Colorado Paid Sick Leave FAQ: Accrual, Carryover, and HFWA

Colorado paid sick leave is governed by the Healthy Families and Workplaces Act (HFWA), which gives nearly every employee in the state one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to 48 hours a year. Accrual starts on your first day of work, and your employer’s size does not matter. The law applies to private companies, nonprofits, school districts, cities, counties, and state agencies alike.¹

Two groups are left out: federal government employees, because federal rules preempt the state mandate, and railroad workers covered by the federal Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act.² Everyone else — full-time, part-time, seasonal, or temporary — is covered.

How Much Leave You Earn

You earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours you work. The annual cap on both accrual and use is 48 hours, though your employer is free to offer more.³ A standard 40-hour workweek hits the 48-hour cap in roughly 36 weeks.

Employers can either track the hour-by-hour accrual or frontload the full 48 hours at the start of the year. Frontloading skips the tracking but commits the employer to providing the whole amount up front.

If your employer already offers a paid-time-off policy that gives you at least 48 hours a year and lets you use that time for the same reasons HFWA covers, the existing PTO policy satisfies the law. There does not need to be a separate sick leave bucket.

Sick leave is paid at your regular hourly rate.

What You Can Use It For

The statute lists specific situations where you can take leave without discipline:⁴

Your own physical or mental illness, injury, diagnosis, treatment, or preventive care such as a flu shot or routine checkup.
The same health reasons when a family member needs your help.
Dealing with domestic violence, sexual assault, or harassment affecting you or a family member, including medical attention, counseling, legal services, relocation, or victim services.
Grieving, attending a funeral or memorial, or handling financial and legal matters after a family member’s death.
Caring for a family member whose school or childcare provider closed because of weather, power loss, or another unexpected event.
Evacuating your home because of severe weather, utility loss, or an emergency like a wildfire or flood.

Who Counts as a Family Member

The definition is wider than most people assume. It covers immediate family under Colorado law, any child you parent even without a legal relationship, anyone who served as a parental figure to you when you were a minor, and anyone whose health or safety care you are responsible for arranging.⁵ That last category is intentionally flexible. A neighbor or close friend who relies on you for medical transportation can qualify.

Carryover and What Happens When You Leave

Unused sick leave does not vanish at year end. Up to 48 hours of accrued but unused time rolls into the next year. Your employer can still cap your actual usage at 48 hours in any single year, even if you have more than that banked from prior carryover.³

One point that surprises many workers: Colorado does not require employers to pay out unused sick leave when you quit or are fired. If your employer’s own policy promises a payout, you can enforce that policy, but the HFWA itself does not require one.

Telling Your Employer and Doctor’s Notes

When you know in advance that you will need leave, like a scheduled procedure, notify your employer as soon as practicable.⁶ For sudden illness or injury, the same standard applies: tell them as soon as you reasonably can. Employers can have formal notification procedures, but they cannot make the process so burdensome that it discourages people from using their leave.

Your employer cannot require a doctor’s note or any other documentation unless your absence lasts four or more consecutive workdays.² That protects you from paying for a medical visit to justify a two-day stomach bug. For absences of four days or longer, the employer may request reasonable documentation, and any health information you share has to be kept confidential and stored separately from your regular personnel file.

Extra Leave During a Public Health Emergency

When a public health emergency is declared, HFWA adds a separate supplemental bank of leave on top of what you have already accrued. Your employer must ensure that full-time employees have access to a total of 80 hours of paid leave; any accrued sick leave you already have counts toward that total, and the employer supplements the rest.² Part-time employees get a proportional amount based on their recent schedule. The supplement is provided once per declared emergency.

Qualifying reasons include self-isolating because of symptoms or diagnosis, seeking treatment or vaccination, being excluded from work by a health official or your employer due to exposure, being unable to work because a health condition makes you more susceptible, and caring for a family member affected by the emergency or whose school or childcare closed because of it. Employers cannot require documentation to use this supplemental leave.

If Your Employer Retaliates

HFWA prohibits retaliation against anyone who uses or requests sick leave, files a complaint, cooperates with an investigation, or tells someone else about their rights. Counting a protected sick leave absence toward a disciplinary attendance policy is itself a violation.⁷

The protection reaches employees who allege a violation in good faith even if they turn out to be wrong. If retaliation costs you your job or pay, the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics can order reinstatement, back pay, or both. Each affected employee counts as a separate violation for penalty purposes, so a company-wide retaliatory policy generates consequences that stack quickly.

If leave is denied, you can also pursue remedies through the Colorado Wage Claim Act, which allows orders for back wages, penalties, and fines.⁸ When your employer denies sick leave and makes you work anyway, it still owes penalties for failing to pay the sick leave wages you were entitled to, even though it paid regular wages for the hours you worked.

How This Fits With FMLA, FAMLI, and the ADA

Colorado workers have access to three paid-or-protected leave programs that overlap in confusing ways. Qualifying for one does not affect your rights under the others.

HFWA Versus FMLA

HFWA is paid and available from day one. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act is unpaid and only applies after you have worked for a covered employer for at least 12 months, logged at least 1,250 hours during that time, and work at a location where the employer has 50 or more employees within 75 miles.⁹ FMLA provides up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave per year, but no pay. Many employees use HFWA sick leave to cover part of the income gap during an FMLA absence.

HFWA Versus FAMLI

FAMLI is Colorado’s state-run paid leave insurance program, funded by payroll contributions from employers and employees. It provides up to 12 weeks (or 16 weeks for pregnancy or childbirth complications) of partially paid leave for serious health conditions, bonding with a new child, caregiving for a family member, and qualifying military needs. HFWA and FAMLI are separate programs.¹⁰ HFWA covers shorter absences like appointments, a few sick days, or bereavement. FAMLI is built for longer medical events. You can potentially use both for different portions of the same health event.

When the ADA Adds More Time

If you have a disability and burn through your 48 hours of HFWA leave, the Americans with Disabilities Act may require your employer to provide additional unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation. The EEOC has stated that employers must consider granting unpaid leave when an employee with a disability needs it, as long as doing so would not impose an undue hardship.¹¹ An employer that automatically fires someone the moment HFWA leave runs out, without considering whether more time off would be a reasonable accommodation, risks an ADA violation on top of any state law claims.

1
Justia. Colorado Code 8-13.3-402 – Definitions
2
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Interpretive Notice and Formal Opinion 6B – Paid Sick Leave Under the Healthy Families and Workplaces Act
3
Justia. Colorado Code 8-13.3-403 – Paid Sick Leave – Accrual – Carry Forward to Subsequent Year – Comparable Leave Provided by Employer – No Payment for Unused Leave – Rules
4
Justia. Colorado Code 8-13.3-404 – Use of Paid Sick Leave – Purposes – Time Increments
5
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act
6
FindLaw. Colorado Code 8-13.3-405 – Notification – Documentation
7
Justia. Colorado Code 8-13.3-407 – Employee Rights Protected – Retaliation Prohibited
8
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO 2B – Orders of Wages, Penalties, Fines, and Consequences for Non-Compliance
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act
10
Colorado Family and Medical Leave Insurance. FAMLI and Other Types of Leave
11
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employer-Provided Leave and the Americans with Disabilities Act