Illinois Paid Leave for All Workers Act: 40 Hours and Carryover

The Illinois Paid Leave for All Workers Act requires nearly every employer in the state to give each employee at least 40 hours of paid leave a year, usable for any reason. The Act (820 ILCS 192) took effect January 1, 2024, applies to employers of any size, and prohibits employers from asking why leave is being taken.¹

Who the Law Covers

Coverage reaches any employee working for an employer with one or more employees in Illinois, including state and local government workers. What matters is where the work is actually performed. If the employee’s base of operations is in Illinois and the work is primarily done here, the Act applies.²

Several groups sit outside the Act:³

Independent contractors, though domestic workers classified as contractors are still covered.
Employees covered by the federal Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act or the Railway Labor Act.
Part-time students working for their own college or university, and short-term temporary employees of higher education institutions who work less than two consecutive calendar quarters with no reasonable expectation of rehire.
Construction workers and delivery, pickup, and transportation workers who are covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
Employees of school districts organized under the Illinois School Code and park districts organized under the Park District Code.

Chicago and Cook County have their own paid leave rules that displace PLAWA for workers primarily working in those jurisdictions. A worker primarily in Chicago is subject to the Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance; a worker primarily in suburban Cook County falls under the Cook County ordinance. Hours worked outside Chicago do not count toward Chicago accrual but may still be governed by PLAWA or the Cook County ordinance depending on where the work is performed.⁴

How the 40 Hours Are Earned

Employees accrue one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked, up to a minimum of 40 hours per 12-month period. Accrual begins on the first day of employment, but employees cannot use accrued leave until 90 days after they start.⁵

Salaried employees exempt from federal overtime are treated as working 40 hours a week for accrual, unless their regular schedule is shorter. Part-time workers accrue at the same rate, so someone working 20 hours a week earns roughly half an hour of leave weekly.⁵

The employer chooses the 12-month period but must designate it in writing at the time of hire. Changing the period later requires advance written notice and documentation of the employee’s current balance.⁵

Frontloading Instead of Accruing

Employers can skip hour-by-hour tracking by frontloading the full 40 hours at the start of the 12-month period or the employee’s start date. Part-time workers who are frontloaded receive a pro rata share based on expected hours.³ If an employee leaves before using frontloaded leave, the employer cannot recoup the unused hours. In exchange, frontloading eliminates the carryover requirement: employers can require employees to use the leave before the period ends or forfeit it.⁵

Using Paid Leave

Employees can use accrued leave for any reason. The Act does not require a medical note, a family emergency, or any other justification, and employers may not demand one. A day off for a concert or a car repair carries the same right as calling in sick.¹

A few rules shape how leave gets taken:

Employers cannot condition leave on the employee finding a replacement to cover the shift.¹
Employers may set a minimum increment per use, but it cannot exceed two hours. If a scheduled workday is shorter than two hours, the minimum is the length of that workday.⁵
Employers can require reasonable advance notice, and employees may request leave orally or in writing. If the employer has a notification policy, it must give the employee a written copy. An employer that never distributed its notification rules cannot deny leave for failing to follow them.¹

Carryover and Payout at Separation

Under the accrual method, unused leave carries over into the next 12-month period. Employers are never required to allow a balance above 40 hours in any single period, so the bank does not grow without limit.⁵ Frontloading employers can skip carryover altogether.

Whether an employer must cash out unused leave when an employee leaves turns on how the leave is structured. If PLAWA leave was combined or credited into an existing PTO bank that also covers vacation, unused hours must be paid out at separation like vacation pay under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act. If PLAWA leave was kept separate and tracked on its own, no payout is required.⁶

What Employers Have to Do

Employers must post a notice prepared by the Illinois Department of Labor in a conspicuous place where employee notices are customarily displayed, and include the same information in any written handbook or policy manual. If a significant portion of the workforce is not literate in English, the employer must notify the Department, which will prepare a translated version.⁷ The poster is available on the IDOL website.⁸ Failing to post carries a $500 civil penalty for a first audit violation and $1,000 for each subsequent violation.

Employers must keep records of hours worked, leave accrued, leave taken, and remaining balances for every covered employee. Records must be preserved for at least three years and made available to the Department during reasonable business hours. If a claim is pending, records must be kept for the duration of the proceeding regardless of the three-year floor. Accrual-method employers must also give employees their accrued and used balances on request.⁷

The Act separately bars employers from changing an employee’s work days or hours to avoid triggering leave obligations, such as cutting hours to hold accrual down.⁷

Retaliation and Attendance Policies

Employers cannot threaten or take adverse action against employees for using paid leave, opposing practices they believe violate the Act, or supporting a coworker’s exercise of rights. That covers termination and demotion, and it also reaches performance evaluations, promotion decisions, discipline, and no-fault attendance policies. Absences covered by PLAWA leave cannot be counted against an employee in a point-based attendance system.⁹

An employee who experiences retaliation can file a complaint with the Department and recover all appropriate legal and equitable relief, including reinstatement, back pay, and compensatory damages.⁹

How PLAWA Fits With FMLA

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for qualifying medical and family reasons, and it only reaches employers with 50 or more employees. PLAWA covers employers of any size but only 40 hours. Under federal regulations, an employer can require an employee to substitute accrued paid leave for unpaid FMLA leave so the two run concurrently.¹⁰ IDOL has confirmed that employers may require employees to use their PLAWA leave during FMLA leave.¹¹ The practical effect is that PLAWA hours can turn part of an otherwise unpaid FMLA absence into paid time, but those 40 hours are then gone for the rest of the year.

Penalties and Filing a Complaint

An employee who believes an employer has violated the Act can file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor within three years of the alleged violation. An employer found in violation is liable for the actual underpayment, compensatory damages, and a civil penalty between $500 and $1,000, plus the employee’s reasonable attorney’s fees, expert witness fees, and court costs.¹² The penalty applies per violation, so exposure compounds across employees and pay periods.

1
Illinois General Assembly. 820 ILCS 192 – Paid Leave for All Workers Act
2
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Administrative Code Title 56 Part 200
3
Illinois Department of Labor. Paid Leave for All Workers Act FAQ
4
City of Chicago. FAQ Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave
5
Illinois General Assembly. 820 ILCS 192/15 – Provision of Paid Leave
6
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Administrative Code Section 200.460 – Determining Payout of Paid Leave Upon Separation
7
Illinois General Assembly. 820 ILCS 192/20 – Related Employer Responsibilities
8
Illinois Department of Labor. Paid Leave for All Workers Act
9
Illinois General Assembly. 820 ILCS 192/25 – Retaliation
10
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.207
11
Illinois Department of Labor. Leave Rights General Information
12
Illinois General Assembly. 820 ILCS 192/30 – Department Responsibilities