Michigan Paid Time Off: Accrual, ESTA Rules, and Employer Duties

Michigan’s paid time off law, the Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA), took effect on February 21, 2025 and requires almost every employer in the state to provide paid sick time. You accrue one hour for every 30 hours worked. If your employer has 10 or more employees, you can use up to 72 hours a year; at a smaller employer, up to 40 hours.¹ ESTA replaced the older, narrower Paid Medical Leave Act, which had only applied to businesses with 50 or more employees.

Who the Law Covers

ESTA reaches nearly every worker in Michigan. Any employer with one or more employees must provide earned sick time, and that includes part-time, temporary, and seasonal workers, as well as employees of state and local government.²

A few categories fall outside the law:

Federal government employees.
Unpaid interns and trainees.
Workers covered by the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act.
Individuals employed under Michigan’s Youth Employment Standards Act.
Workers who set their own hours under an employer policy that prohibits adverse action for not scheduling a minimum number of hours. On-call and per diem employees do not qualify for this exemption if the employer controls the schedule.
Out-of-state workers who earn less than 50% of their compensation for time spent in Michigan.

Publicly elected officials and appointed board members are generally not considered employees under ESTA unless the governing entity treats them that way.³

How Much Paid Time You Earn

Every covered employee earns one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. The annual usage cap depends on the size of the employer:

At employers with 10 or more employees, you can use up to 72 hours a year.
At employers with fewer than 10 employees, you can use up to 40 hours a year.

Employer size is measured by the number of people working for compensation during a given week, including temps and staffing agency workers. An employer loses small-business status once it has 10 or more employees on its payroll during any 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding year.²

Frontloading Instead of Tracking Accrual

An employer can skip the hour-by-hour accrual math by frontloading the full annual amount at the start of the benefit year: at least 72 hours for larger employers or 40 hours for small businesses. Frontloading also removes the requirement to carry unused hours into the next year.¹

Carryover From Year to Year

If your employer uses the accrual method, your unused hours roll into the next year, capped at 72 hours at larger businesses or 40 at small ones. Carryover does not raise your annual usage limit. If you roll 30 hours into a new year and then accrue another 50, you still cannot use more than 72 (or 40) hours during that year.¹

The 120-Day Waiting Period for New Hires

You start accruing sick time on your first day of work, but your employer can require you to wait 120 calendar days before actually using any of it. The waiting period was added by the 2025 amendatory act and applies to employees hired after that act’s effective date.¹

What You Can Use the Time For

ESTA limits use to specific purposes. You can take earned sick time for your own physical or mental health, including illness, injury, medical appointments, and preventive care. You can also use it to care for a family member facing any of those needs.⁴

“Family member” is defined broadly. It covers children (biological, adopted, foster, stepchildren, legal wards, and children of a domestic partner), parents and stepparents, spouses and domestic partners, grandparents, grandchildren, and siblings. It also includes anyone related by blood or by a close personal association equivalent to a family relationship.²

Beyond health needs, you can use paid sick time for:

Domestic violence or sexual assault situations, including medical care, counseling, legal services, relocation, victim services, or related court proceedings.
Meetings at your child’s school or place of care related to their health, disability, or the effects of domestic violence.
Public health emergencies, including closures of your workplace or your child’s school ordered by a public official, or situations where a health authority or provider determines that your or a family member’s presence in the community would endanger others due to exposure to a communicable disease.

Your employer cannot require you to use sick time for reasons other than those listed in the statute.⁴

Notice and Documentation

When your need for leave is foreseeable, give your employer advance notice. When it is not, notify them as soon as practical. Employers can request documentation only for absences of more than three consecutive days. A note from a health care professional confirming the need for leave is enough.⁵

For absences related to domestic violence or sexual assault, you choose the form of documentation. A police report, a signed statement from a victim advocate, or a related court document all qualify. Employers cannot demand details about the nature of your illness or the specifics of the violence. One detail that trips up employers: if they require documentation, they must pay any out-of-pocket cost you incur to obtain it, including charges from a health care provider.⁵

Retaliation Is Prohibited

Employers cannot retaliate against you for using or asserting your ESTA rights. If your employer takes adverse action against you within 90 days of any of the following, the law presumes the action was retaliatory:

Filing a complaint with the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity or in court.
Informing anyone about an alleged ESTA violation.
Cooperating in an investigation or prosecution of an ESTA violation.
Opposing a policy or practice prohibited by the act.
Telling a coworker or anyone else about their rights under ESTA.

The 90-day presumption shifts the burden onto the employer to show the adverse action was unrelated to the protected activity. An employer who fires, demotes, or cuts hours for someone who recently used sick time or raised compliance concerns has to defend that decision from a losing position.

If You Already Have a PTO Policy

Employers do not have to create a separate sick time bank if they already offer PTO, vacation, or other paid leave. An existing policy satisfies ESTA as long as it provides at least the same amount of time, can be used for the same purposes, applies under the same conditions, and accrues at a rate at least as generous as the statute requires. If you have a combined PTO bank and you spend it all on vacation, you are not entitled to more sick time on top of what the policy already gave you.³

Unused Time When You Leave a Job

Your employer is not required to pay you for accrued sick time when you leave a job, whether you quit, are laid off, or are fired. Michigan’s Payment of Wages and Fringe Benefits Act ties fringe benefit payouts to whatever the employer’s written policy or contract says.⁶ If your handbook or offer letter does not promise a cash conversion for unused sick leave, those hours disappear when you walk out.

The same principle applies to vacation. Without a written promise, there is no statutory right to a payout for unused days of any type. Before leaving a job, read the handbook. Whether you get paid for leftover time or forfeit it often turns on a single paragraph.

Federal law does not fill this gap. The Fair Labor Standards Act does not require private employers to pay out accrued vacation or sick time at termination.

How ESTA Fits With Federal FMLA

ESTA and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act protect different things. FMLA provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave a year, but only if you have worked for your employer for at least 12 months, logged at least 1,250 hours during the previous year, and work at a location where the employer has 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius.⁷

ESTA has none of those thresholds. It covers you from your first day (though your employer can delay usage for up to 120 days), applies regardless of employer size, and provides paid time off rather than unpaid leave. When a situation qualifies under both, your ESTA hours and FMLA leave can run at the same time, so you get paid for the portion covered by your accrued sick time while preserving FMLA job protection for the longer absence.

Union Contracts

If you are covered by a collective bargaining agreement that was in place when ESTA took effect and that contract conflicts with the act, ESTA takes over when the agreement reaches its stated expiration or amendable date. If the contract is silent on sick leave, ESTA applied immediately, and accrual began on February 21, 2025 (or October 1, 2025 for small-business employees).³

Employer Penalties and Posting Duties

Every covered employer must display the official ESTA poster in a conspicuous location accessible to employees. The poster is free from the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity and must be posted in English.⁸ Employers must also give written notice of ESTA rights to each employee individually at hiring.³

Employers who fail to provide earned sick time face a $1,000 administrative fine plus a potential civil fine of up to eight times the employee’s normal hourly wage. Willful violations of the posting requirement carry a $100 administrative fine per separate violation. The Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity can also order payment of improperly withheld sick time, damages resulting from the violation, back pay, and reinstatement for employees who lost their jobs.³

1
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 408.963 – Earned Sick Time Act
2
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 408.962 – Earned Sick Time Act Definitions
3
Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. Earned Sick Time Act Frequently Asked Questions
4
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 408.964 – Earned Sick Time Permissible Uses
5
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 408.964 – Earned Sick Time Permissible Uses
6
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws Act 390 of 1978 – Payment of Wages and Fringe Benefits Act
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 29 Section 2611 – Definitions
8
Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. Earned Sick Time Act Required Poster