Minnesota ESST: Accrual, Carryover, and Local Ordinances

Minnesota’s Earned Sick and Safe Time law gives most workers in the state paid leave for illness, caregiving, safety needs, and certain closures. You earn one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours you work, up to 48 hours a year, and you can bank up to 80 hours total.¹ The law took effect January 1, 2024.²

Who the Law Covers

You qualify if your employer reasonably expects you to work at least 80 hours in Minnesota during the year. Full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers all count.³

A handful of narrow categories are excluded:

Federal employees
Independent contractors
Volunteer and paid-on-call firefighters
Volunteer ambulance attendants and paid-on-call ambulance personnel
Elected officials and people appointed to fill elected vacancies
Certain short-term farm workers hired for 28 days or fewer per year
Some construction workers represented by a building trades union, where the collective bargaining agreement contains a valid ESST waiver
Certain family caregivers who have formally waived their ESST rights

If none of those describe you and you meet the 80-hour threshold, you’re covered.³

How You Earn Hours

Accrual starts on your first day. You earn one hour of ESST for every 30 hours worked, up to 48 hours in a year. Your employer can be more generous, but 48 is the legal floor, and you can use the hours as soon as you earn them. There is no waiting period after hire.⁴

Salaried employees who are exempt from overtime are treated as working 40 hours per week for accrual. If your normal workweek is shorter than 40 hours, accrual tracks your actual schedule.⁴

Front-Loading Instead of Tracking Accrual

Your employer can skip hour-by-hour accrual by giving you a set number of hours at the start of the year. Three approaches are allowed:

Standard accrual with carryover. You earn as you work, and unused time rolls over, capped at 80 hours total.
Front-load 48 hours with a year-end payout of any unused time at your base rate. No carryover required.
Front-load 80 hours with neither payout nor carryover at year’s end.

The payout-and-no-carryover option only works if the employer front-loads at least 48 hours. To skip both payout and carryover, the employer must front-load at least 80.⁵

Carryover, the 80-Hour Cap, and Leaving a Job

Under standard accrual, unused hours roll into the next calendar year. Your total balance is capped at 80 hours at any given time. Once you hit 80, accrual pauses until you use some time and drop below the cap.⁴

When you leave a job, your employer is not required to pay out your unused ESST. Some do, but nothing in the statute forces it.³ If the same employer rehires you within 180 days, your previously accrued hours must be reinstated. If the business is sold, employees who stay on with the new owner keep their accrued hours.⁶

What You Can Use ESST For

The law covers both sick and safety-related reasons:

Your own physical or mental illness, injury, medical appointments, or preventive care
The same health needs for a qualifying family member
Domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking affecting you or a family member, including time for medical care, counseling, legal help, relocation, and safety planning
Closure of your workplace, or of a family member’s school or care facility, because of weather or another public emergency

“Family member” is defined broadly. It covers children, spouses, registered domestic partners, siblings, parents, grandparents, grandchildren, and stepfamily in those same categories. It also includes anyone whose close relationship with you is essentially equivalent to a family bond, with no blood or legal tie required.³

Notice and Documentation

For foreseeable absences, your employer can require up to seven days’ advance notice. Any policy asking for more than seven days is unenforceable.⁷ For unforeseeable absences, you just need to notify your employer as soon as you reasonably can.

A doctor’s note or other documentation can only be required if you’re out for more than three consecutive days. Even then, the documentation only has to confirm the absence qualifies. It doesn’t have to disclose a diagnosis or share other medical details.¹

Your employer cannot make you find your own replacement as a condition of using ESST. If a manager tells you to line up shift coverage before you can call in sick, that policy violates the law.³

How You Are Paid for ESST

You’re paid at your regular base hourly rate. Tips, overtime premiums, and similar variable pay aren’t part of the calculation.¹

You can use ESST in the smallest increment your employer’s payroll system tracks. If payroll runs in 15-minute blocks, you can use 15 minutes. The law caps the minimum increment at four hours, so no employer can force you to burn a half-day for a short absence.⁸

Retaliation Is Prohibited

Your employer cannot fire you, discipline you, cut your hours, or take any other negative action against you for requesting or using ESST. The same protection covers filing a complaint, participating in an investigation, and telling a coworker about their rights.⁷

Attendance point systems are a common problem spot. ESST absences cannot count against you under a points-based system. Charging points for a legitimate sick day violates the statute.⁷

The law also expressly bars employers from threatening to report an employee’s immigration status in retaliation for using ESST. You don’t have to cite the statute by name to be protected; exercising a covered right is enough.⁷

What Your Employer Owes You in Writing

At the start of employment, you must receive a written notice explaining your ESST rights, how much time you can earn, when your accrual year starts, how to use the leave, that retaliation is prohibited, and that you can file a complaint or sue if your rights are violated. The notice must be in your primary language.⁷ The Department of Labor and Industry publishes a sample template.⁹

Every pay stub or earnings statement must show ESST hours used during the pay period and ESST hours available. If your pay stub doesn’t include these numbers, that’s a compliance failure on its own.⁹

Employers must keep records of hours worked and ESST used for at least three years.¹

Penalties and Filing a Complaint

An employer that denies ESST or blocks its use owes you the full value of the hours that should have been available plus an equal amount in liquidated damages. That doubles the payout. If the number of hours owed can’t be pinned down, the employer is liable for 48 hours per year of noncompliance, plus matching liquidated damages.³

You have two enforcement routes. File a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, which investigates ESST violations, or bring a civil lawsuit directly. The written notice your employer is required to give you must explain both options.⁷ To reach DLI’s ESST team, email esst.dli@state.mn.us.

Minneapolis and St. Paul Ordinances Still Apply

Minneapolis and St. Paul had their own sick and safe time ordinances before the statewide law took effect, and those local laws remain in force. Where the statewide law and a local ordinance overlap, employers must follow whichever rule is more favorable to the employee.¹ If you work in either city, check your local ordinance for any point where it offers more than the state floor.

1
Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. Earned Sick and Safe Time (ESST)
2
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes 181.9445 – Definitions
3
Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. FAQs: Earned Sick and Safe Time (ESST)
4
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes 181.9446
5
Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. Earned Sick and Safe Time Slides
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Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes 181.9448
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Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes 181.9447
8
Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. Is Your Earned Sick and Safe Time (ESST) Policy Compliant?
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Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. Earned Sick and Safe Time Employee Notice