FMLA leave is unpaid in Pennsylvania. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees up to 12 weeks of job-protected time off each year, but it does not require your employer to pay you while you are away, and Pennsylvania has no state law that turns that unpaid time into a paycheck. Most workers who receive income during FMLA leave do so by stacking other benefits on top of it: accrued vacation or sick time, short-term disability insurance, or in two cities, a small amount of mandated paid sick leave.
Why FMLA Itself Does Not Pay You
The statute is explicit that FMLA leave “may consist of unpaid leave.”1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 2612 – Leave Requirement The federal law protects two things while you are out: your job (or an equivalent one) and your group health coverage. Wages are not on that list.
Pennsylvania has not layered a state program on top. Several Northeast states run mandatory paid family and medical leave insurance programs; Pennsylvania does not. A bipartisan bill to create one was introduced in the state legislature in early 2025 and remained pending as of early 2026, with no enactment date set. Until that changes, the federal unpaid standard is the baseline for most workers across the state.
Two Pennsylvania cities require some paid sick time, but neither covers a full FMLA absence. Philadelphia’s Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces ordinance requires covered employers to provide up to 40 hours (five days) of paid sick leave per year, earned at a rate of one hour for every 40 hours worked.2City of Philadelphia. POWER Act Updates Employer Memo Pittsburgh’s Paid Sick Days Act, in effect since March 2020 with amendments taking effect in January 2026, lets covered workers earn and use paid sick leave.3City of Pittsburgh. Paid Sick Days Act Forty hours is a fraction of the 480 hours in a 12-week leave, and outside those two cities no Pennsylvania mandate requires any paid leave at all.
How Workers Actually Get Paid During FMLA Leave
Substituting Accrued Paid Time Off
The most common way to keep a paycheck coming is to substitute accrued vacation, personal days, or sick leave for the unpaid FMLA period. You can choose to do this, and your employer can require it.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 2612 – Leave Requirement Either way, the paid leave runs concurrently with FMLA, so using five vacation days does not add five days to your 12-week entitlement.4eCFR. 29 CFR 825.207 – Substitution of Paid Leave
If your employer requires substitution, you still have to follow its normal paid-leave procedures, like submitting a leave request form. Skipping those procedures can cost you the pay, but it cannot cost you the FMLA protection itself. You stay on FMLA leave either way.4eCFR. 29 CFR 825.207 – Substitution of Paid Leave
Short-Term and Long-Term Disability Insurance
When your leave is for your own serious health condition, short-term or long-term disability insurance can replace a share of your income. These policies typically pay between 50% and 70% of regular earnings, though most include a waiting period of one to two weeks before payments start. Your employer’s benefits handbook or Summary Plan Description will spell out the exact coverage amounts and elimination period.
Disability payments and FMLA leave generally run at the same time. Because FMLA itself provides nothing, disability insurance is often the only income source once accrued paid leave runs out. Send medical documentation to the insurer as early as you can to avoid delays.
Bonuses and Attendance-Based Pay
If your employer offers bonuses tied to attendance or hours worked, taking unpaid FMLA time can affect your eligibility, but only if workers who take other kinds of unpaid leave are treated the same way. Your employer cannot single out FMLA absences for worse treatment. And if you substitute paid sick leave for your FMLA time and the bonus policy counts paid sick leave as hours worked, you would stay eligible for the bonus.5U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28A – Employee Protections Under the Family and Medical Leave Act
What You Keep Even Without a Paycheck
Health Insurance Continues
Although FMLA leave is unpaid, your employer must keep your group health insurance going on the same terms as if you were still working. If you normally pay part of the premium through payroll deductions, you have to keep making those payments during your leave to maintain coverage.6eCFR. 29 CFR 825.209 – Maintenance of Employee Benefits
If your premium payment is more than 30 days late and your employer has no policy granting a longer grace period, the employer may drop your coverage, but it must give you at least 15 days’ written notice first.7eCFR. 29 CFR 825.212 – Employee Failure to Pay Health Plan Premium Payments
If you do not return to work after your leave ends, your employer may seek reimbursement for its share of the premiums paid during your absence. There are exceptions: the employer cannot recover those costs if you failed to return because of your own serious health condition, a family member’s serious health condition, or a covered servicemember’s serious injury or illness. The employer can ask for medical certification to verify the reason, and you have 30 days to provide it.8eCFR. 29 CFR 825.213 – Employer Recovery of Benefit Costs
Your Job Is Protected
When your FMLA leave ends, your employer must restore you to the same position you held before the leave or to an equivalent one with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions. An equivalent position means virtually identical duties, responsibilities, schedule, and work location. You are also entitled to any across-the-board pay raises, such as cost-of-living increases, that took effect while you were away.9eCFR. 29 CFR 825.215 – Equivalent Position Benefits you had accrued before leave started, including health coverage and pension participation, stay intact, and you cannot be forced to requalify for them.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 2614 – Employment and Benefits Protection
One narrow exception applies to “key employees,” salaried workers in the highest-paid 10% within 75 miles of the worksite. They can be denied restoration if the employer shows substantial economic harm would result, and even then the employer must notify them and give them a chance to return to work immediately.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 2614 – Employment and Benefits Protection
Who Qualifies for FMLA in Pennsylvania
None of this applies if you are not eligible in the first place. To take FMLA leave, you have to meet three tests:11U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Frequently Asked Questions
- Your employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles of your worksite. Public agencies and schools are covered regardless of size.
- You have worked for your current employer for at least 12 months, though those months do not have to be consecutive. Generally, only employment within the last seven years counts unless the break was due to military service or a collective bargaining agreement.
- You have worked at least 1,250 hours during the 12 months before your leave starts.
Returning servicemembers get credit toward the 1,250-hour threshold for hours they would have worked during deployment. If your company was recently acquired or merged, the new employer may be a “successor in interest,” meaning time with the previous employer counts toward eligibility; federal regulations look at whether the same business operations, workforce, and working conditions carried over.12eCFR. 29 CFR 825.107 – Successor in Interest Coverage
Qualifying reasons include the birth or adoption of a child, caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition, your own serious health condition, and certain military family needs.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 2612 – Leave Requirement A separate provision lets the spouse, child, parent, or next of kin of a servicemember with a serious injury or illness take up to 26 workweeks of leave in a single 12-month period, with any other FMLA leave counted against that cap.13U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28M(a) – Military Caregiver Leave for a Current Servicemember
If you qualify, plan the pay side of your leave early. Check how much vacation and sick time you have, confirm whether your employer requires you to use it, and get your disability insurance paperwork moving before the first paycheck gap arrives.