Does South Carolina Have Paid Family Leave? Coverage and Rules

South Carolina does not have paid family leave as a general statewide program. What the state does have, since October 2022, is a narrower paid parental leave benefit that covers eligible state agency and public school district employees after the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child.¹ Private-sector workers, local government employees, and county workers have no equivalent state benefit and must rely on whatever their employer offers or on the unpaid job protections of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.

Who the State Benefit Covers

Two statutes define eligibility. Sections 8-11-150 and 8-11-155 of the South Carolina Code cover employees of state departments, agencies, institutions of higher education, boards, and commissions.² Section 8-11-151 covers teachers, classified staff, and other full-time equivalent employees of public school districts.³

To qualify, you must occupy all or part of a full-time equivalent position. Partial FTE employees are eligible, with leave and pay prorated to the hours they normally work.² Temporary workers, independent contractors, and anyone not holding an FTE slot are excluded.

Unlike federal FMLA, which demands 12 months of service and 1,250 hours worked, the state’s paid parental leave has no minimum service requirement. A new hire in an FTE position is immediately eligible.¹

Who isn’t covered matters just as much. Local government workers, county employees, and private-sector workers get nothing from this law unless their employer voluntarily adopts a similar policy.¹

What Paid Parental Leave Actually Provides

The benefit is limited to three qualifying events: the birth of a biological child, the initial legal placement of an adopted child under 18, and the placement of a foster child in state custody who is under 18.²³ The event must have occurred on or after October 1, 2022.¹ The law does not cover caring for a seriously ill family member or recovering from your own illness, which is one of the key ways it falls short of what people usually mean by “paid family leave.”

Duration depends on the role you played in the qualifying event. The parent who gives birth gets six weeks. For adoption, the parent primarily responsible for furnishing care and nurture of the child gets six weeks. The co-parent, or the adoptive parent not primarily responsible for the child’s care, gets two weeks.¹ When both parents work for the state, each gets their own allotment and the two can take leave at the same time or separately within the 12-month window.⁴

You can’t receive paid parental leave more than once in any 12-month period, even if two qualifying events happen in that window.⁵ Leave days must be taken consecutively, with one exception: foster parents may request approval to take leave in nonconsecutive one-week blocks.³ Unused leave expires at the end of the 12-month period after the birth or placement.

Pay is 100 percent of base salary during the leave, with normal payroll withholdings. There’s no dollar cap.¹ You do not have to exhaust accrued sick or annual leave first; the Department of Administration’s own toolkit says those are independent benefits.⁴ If your agency tells you otherwise, that guidance is wrong. School district employees get an added benefit: school holidays and scheduled breaks on the district calendar do not count against the six or two weeks.³

Paid parental leave runs concurrently with federal FMLA when both apply. The six weeks of paid leave count against the 12-week FMLA entitlement rather than stacking on top of it.³ If you’ve already used all of your FMLA earlier in the year for a different reason, you can still take state paid parental leave when a qualifying event occurs.

Stillbirth Is Covered

In September 2025, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office issued an opinion stating that parents who experience a stillbirth are entitled to the same paid parental leave as parents of a child born alive. The opinion followed cases in which teachers and state employees had been denied leave after stillbirths. The AG noted that the statutes use the word “birth” without restricting it to live births, and pointed to longstanding state precedent recognizing unborn children as persons.⁶ If you’ve been denied leave following a stillbirth, that opinion gives you grounds to challenge the denial.

What Private-Sector Workers Get Instead

If you work for a private employer in South Carolina, state law gives you no paid family leave. Any paid leave you receive comes from your employer’s own policy. Nationwide, about a third of private-sector workers have access to employer-provided paid family leave, so many South Carolina private employees have no paid benefit at all.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act is the usual fallback. FMLA guarantees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year for the birth or placement of a child, a serious health condition of your own, or care for a seriously ill family member. It applies only to employers with 50 or more employees, and you have to have worked there at least 12 months and 1,250 hours in the prior year, at a worksite with 50 employees within 75 miles.⁷ FMLA protects your job and your group health insurance, but it does not replace your wages.⁸ If your employer offers paid leave or short-term disability, those benefits can run alongside FMLA.⁹

A Federal Credit for Employers Who Offer Paid Leave

Private employers who voluntarily provide paid family and medical leave can claim a federal tax credit under Section 45S of the Internal Revenue Code. The credit runs from 12.5 to 25 percent of wages paid during qualifying leave. An employer that pays at least 50 percent of normal wages during leave earns the 12.5 percent credit, which rises by 0.25 percentage points for every additional percentage point of wage replacement above 50 percent, capped at 25 percent. Congress extended the credit to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025.¹⁰ If you’re asking your employer to adopt a paid leave policy, this is worth bringing up.

Is the Law Changing?

Two bills in the 2025–2026 South Carolina legislative session would expand the state benefit. Bill 3490 would double the leave from six weeks to 12 weeks for the primary caregiver and from two weeks to four weeks for the other parent.¹¹ Bill 3645 proposes a similar expansion.¹² Neither has passed. Both would apply only to state employees; neither would create a benefit for private-sector workers.

1
Department of Administration. Parental Leave
2
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 8 Chapter 11 Section 8-11-155 – Paid Parental Leave; Adoption
3
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 8 Chapter 11 Section 8-11-151 – Paid Parental Leave for Eligible School District Employees
4
South Carolina Department of Administration. Paid Parental Leave Toolkit
5
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code of Laws Title 8 Chapter 11
6
South Carolina Attorney General. Attorney General’s Office Issues Opinion: South Carolina’s Paid Parental Leave Laws Include Stillbirths
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #28: The Family and Medical Leave Act
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #28A: Employee Protections Under the Family and Medical Leave Act
9
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.207 – Substitution of Paid Leave
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 45S – Employer Credit for Paid Family and Medical Leave
11
South Carolina Legislature. 2025-2026 Bill 3490 – Paid Family Leave
12
South Carolina Legislature. 2025-2026 Bill 3645 – Paid Family Leave