Minnesota PFML: Eligibility, Benefits, Premiums, and Job Protection

Minnesota’s Paid Family and Medical Leave program starts January 1, 2026, and gives most workers in the state partial wage replacement when they take time off for their own serious health condition, a new child, caregiving for a loved one, a domestic violence or stalking situation, or a family member’s military deployment.¹ You can take up to 12 weeks per qualifying category in a benefit year, or 20 weeks combined if more than one type of event happens. The program runs on a payroll premium of 0.88% of wages, split between you and your employer.

Who Qualifies

Coverage follows where you work, not where the company is based. You’re covered if at least 50% of your work during the calendar year is performed in Minnesota. If your work isn’t concentrated in any single state, you can still qualify by doing some work in Minnesota and living here for at least half the year.² Employer size doesn’t matter. Public and private sector workers both qualify.

Being covered isn’t the same as being eligible for a check. To actually receive benefits, you need to have earned at least 5.3% of the state’s average annual wage (rounded down to the nearest $100) during your base period, similar to the earnings history used for unemployment insurance.³ Workers with very sporadic earnings can fall short.

Independent contractors and self-employed people are not automatically in. You can opt in, but the commitment runs for at least 104 consecutive weeks and requires paying premiums based on your net self-employment earnings. To leave the program after that initial two years, you have to file a notice at least 30 days before January 1 of the year you want coverage to end.⁴

What You Can Take Leave For

The statute splits qualifying reasons into medical leave, meaning your own health, and family leave, covering everyone else’s needs plus new children and personal safety situations.

Medical leave is available for a serious health condition, defined as a physical or mental illness, injury, or substance use disorder that requires inpatient care or ongoing treatment by a health care provider. That includes a period of incapacity lasting seven or more days with follow-up care, chronic conditions requiring periodic visits, and pregnancy-related medical care.⁵ Minor illnesses and routine appointments don’t qualify.

Family leave covers four different situations:

Bonding with a new child after a birth, adoption, or foster placement. You have 12 months from the child’s arrival to use this.
Caring for a family member with a serious health condition.
Safety leave to deal with domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking affecting you or a family member. That includes seeking medical care, counseling, relocation, legal help, or victim services.²
Military exigency leave to support a family member called to active duty.

Minnesota’s definition of “family member” is unusually broad. It reaches beyond spouse, child, and parent to include siblings, grandchildren, grandparents (yours and your spouse’s), and in-laws. It also covers anyone with whom you have a personal relationship that creates a mutual expectation of care, even if you don’t live together.² A close friend without other support, a long-term partner you haven’t married, or chosen family can all qualify.

How Much Time You Get

In a single benefit year, you can take up to 12 weeks of medical leave and up to 12 weeks of family leave. When you use both types in the same year, they cap at 20 weeks combined. Someone who spends 12 weeks recovering from surgery could still take another 8 weeks of bonding leave with a new baby in that same year.

Leave doesn’t have to run in one continuous block. The qualifying event has to last at least seven days, but those days don’t need to be consecutive. Intermittent leave is available when it’s medically necessary or when circumstances require it, which helps for chronic conditions that flare unpredictably and for treatments like chemotherapy.

How Much You’ll Be Paid

The weekly benefit uses a tiered formula that replaces a bigger share of income for lower earners. It compares your average weekly wage in your highest-earning quarter to the State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) and adds three pieces together:³

90% of your wages up to 50% of the SAWW
66% of your wages between 50% and 100% of the SAWW
55% of your wages above 100% of the SAWW

The weekly maximum is 100% of the SAWW. As of October 2025, that ceiling is roughly $1,423 per week, and the SAWW is recalculated each year.

An example makes the math concrete. If you earn $800 per week and the SAWW is about $1,423, then 50% of the SAWW is around $712. You’d get 90% of that first $712 (about $641) plus 66% of the remaining $88 (about $58), for a weekly benefit near $699. That works out to roughly 87% wage replacement. A worker earning $2,000 per week gets under 75% replacement because the higher tiers replace less.

What Comes Out of Your Paycheck

The program is funded by a payroll premium of 0.88% of wages for 2026, a rate the Department of Employment and Economic Development confirmed based on actuarial analysis before launch.¹ Your employer has to cover at least half. They can pay more, or all of it, as a benefit. If they pay only the minimum, your share comes out of your wages, and that deduction cannot push your pay below the applicable minimum wage.⁶

Employers with 30 or fewer workers and an average wage at or below 150% of the statewide average pay a reduced premium, and their required employer share is smaller. That can shift how much of the premium falls on you if you work for a qualifying small employer.⁵

How to Request Leave and File a Claim

There are two separate steps when you need time off: telling your employer and applying to the state for benefits.

If your leave is foreseeable, give your employer at least 30 days’ advance notice. For unexpected events like an emergency hospitalization, notify them as soon as you can. Your employer may also have its own leave-request procedure that you need to follow on top of the state application.

The benefits application itself goes through DEED’s online Paid Leave portal, not through your employer. You submit a certification form matched to your type of leave. Medical leave needs part of the form completed by your health care provider. Safety leave can be documented by a victim services provider or similar professional. Have your Social Security number, employer information, and expected leave dates ready before you start.

Job Protection and Health Insurance

When you come back from leave, your employer has to return you to the same job you held before, or to one that is effectively identical in pay, benefits, working conditions, seniority, and responsibilities. That right applies even if the position was filled or restructured while you were out.⁷ Unconditional raises that happened during your absence, like cost-of-living adjustments, apply to you too. If you missed a licensing renewal or training deadline because of the leave, you get a reasonable chance to catch up.

Your group health insurance stays in place during the entire leave period on the same terms as if you were working. If you normally pay a share of the premium, you still owe that share while you’re out.⁷

Your employer cannot fire, discipline, demote, or threaten you for requesting or taking leave, and cannot obstruct your benefits application. Violations carry penalties of $1,000 to $10,000 per incident, paid directly to you, scaled to the employer’s size and the seriousness of the violation.⁷

How This Works With Federal FMLA

Minnesota’s program and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act overlap without being identical. FMLA gives up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave at employers with 50 or more employees. Minnesota’s program pays benefits and covers workers at employers of every size. Where both laws apply to the same leave, your employer can require them to run concurrently, so your 12 weeks of FMLA leave and your 12 weeks of paid Minnesota leave count together rather than stacking to 24.

The gap this fills is largest for two groups. If you work for a company with 15 employees, you likely have no FMLA rights, and Minnesota’s paid leave still covers you. And at larger employers, FMLA already guaranteed the job but not the paycheck. Now you get both.

Federal Tax Treatment

These benefits are not tax-free. Family leave benefits (bonding, caregiving, safety, and military exigency) count as federal gross income and must be reported on your tax return. They are not treated as wages for Social Security and Medicare, so no FICA is withheld.

Medical leave benefits sit in a more complicated spot. IRS Notice 2026-6, issued in late 2025, extended a transition period through the end of 2026 for how state medical leave benefits are taxed federally. During that transition, medical leave benefits paid directly by the state won’t be treated as third-party sick pay for 2026.

One detail to watch: if your employer voluntarily pays your share of the premium as a benefit, that pick-up amount is treated as taxable federal income to you and must appear on your W-2. The employer’s own mandatory share is treated as a state tax and is not taxable income to you.

1
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Paid Leave Confirms Premium Rate, Remains on Track for Launch in 2026
2
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 268B.01 – Definitions
3
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 268B.04 – Financial Eligibility and Benefits
4
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 268B.11 – Self-Employed and Independent Contractor Election of Coverage
5
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 268B – Family and Medical Benefits (Full Chapter)
6
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 268B.14 – Premiums
7
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 268B.09 – Employment Protections