Colorado Sick Leave: Accrual, Carryover, and Public Health Hours

Colorado sick leave law requires every employer in the state to provide paid sick leave that accrues at one hour for every 30 hours worked, up to 48 hours per year.¹ Accrual begins on your first day, and you can use the hours as soon as you earn them. The Healthy Families and Workplaces Act (HFWA) covers a wider range of reasons than most people expect, including caregiving, bereavement, domestic abuse, and emergency evacuations.

Who the Law Covers

The HFWA applies to every employer in Colorado, including state and local government agencies, counties, municipalities, and school districts.² There is no size threshold. A business with two employees has the same obligation as one with two thousand. Full-time, part-time, and temporary workers are all covered.

Two groups sit outside the law. Federal government employees are excluded from the HFWA’s definition of employer, and so are railroad workers covered by the federal Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act.² Independent contractors are not employees under the HFWA, so a client has no obligation to give them sick leave. That classification matters: if a company controls when, where, and how you perform your work, you may actually be an employee no matter what your contract calls you.

How You Earn and Use the Hours

You earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours you work, starting your first day on the job.¹ Hours are usable as they accrue. The annual cap is 48 hours unless your employer voluntarily allows more.

Employers can skip the accrual math by frontloading the full 48 hours at the start of the benefit year. Either way, you get at least 48 hours available each year.

Sick leave is paid at your regular rate. The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment has confirmed that employees take paid sick leave “with full pay.”³ For tipped workers or those with variable pay, the calculation is based on what you would have earned during the hours missed.

What You Can Use the Hours For

The list of qualifying reasons goes well beyond typical illness. You can use accrued hours for any of the following:⁴

Your own physical or mental illness, injury, or health condition, or a need for diagnosis, treatment, or preventive care such as a vaccination or checkup.
Caring for a family member who is ill, injured, or needs medical diagnosis, treatment, or preventive care.
Seeking medical attention, counseling, victim services, relocation, or legal help related to domestic abuse, sexual assault, or harassment, for yourself or a family member.
Bereavement, including 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 place of care closed because of bad weather, a power outage, water loss, or another unexpected event.
Leaving your home because of severe weather, utility failures, or another unexpected event that makes your residence unsafe.

The bereavement, school closure, and evacuation reasons were added to the law in August 2023. A declared public health emergency creates its own separate set of qualifying reasons, discussed further below.

Who Counts as a Family Member

Colorado defines family member more broadly than many states. It covers spouses, parents, children, siblings, grandparents, and grandchildren.² It also covers a child you’re raising even without a biological or legal relationship (known as in loco parentis), and anyone who raised you that way when you were a minor.

The broadest category is someone “for whom the employee is responsible for providing or arranging health- or safety-related care.” That language captures a live-in partner, an aging neighbor you look after, or a close friend with no other support. You don’t need a specific legal or biological relationship to use your leave for caregiving.

Notice and What Your Employer Can Ask For

When you know a leave in advance, such as a scheduled appointment, give reasonable advance notice. When it’s unexpected, notify your employer as soon as you reasonably can. Your workplace should have a written policy explaining how to submit these requests.

Employers can request documentation only if you’ve been absent for four or more consecutive workdays. Even then, they can only ask for reasonable proof that the leave was for a qualifying purpose. A demand for a specific diagnosis or detailed medical records crosses the line. Under federal law, medical information must also be stored separately from your regular personnel file.⁵

If your leave is to care for a family member, your employer cannot request that family member’s genetic information or detailed family medical history. The federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act generally prohibits employers from acquiring that kind of information, with a narrow exception only for FMLA certification of a serious health condition.

Carryover, Payout, and Rehire

At the end of the benefit year, you can carry over up to 48 hours of unused sick leave into the next year.¹ Your employer still isn’t required to let you use more than 48 hours in any single year, so the carryover functions as a starting balance rather than a growing bank.

Unlike vacation pay, Colorado does not require employers to pay out unused sick leave when you leave a job, whether you quit, get laid off, or are fired.⁶ This surprises people, because Colorado does require payout of accrued vacation on separation. Sick leave and vacation are treated as separate benefits.

If a former employer rehires you within six months, they must reinstate whatever sick leave balance you had when you left.⁶ That balance doesn’t disappear because of a gap in employment.

Extra Hours During a Public Health Emergency

When a federal, state, or local official declares a public health emergency, the HFWA requires a separate bucket of supplemental leave on top of whatever you’ve already accrued.⁷ It’s available immediately on the date of the declaration.

The amount depends on your schedule. If you work 40 or more hours per week, your employer must ensure you have at least 80 hours of total paid sick leave available. If you work fewer than 40 hours per week, your employer must provide the greater of your scheduled hours in a 14-day period or the average hours you actually worked over a 14-day period.

This supplemental time stays available until four weeks after the emergency is officially terminated or suspended.⁷ The purpose is to keep a major crisis from burning through your regular 48-hour balance.

Retaliation Protections and How To File a Complaint

Colorado law bars any employer from retaliating against you for requesting or using paid sick leave. Retaliation includes firing, demoting, cutting your scheduled hours, suspending, or disciplining you.⁸ The protection also covers informing a coworker of their HFWA rights, filing a complaint, or cooperating with an investigation.

If your employer retaliates or denies leave you’re entitled to, you can file a complaint with the Colorado Division of Labor Standards and Statistics. HFWA paid leave counts as “wages” under state law, so a denied leave claim is treated the same as an unpaid wage claim. Employers found in violation can be ordered to pay back wages, a multiplier of the wages owed as a penalty, and additional fines.⁸ Any agreement in which you waive your HFWA rights is void and unenforceable, even if you signed it voluntarily.

How HFWA Fits With FAMLI and Federal FMLA

Colorado also runs a separate paid leave program called FAMLI (Family and Medical Leave Insurance), which provides up to 12 weeks of paid leave per year for serious health conditions, new child bonding, military family needs, and domestic abuse situations.⁹ FAMLI is funded by payroll premiums shared between employers and employees.

The two programs cover different ground. HFWA gives you 48 hours per year for a broad list of reasons including minor illnesses, preventive care, bereavement, and school closures. FAMLI covers fewer reasons but offers far more time for serious conditions. When a leave qualifies under both, you choose which one to use, and you can use them consecutively in either order.¹⁰ The practical split: HFWA is for short-term needs like a bad flu, a dental appointment, or a funeral, and FAMLI is for longer absences like surgery recovery, a new baby, or extended caregiving.

Both programs exclude federal government employees and railroad workers covered by the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act. FAMLI also doesn’t cover employees of local governments that have opted out of the program.

If you’re eligible for the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave at employers with 50 or more employees, your HFWA and FMLA leave may run at the same time. A 2019 Department of Labor opinion letter confirmed that once an employer determines your absence qualifies for FMLA, the 12-week FMLA clock starts running even if you’re simultaneously using paid state sick leave. You can’t delay the FMLA clock by exhausting paid leave first. Your HFWA paid hours can cover the early days of an FMLA absence, but the FMLA entitlement is ticking down in the background.

1
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
2
Justia. Colorado Code 8-13.3-402 – Definitions
3
Department of Labor & Employment. Wage and Hour Laws (including Paid Sick Leave)
4
Justia. Colorado Code 8-13.3-404 – Use of Paid Sick Leave – Purposes – Time Increments
5
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Genetic Information Discrimination
6
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 – Repeal
7
Justia. Colorado Code 8-13.3-405 – Additional Paid Sick Leave During a Public Health Emergency
8
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO 6B – Employer and Employee Rights and Obligations Under the Healthy Families and Workplaces Act
9
Colorado FAMLI Division. Individuals and Families
10
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO 6C – How HFWA and FAMLI Relate