If you work in New Hampshire, FMLA gives you up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave each year for your own serious illness, to care for close family, or to bond with a new child. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act covers private employers with 50 or more employees and all public agencies, and it guarantees your right to return to the same or an equivalent job. New Hampshire also runs a separate voluntary Paid Family and Medical Leave program that can replace part of your wages while you’re out.
Who Qualifies
Three conditions have to be met before FMLA protects your leave. Your employer must have at least 50 employees within 75 miles of your worksite. You must have worked for that employer for at least 12 months, though they don’t have to be consecutive; employment before a break of seven years or more generally doesn’t count. And you must have actually worked at least 1,250 hours in the 12 months right before your leave starts.1U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act Only time on the clock counts toward that 1,250. Paid vacation, holidays, and sick days don’t.
All public agencies are covered regardless of headcount. If you work for a private company with fewer than 50 employees within 75 miles, FMLA doesn’t reach your job. The state’s paid leave program, described further down, may still be available.
Reasons You Can Take Leave
Federal law recognizes five categories of qualifying events:2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2612 – Leave Requirement
- Your own serious health condition — an illness, injury, or physical or mental condition that requires inpatient care or continuing treatment and keeps you from doing your job.3U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28P – Taking Leave When You or Your Family Has a Serious Health Condition
- Caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition. In-laws, siblings, and grandparents aren’t covered under federal law.3U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28P – Taking Leave When You or Your Family Has a Serious Health Condition
- Bonding with a newborn or a child newly placed for adoption or foster care. Bonding leave must be used within 12 months of the birth or placement.4U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28Q – Taking Leave for Birth, Placement, and Bonding With a Child
- A qualifying exigency when a spouse, child, or parent is on covered active duty or has been called up, for things like military briefings or arranging childcare during deployment.
- Military caregiver leave for the spouse, child, parent, or next of kin of a servicemember with a serious injury or illness. This one runs up to 26 weeks in a single 12-month period.5U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28M – Using FMLA Leave Because of a Family Members Military Service
How Much Leave, and How You Can Schedule It
For most reasons, you’re entitled to 12 workweeks in a 12-month period. Military caregiver leave is the exception at 26 workweeks.5U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28M – Using FMLA Leave Because of a Family Members Military Service The leave is unpaid unless you or your employer chooses to substitute accrued paid time off.
You don’t have to take it all at once. When medically necessary, leave can be taken in separate blocks or as a reduced schedule, such as dropping to four-day weeks during chemotherapy. Intermittent leave for bonding with a new child, however, requires your employer’s agreement.1U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act
How the 12-Month Period Is Measured
Your employer picks one of four methods and applies it consistently to everyone: the calendar year; a fixed 12 months tied to your anniversary or the company’s fiscal year; a forward-looking 12 months starting from the first day of leave; or a rolling 12 months counted backward from each day of leave used. The rolling method is the most restrictive because your available balance keeps recalculating. If your employer never picked a method, they must use whichever calculation gives you the most leave. To switch methods, they owe you at least 60 days’ notice, and the more generous calculation applies during the transition.6U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28H – 12-Month Period Under the Family and Medical Leave Act
Notice and Medical Certification
When leave is foreseeable, give your employer at least 30 days’ notice. When it isn’t, notify them the same day you learn of the need or the next business day.7eCFR. 29 CFR 825.302 – Employee Notice Requirements for Foreseeable FMLA Leave
Expect a request for medical certification. The Department of Labor publishes standard forms: WH-380-E for your own condition and WH-380-F for a family member’s.8U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Forms Your healthcare provider fills in the medical sections, including when the condition began and how long it’s expected to last. You have at least 15 calendar days to return the completed form. Missing that deadline or turning in an incomplete form can get your leave request denied.9U.S. Department of Labor. Certification of Health Care Provider for Family Members Serious Health Condition
Getting Your Job and Benefits Back
When you return, your employer must put you back in the same position or an equivalent one with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions. That holds even if you were replaced or your duties were shuffled while you were out.10eCFR. 29 CFR 825.214 – Employee Right to Reinstatement “Equivalent” means virtually identical in pay, schedule, duties, and authority. No demotion, no cut hours, no reassignment to a less favorable location because you took leave.
There is a narrow “key employee” exception for salaried workers in the highest-paid 10 percent of the workforce within 75 miles. Reinstatement can be denied only if restoring that person would cause substantial and grievous economic injury to the business, and only after written notice explaining the determination and a chance for the employee to return early.11eCFR. 29 CFR 825.219 – Rights of a Key Employee Employers rarely invoke it because the standard is deliberately high.
Your group health insurance continues on the same terms as if you were still working. If you paid a share of the premium before leave, you keep paying that same share during leave. Your employer can’t hike your premium or drop coverage because you’re on FMLA.12eCFR. 29 CFR 825.209 – Maintenance of Employee Benefits For unpaid leave, they must give you advance written notice of how to make premium payments while you’re out.13U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act Advisor – Health Benefits
Getting Paid During Leave
FMLA itself is unpaid, but you don’t have to go 12 weeks without income. You can choose to use accrued vacation, sick, or personal time during FMLA leave, and your employer can require you to. When paid leave runs concurrently with FMLA, the days count against your 12-week entitlement rather than extending it.14eCFR. 29 CFR 825.207 – Substitution of Paid Leave
New Hampshire’s Paid Family and Medical Leave Program
New Hampshire runs a Paid Family and Medical Leave insurance program that can layer on top of federal FMLA. NH PFML pays 60 percent of your average weekly wage, capped at the Social Security wage base ($184,500 in 2026), for up to six weeks per year.15NH Paid Family Medical Leave. New Hampshire Paid Family and Medical Leave Plan16Social Security Administration. Contribution and Benefit Base MetLife administers the program as the state’s contracted insurance partner.
Covered events track the main FMLA categories: your own serious health condition (including pregnancy), bonding with a new child, caring for a family member with a serious health condition, and qualifying military deployment logistics. Because the two programs operate independently, you can use both at once. Someone taking 12 weeks of FMLA could draw NH PFML wage replacement for six of those weeks if enrolled.
How You Get Covered
Private employer participation is voluntary. Employers who opt in choose a six-week or twelve-week plan and decide how much of the premium to share with workers.15NH Paid Family Medical Leave. New Hampshire Paid Family and Medical Leave Plan
If your employer doesn’t participate, you can enroll yourself during an annual open enrollment period. By state law, the individual plan premium can’t exceed $5 per week, and it provides the standard six-week benefit.15NH Paid Family Medical Leave. New Hampshire Paid Family and Medical Leave Plan The individual option matters most for workers at small businesses that fall below the 50-employee FMLA threshold, because NH PFML has no minimum employer-size requirement.
If You’re Retaliated Against
Your employer can’t punish you for requesting or using FMLA leave. That includes firing, denying a promotion, counting FMLA absences under a no-fault attendance policy, discouraging you from taking leave, or manipulating your hours to make you ineligible.17U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 77B – Protection for Individuals Under the FMLA The same protection covers anyone who takes part in an FMLA-related investigation or proceeding.
If your rights were violated, you have two paths. File a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division online or by calling 1-866-487-9243, and it will be routed to the nearest field office for investigation. Or file a private lawsuit in federal or state court. The deadline for either is generally two years from the violation, or three years if the employer’s conduct was willful.18U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act Advisor – Statute of Limitations Document what happens as it happens, and act while the clock is still running.