The Family and Medical Leave Act in New Hampshire gives eligible workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave each year for serious health conditions, new children, and certain military family needs. FMLA is federal, so the same rules apply across the Granite State. What’s distinct here is the state’s voluntary paid leave program, which can replace 60% of your wages for up to six weeks while you’re out.
Who Qualifies
Two things decide whether you’re covered: your work history with your current employer, and how big that employer is.
You need at least 12 months of employment with the company and at least 1,250 hours of actual work during the 12 months right before your leave begins.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2611 – Definitions The 12 months don’t have to be consecutive, but if you left and came back after more than seven years away, the earlier stretch generally doesn’t count.2eCFR. 29 CFR 825.110 Only hours you actually worked count toward the 1,250. Paid vacation, sick days, and other leave don’t add to that total.3U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Frequently Asked Questions
Your employer must have at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius of your worksite.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2611 – Definitions A small New Hampshire office is still covered if the company has 50 or more people at locations within that radius. Remote workers are generally counted at the office they report to. Public agencies and public or private elementary and secondary schools are covered regardless of headcount.
What You Can Take Leave For
FMLA covers a specific list of situations, not any absence you want:4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2612 – Leave Requirement
- The birth of your child and bonding during the first year, or placement through adoption or foster care.
- Your own serious health condition that keeps you from doing your job.
- Caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition.
- A qualifying exigency when your spouse, child, or parent is on covered active military duty or has been called up.
- Caring for a close family member who is a servicemember with a serious injury or illness. This expands your entitlement to 26 workweeks in a single 12-month period.
What Counts as a Serious Health Condition
A bad cold or routine dental visit won’t qualify. Federal regulations generally require a period of incapacity of more than three consecutive full calendar days combined with either two or more treatments within 30 days, or at least one treatment leading to a continuing regimen of care.5eCFR. 29 CFR 825.115 The first in-person visit must happen within seven days of the first day you can’t function normally. Chronic conditions that require periodic treatment, like epilepsy or severe asthma, also qualify without the three-day incapacity requirement.
Who Counts as Family
FMLA’s definitions of “parent” and “child” reach further than many people assume. You can take leave to care for someone who raised you even without a biological or legal tie, and to care for a child you’re raising in a parental role. The Department of Labor looks at factors like day-to-day caregiving and financial support.6U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet – Using FMLA Leave to Care for Someone Who Was in the Role of a Parent to You When You Were a Child If your employer wants documentation, a simple written statement asserting the family relationship is enough.
Taking Leave in Pieces
You don’t always have to take the full 12 weeks at once. When medically necessary, FMLA lets you take leave in separate blocks or work a reduced schedule, which is common for chemotherapy, dialysis, or physical therapy sessions.3U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Frequently Asked Questions
You do need to make a reasonable effort to schedule foreseeable treatments so they don’t disrupt operations more than necessary. Your employer can temporarily move you to a different position with equivalent pay and benefits if that role better fits a recurring leave schedule.3U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Frequently Asked Questions The duties can change; the pay and benefits can’t. For bonding leave after a birth or placement, intermittent leave is only available if your employer agrees.
Getting Paid: New Hampshire’s PFML Program
Federal FMLA protects your job. It doesn’t guarantee a paycheck. New Hampshire fills part of that gap with its Paid Family and Medical Leave program, a voluntary insurance plan that pays 60% of your average weekly wage for up to six weeks per year, capped at the Social Security taxable wage maximum.7New Hampshire Paid Family Medical Leave. New Hampshire Paid Family and Medical Leave8Social Security Administration. Contribution and Benefit Base The program is administered through MetLife, the state’s insurance partner.
Your path in depends on your employer. Employers can purchase a group plan from MetLife at any time and decide whether to pay the whole premium, split it, or pass the cost to workers. If your employer doesn’t offer coverage, you can buy an individual plan during the annual 60-day open enrollment period. State law caps that individual premium at no more than $5 per week.9NH Paid Family Medical Leave. Purchase a Plan
Signing up for NH PFML doesn’t change your federal FMLA rights, but the two generally run at the same time. Your six weeks of paid state benefits count against your 12 weeks of FMLA-protected leave. You don’t get 12 unpaid weeks plus six paid weeks stacked on top.
If MetLife denies your NH PFML claim, you have 10 calendar days to appeal.10New Hampshire Paid Family and Medical Leave. Filing a Claim for NH Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Benefits That window is tight, so don’t sit on a denial letter.
How to Request Leave
If you know the leave is coming, give your employer at least 30 days’ notice. Think scheduled surgery, an expected due date, or planned treatments.11eCFR. 29 CFR 825.302 – Employee Notice Requirements for Foreseeable FMLA Leave If something unexpected happens, notify your employer as soon as you reasonably can.
Expect a request for medical certification. The Department of Labor publishes standardized forms: WH-380-E for your own serious health condition and WH-380-F to care for a family member.12U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Forms Your healthcare provider fills out the medical details. The form doesn’t require a specific diagnosis, but it has to establish that the condition meets the standard, including treatment frequency and expected duration.
What Your Employer Must Send Back
Within five business days of learning you need leave, your employer must give you a Notice of Eligibility and Rights and Responsibilities telling you whether you meet the requirements.13U.S. Department of Labor. Notice of Eligibility and Rights and Responsibilities Once it has enough information to confirm the leave qualifies, it issues a Designation Notice within five business days, specifying how much leave will count against your annual entitlement and whether you’ll need a fitness-for-duty certification before returning.14U.S. Department of Labor. Designation Notice Under the Family and Medical Leave Act Your employer can also require you to use accrued paid vacation or sick time at the same time as FMLA leave.
Coming Back: Your Job and Your Benefits
When your leave ends, your employer must return you to your old job or an equivalent position with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2614 – Employment and Benefits Protection “Equivalent” means genuinely comparable: same shift, same work location, same level of responsibility. A lesser role isn’t equivalent just because the paycheck matches.
Your group health insurance must stay in place for the entire leave at the same level and on the same terms as if you’d never been out.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2614 – Employment and Benefits Protection You still pay your share of the premium, same as before. If you don’t return to work when leave ends, for a reason other than a continuing serious health condition or circumstances beyond your control, your employer can recover the premiums it paid on your behalf while you were out.
The Key Employee Exception
One carve-out catches people off guard. If you’re a salaried employee in the highest-paid 10% of workers at your employer’s locations within 75 miles, you’re classified as a “key employee.”15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2614 – Employment and Benefits Protection Your employer can deny you job restoration if bringing you back would cause substantial and grievous economic injury to its operations.
Your employer can’t spring this later. It must notify you in writing when you request leave or when leave begins that you’re a key employee and explain what that could mean for reinstatement.16eCFR. 29 CFR 825.219 – Rights of a Key Employee If timely notice doesn’t go out, the employer loses the right to deny restoration even if the economic injury would be real. You still get to take the leave itself. The exception only touches getting your specific job back.
If Your Employer Retaliates or Interferes
Federal law makes it illegal for your employer to interfere with your FMLA rights or punish you for using them. That reaches well past firing. An employer can’t demote you, cut your hours, write you up for FMLA-covered absences, or create a hostile environment because you took protected time off.17Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2615 – Prohibited Acts The protection also covers filing a complaint, participating in an investigation, or testifying in a proceeding tied to FMLA rights.
Interference is the subtler violation. An employer discouraging you from taking leave, failing to send the required notices, or counting FMLA absences against you in an attendance policy all qualify.
Remedies and Deadlines
If your employer violates your FMLA rights, you can recover lost wages, salary, and benefits caused by the violation, plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, so the total payout can effectively double. If you didn’t lose wages but had other out-of-pocket costs, like paying for care you would have given yourself, you can recover those actual losses up to 12 weeks’ worth of your salary. A court can also order reinstatement or promotion, and your employer has to pay reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs.18Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2617 – Enforcement
You generally have two years from the date of the last violation to file a private lawsuit, or three years if the violation was willful.19U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act Advisor You can also file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division instead of going to court. Either way, don’t wait. Evidence gets harder to gather, memories fade, and missing the deadline means losing the claim.