foster placement. Bonding leave must be completed within one year of the child’s arrival.
- A qualifying exigency related to a family member’s active military duty.
You do not have to take the 12 weeks in one block. Leave can be intermittent, taken in shorter stretches or as a reduced schedule, so long as the total stays within 12 workweeks. Intermittent leave is common for chemotherapy, physical therapy, or flare-ups of a chronic condition. If the intermittent leave is for planned medical treatment, you should try to schedule it to minimize disruption to your employer.
Who Counts as a Family Member
CFRA recognizes a wider circle of relatives than federal law. You can take care leave for any of the following:
- Spouse or registered domestic partner.
- Child of any age, including biological, adopted, foster, and stepchildren, legal wards, and children of your domestic partner.
- Parent, including biological, adoptive, foster, and stepparents, parents-in-law, legal guardians, and anyone who stood in a parental role when you were a child.
- Grandparent.
- Grandchild.
- Sibling.
- A designated person: anyone related by blood or whose relationship with you is the equivalent of a family relationship.
The designated person category is unusually flexible. You name the person when you request leave. Your employer can limit you to one designated person per 12-month period, but the law does not require that person to fit any traditional family category. A close friend, an unmarried long-term partner, or a mentor who raised you informally could all qualify.
What Counts as a Serious Health Condition
A serious health condition is an illness, injury, impairment, or physical or mental condition that involves either inpatient care or continuing treatment by a health care provider. Inpatient care means an overnight stay in a hospital, hospice, or residential health care facility, plus any follow-up treatment connected to that stay. Continuing treatment covers conditions needing ongoing medical supervision, including treatment for substance abuse.
The dividing line is incapacity: whether the condition prevents you from working, attending school, or carrying out normal daily activities. A broken bone requiring surgery and weeks of recovery qualifies. A short cold or flu generally does not, unless complications require extended treatment. Chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, or epilepsy can qualify if they cause periodic episodes of incapacity and require health care provider visits at least twice a year.
What Qualifying Gets You
You get up to 12 workweeks of leave in any 12-month period. Your employer chooses how to measure the 12-month window and must apply the same method to every California employee. If no method is selected, the calculation most favorable to you controls.
The leave itself is unpaid. CFRA does not require your employer to pay you while you are out. You can often layer in wage replacement through California’s Paid Family Leave program or State Disability Insurance, both run by the Employment Development Department. PFL currently replaces roughly 70 to 90 percent of wages depending on income, up to a weekly maximum of $1,765. PFL and SDI only provide money. They do not protect your job. CFRA is what keeps your position safe while you draw those benefits. Your employer may also allow, or in some cases require, that you use accrued vacation or sick leave during the leave; your employee handbook will spell this out.
Your group health insurance continues on the same terms as if you were still working. If dental, vision, mental health, or dependent coverage is part of the group plan, that continues too. The employer pays its share of the premium; you remain responsible for yours. During paid leave your share can be deducted from your paycheck. During unpaid leave, you may need to arrange direct payment, and if you stop paying, your employer can eventually drop coverage using the same procedures it applies to any employee who misses premium payments.
When your leave ends, your employer must return you to the same position or a comparable one. Comparable means the same pay, benefits, shift, working conditions, and geographic location. You cannot be demoted, cut back in hours, or reassigned to a lesser role because you took leave. Seniority and benefits do not keep accruing during unpaid leave unless your employer’s policy says they do, but you cannot lose anything you had already earned before leave began.
How to Request CFRA Leave
When you know about the need for leave in advance, such as a scheduled surgery, a planned adoption, or an expected due date, give your employer at least 30 days’ notice. If the need is sudden, notify your employer as soon as you reasonably can. Putting the request in writing, by email or through your company’s HR system, creates a record that helps if a dispute comes up later. Your employer must respond within five business days, either approving the leave or telling you what additional information is needed.
For leave tied to a serious health condition, whether yours or a family member’s, your employer can require a medical certification from a health care provider. The certification must confirm the start date and expected duration of the condition, but it does not have to include a specific diagnosis. That is a privacy protection built into the law. Fill out any certification form completely and return it promptly, because an incomplete certification can delay your leave.
If Your Employer Punishes You for Taking Leave
Your employer cannot retaliate against you for taking CFRA leave or for asking about it. Retaliation includes termination and demotion, and it also covers subtler moves: counting CFRA leave against you under an attendance policy, using it as a negative factor in performance reviews or promotions, or treating you differently because you used your rights. The same protection extends to anyone who files a complaint, provides testimony in an investigation, or opposes a practice they reasonably believe violates the law.
If retaliation happens, you can file a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department. CRD can investigate and pursue remedies including lost wages, emotional distress damages, policy changes, and civil penalties. You can also request an immediate right-to-sue notice and bring your own lawsuit.
How CFRA Qualifications Compare to Federal FMLA
If your employer is large enough to be covered by both laws, CFRA and FMLA generally run at the same time for overlapping leave reasons. You do not get 12 weeks under each law for the same event. CFRA is more protective in several ways that affect who qualifies and for what:
- Smaller employer threshold. CFRA covers employers with 5 or more employees; FMLA requires 50 or more within 75 miles.
- Broader family coverage. CFRA extends to grandparents, grandchildren, siblings, domestic partners, parents-in-law, and a designated person. FMLA is limited to a spouse, child, or parent.
- Pregnancy disability stacking. Under California law, pregnancy disability leave and CFRA baby-bonding leave are separate entitlements. A pregnant employee can take up to four months of pregnancy disability leave and then take 12 weeks of CFRA leave for bonding, a combined absence that can exceed five months. Under FMLA alone, pregnancy and bonding leave come out of the same 12-week bank.
When both laws apply, your employer must give you the benefit of whichever law is more generous on any given point.