Does Texas Have Paid Maternity Leave? FMLA, Disability, and PTO

Texas does not require private employers to offer paid maternity leave. No state law guarantees a paycheck while you are home with a new baby, so whether you get paid depends on your employer’s benefits, any short-term disability coverage you carry, and the paid time off you have banked. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act can protect your job for up to 12 weeks, but it does not pay you. State government workers are the one group with a statutory paid benefit.

What Private Employers Owe You

The Texas Labor Code sets the baseline for pay and benefits in the private sector, and that baseline does not include paid parental leave. Nothing in state law requires a Texas business to continue your wages after the birth or adoption of a child. Any paid leave you receive is voluntary on the employer’s part or something you negotiated into your offer.

Policies vary widely. Some companies offer several weeks at full pay, some pay a percentage, and many offer nothing beyond letting you use vacation days and whatever short-term disability coverage you have signed up for. Read your employee handbook and benefits summary carefully, because the state imposes no minimum you can fall back on.

Paid Parental Leave for Texas State Employees

If you work for a Texas state agency in the executive branch, you have a benefit most private workers do not. Senate Bill 222 took effect September 1, 2023, adding Section 661.9125 to the Texas Government Code and creating paid parental leave for qualifying state employees.¹

Birth parents receive 40 days of paid leave, roughly eight workweeks.
Non-birth parents, spouses, and adoptive parents receive 20 days, roughly four workweeks.

To qualify, you must be a state employee who is either a member of the Employees Retirement System of Texas or employed by an executive-branch agency created by the Texas Constitution or state statute. The leave pays at your regular rate.¹

One boundary matters. The statute explicitly excludes employees of institutions of higher education, so Texas public university and college workers are not covered. Some universities have adopted their own policies, so check with your HR office.¹

Normally, state workers must exhaust accrued vacation and sick leave before taking unpaid FMLA leave. Employees using paid parental leave under Section 661.9125 are exempt from that rule, which lets you keep your banked time.²

FMLA: Unpaid Time, but Your Job Is Protected

For most Texas workers, the Family and Medical Leave Act is the only guaranteed leave. It provides up to 12 workweeks of job-protected time off during a 12-month period for the birth or adoption of a child.³ Your employer cannot fire you for taking the leave, but it does not have to pay you during it.

Who Qualifies

Three conditions all have to be met:

Your employer has at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius of your worksite.
You have worked for that employer for at least 12 months.
You have logged at least 1,250 hours during the 12 months before leave begins.

That hours threshold works out to about 24 hours a week. Part-time workers who fall short are not covered, and neither is anyone whose company has fewer than 50 employees.⁴

What You Get Back When You Return

Your employer must restore you to the same position or an equivalent one with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions. Benefits you had accrued before leave, such as seniority, stay intact, though you do not accrue more while you are out.⁵

Your group health insurance continues on the same terms as if you were still working. You still owe any premium share you were paying before. If you do not return to work after the leave ends, the employer can recover the premiums it paid to keep your coverage active.⁵

Notice and Timing

If your leave is foreseeable, which most births are, you must give at least 30 days’ advance notice. When that is not possible, notice should come as soon as practicable, generally the same day you learn of the need or the next business day.⁶ Bonding leave expires 12 months after the birth or placement, so you cannot save it for later.³

If Both Spouses Work for the Same Employer

This surprises people. When both parents work for the same company, they share a combined total of 12 workweeks of FMLA bonding leave, not 12 weeks each. Each spouse still has a separate 12 weeks for their own serious health condition, and a birth parent recovering from childbirth may qualify for additional leave under that provision on top of the shared bonding allotment.⁷

How Private-Sector Parents Actually Get Paid

Since Texas requires no paid leave and FMLA is unpaid, filling the income gap falls on you. Two tools do most of the work.

Short-Term Disability Insurance

Short-term disability policies typically replace 40 to 70 percent of your salary while you are medically unable to work, including recovery from childbirth. A vaginal delivery without complications is usually covered for about six weeks. A cesarean section generally extends coverage to about eight weeks because of the longer recovery.

Timing of enrollment is critical. Most policies include a pre-existing condition exclusion, so if you are already pregnant when you sign up, the insurer can deny the claim for that pregnancy. You generally need the policy in place before conceiving. Policies also commonly impose a one- to two-week waiting period before benefits begin. Read the elimination period and benefit schedule before you need them.

Your employer may require you to use short-term disability concurrently with FMLA. When they overlap, the FMLA clock runs at the same time as your disability benefits, so stacking does not give you extra weeks.⁸

Accrued Vacation, Sick Leave, and PTO

Using banked time off is simple, but check whether your employer requires it. Under FMLA, an employer can require you to use accrued paid leave at the same time as unpaid FMLA leave, which means you may not have the option to save vacation days for later.⁸ Specific rules are in your employee handbook.

How Leave Pay Is Taxed

Taxation of disability payments depends on who paid the premiums. If your employer paid, the benefits are fully taxable. If you paid with after-tax dollars, they are not taxable. When you split the cost, only the employer-funded portion is taxable.⁹

Watch the cafeteria-plan wrinkle. If your premiums come out of your paycheck pre-tax through a cafeteria plan, the IRS treats them as employer-paid, and your disability benefits are fully taxable.⁹ Wages paid directly by your employer during paid parental leave are treated as regular salary and subject to normal withholding.

Workplace Protections While You Are Pregnant and After You Return

Several federal laws apply regardless of whether your employer offers any paid benefit.

Pregnancy Discrimination Act

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, part of Title VII, prohibits employers with 15 or more employees from treating you differently because of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. You must be treated the same as any other employee similar in their ability to work. If the company offers light-duty assignments to workers recovering from surgery, it must offer the same to a pregnant employee who needs it.¹⁰

Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act took effect in June 2023 and requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy-related limitations unless doing so would create undue hardship.¹¹ Accommodations can include more frequent breaks, schedule changes, temporary lighter duties, or remote work. Your employer cannot force you onto leave if a reasonable accommodation would let you keep working.¹²

PUMP Act for Nursing Employees

After you return, the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act requires reasonable break time to express breast milk for one year after your child’s birth. The space must be somewhere other than a bathroom, shielded from view, and free from intrusion. Employers with fewer than 50 employees can claim an exemption if compliance would impose significant difficulty or expense given the size and resources of the business.¹³ Pump breaks are unpaid unless you are not fully relieved of work duties during that time.

If You Do Not Qualify for FMLA

If your employer has fewer than 50 employees, or you have not been there a year, or you have not hit 1,250 hours, FMLA does not apply. You still have some protection. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act covers employers with as few as 15 employees and may entitle you to accommodations, including leave to recover from childbirth when no other accommodation would work.¹¹ The Pregnancy Discrimination Act similarly covers that same 15-employee threshold and prohibits firing or demoting you because of pregnancy.¹⁰

Beyond those federal floors, your options depend on what your employer voluntarily offers. Ask HR about parental leave and short-term disability. If your employer offers nothing, a private individual short-term disability policy runs roughly $25 to $150 per month, but you need to enroll before conceiving to avoid the pre-existing condition exclusion. For workers at very small companies with no benefits and no federal coverage, any paid time during maternity leave has to come from personal savings or whatever you can negotiate.

1
State of Texas. Texas Government Code 661.9125 – Paid Parental Leave for Certain Employees
2
State of Texas. Texas Government Code 661.912 – Family and Medical Leave Act
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2612 – Leave Requirement
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2611 – Definitions
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2614 – Employment and Benefits Protection
6
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.302 – Employee Notice Requirements for Foreseeable FMLA Leave
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28L – Leave Under the FMLA When You and Your Spouse Work for the Same Employer
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act
9
Internal Revenue Service. Life Insurance and Disability Insurance Proceeds
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 2000e – Definitions
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 2000gg-1 – Nondiscrimination With Regard to Reasonable Accommodations Related to Pregnancy
12
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 218d – Breastfeeding Accommodations in the Workplace