How Many Sick Days Are Required by Law in Illinois?

Illinois law requires most employers to provide at least 40 hours of paid time off each year, and workers in Chicago can receive up to 80 hours because the city layers a separate paid sick leave requirement on top of the state minimum. That is the short answer to how many sick days are required by law in Illinois, but the statewide hours aren’t limited to illness at all. Under the Paid Leave for All Workers Act, you can use the time for any reason, and your employer cannot ask why.¹

The 40-Hour Statewide Minimum

The Paid Leave for All Workers Act took effect January 1, 2024 and covers nearly every employee working in Illinois. You earn at least 40 hours of paid leave during each 12-month period the employer sets. Part-time work still qualifies. A sick child, a doctor’s appointment, a plumber visit, a mental health day, a funeral, or nothing in particular are all acceptable uses, and the reason stays yours.¹

Your employer cannot demand a doctor’s note or any documentation, and cannot make you find a replacement before you take the day. You’re paid your regular hourly rate for every hour used. Salaried employees exempt from federal overtime are treated as working 40 hours per week for accrual purposes, unless their normal schedule is shorter.¹

Your employer can require you to take leave in minimum increments of up to two hours. If your scheduled shift is shorter than two hours, the minimum drops to match your shift length.¹

When You Can Start Using It

The hours start accruing on your first day, but you cannot actually use any of them until you have been employed for 90 days. New hires often miss this. During those first three months you’re building a balance you cannot touch, and the day you cross 90 days, whatever you’ve accrued becomes available.¹

For notice, the rules are simple. If you can plan ahead, your employer can ask for up to seven calendar days’ advance notice. If something comes up you couldn’t foresee, you just tell your employer as soon as you reasonably can. The employer has to have a written policy explaining how to give that unplanned notice.¹

How Hours Build Up and Whether They Roll Over

Employers pick one of two methods, and the choice affects whether unused time is safe.

Under the accrual method, you earn one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked, and unused hours carry into the next year with no cap on the balance you can build. Your employer can still limit actual use to 40 hours in any single 12-month period.¹

Under the front-loading method, your employer gives you all 40 hours at once on day one or on the first day of each benefit year. In exchange for that upfront access, nothing has to carry over. Anything unused at the end of the year can expire.¹

If your employer switches between methods or changes its 12-month period, it must give you written notice and documentation of your current balance.¹

Chicago Workers Get Up to 80 Hours

The Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance creates two separate buckets: 40 hours of general paid leave and 40 hours of paid sick leave. Covered employees earn one hour of each for every 35 hours worked, faster than the state’s one-per-40 formula. Accrual begins on your first calendar day.²

You qualify if you work at least 80 hours for your employer within any 120-day period inside city limits.²

Under the accrual method, you can roll over up to 16 hours of unused paid leave and up to 80 hours of unused paid sick leave into the next benefit year.³

Chicago also protects the value of your accrued leave when you leave a job. In most cases, your employer must pay out all unused accrued general paid leave at your final rate of pay. Small employers are exempt from that payout, and only the general paid leave bucket is covered. Unused paid sick leave is not paid out on separation.⁴

Cook County and Overlapping Rules

Cook County has its own Paid Leave Ordinance covering employers in the county. Municipalities that previously opted out of the older Cook County Earned Sick Leave Ordinance must still comply with the current ordinance.⁵

When state and local rules overlap, the one that gives you the greater benefit applies.¹

Who Isn’t Covered

The Act reaches most Illinois workers, but a few groups are carved out:

Construction workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement. Your union contract governs your leave instead.
Employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement with a company that provides national and international delivery, pickup, and transportation of parcels and freight.
Other unionized workers whose collective bargaining agreement waives the Act in explicit, clear terms. Agreements already in effect on January 1, 2024 are honored until they expire.
Independent contractors. Illinois uses the ABC test to sort employees from contractors, looking at whether you’re free from the employer’s control, whether your work sits outside the company’s usual business, and whether you run an independent trade of your own.¹

If you suspect you’re being classified as a contractor when you should be an employee, the Illinois Department of Labor takes misclassification complaints.⁶

Attendance Points and Retaliation

Your employer cannot punish you for using paid leave, opposing a practice you believe violates the Act, or supporting a coworker asserting their rights.⁷

The law goes further than that. Your leave cannot count as a negative factor in performance reviews, promotion decisions, discipline, or points-based attendance systems. Employers with no-fault attendance policies used to assign points for any absence, regardless of reason. Paid leave days can no longer count against you in those systems.⁷

What to Do If Your Employer Denies Leave

You can file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor if your employer denies your leave, refuses to track accrual, ignores carryover, retaliates against you, or fails to post the required workplace notice. Complaint forms are on the Department’s website and can be submitted by email.⁸

Chicago workers file with the city’s Department of Labor, since Chicago enforces its ordinance separately.

When the state Department finds a violation, the employer owes you the value of the unpaid leave hours, compensatory damages, and a penalty between $500 and $1,000 per violation, with additional equitable relief possible.⁹

For Longer Illnesses, Look at FMLA

Forty hours covers short absences. It will not cover surgery recovery, childbirth, or a serious ongoing illness. For those situations, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year. You qualify if you’ve worked for your employer for at least 12 months, logged at least 1,250 hours in the past year, and work at a location with 50 or more employees within 75 miles.¹⁰

FMLA leave is unpaid, but your health insurance continues on the same terms and your job (or an equivalent one) waits for you when you return.¹¹ You can use your Illinois paid leave hours at the same time as FMLA leave to get paid for at least part of the absence.

1
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Compiled Statutes 820 ILCS 192 – Paid Leave for All Workers Act
2
City of Chicago. Paid Leave and Paid Sick Leave
3
City of Chicago. Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Rules
4
American Legal Publishing. Chicago Municipal Code 6-130-020 – Requirement to Provide Paid Leave and Paid Sick Leave
5
Cook County Government. Cook County Paid Leave Ordinance FAQs
6
Illinois Department of Labor. Employee Classification Act FAQ
7
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Compiled Statutes 820 ILCS 192/25 – Retaliation
8
Illinois Department of Labor. Paid Leave for All Workers Act Complaint Form
9
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Administrative Code Title 56 Section 200.530 – Damages, Penalties, and Relief Due to the Employee
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act