Minnesota’s paid maternity leave is delivered through the state’s Paid Family and Medical Leave program, which launched January 1, 2026. If you give birth, adopt, or take in a foster child, you can receive partial wage replacement for up to 20 combined weeks in a benefit year, with a maximum weekly benefit of $1,423.1Minnesota Paid Leave. Estimate Your Payments The program is run by the Department of Employment and Economic Development, and you apply through pl.mn.gov once your leave begins.
Who Qualifies
Nearly every employee of a private or public employer in Minnesota is covered, with no minimum employer size and no length-of-service requirement with your current job. What you do need is enough earnings history. Specifically, your wage credits during your base period must equal at least 5.3% of the state’s average annual wage, rounded down to the next lower $100.2Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes 268B.04 – Benefit Account Requirements Your base period is generally the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before you file. If you’ve been working even part-time over the past year, you most likely clear the bar.
Two kinds of leave matter here, and new mothers often use both. Medical leave covers pregnancy-related health care and recovery from childbirth. Family leave covers bonding with your child in the first 12 months after birth, adoption, or foster placement. Fathers, adoptive parents, and foster parents qualify for family leave on the same terms.
How Many Weeks You Can Take
You can receive up to 12 weeks of medical leave and up to 12 weeks of family leave. When you qualify for both — which is typical for a birth parent recovering and then bonding — the combined cap in a single benefit year is 20 weeks.3Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes Chapter 268B – Family and Medical Benefits Your benefit year is a 52-week window that starts on the effective date of your leave.4Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes 268B.01 – Definitions
You don’t have to use the time in one block. Intermittent leave is allowed, so you can take days or partial weeks, or temporarily reduce your schedule. One limit to know: if intermittent leave exceeds 480 hours in a benefit year, your employer can require any remaining leave to be taken continuously.
How Much You’ll Be Paid
The benefit replaces a larger share of lower wages and a smaller share of higher wages. For weekly earnings up to $711.50 (half the state’s current average weekly wage), you receive 90%. For the portion of your weekly wages above $711.50, the replacement rate is 66%. The weekly benefit caps at $1,423.1Minnesota Paid Leave. Estimate Your Payments
A couple of examples make the formula concrete. If you earn $600 a week, your benefit is about $540. If you earn $1,200 a week, you get 90% of the first $711.50 ($640.35) plus 66% of the remaining $488.50 ($322.41), for roughly $963 per week. The state’s calculator at pl.mn.gov will give you a personalized estimate before you apply.
When the Money Arrives
For continuous leave, your first payment is processed after your seventh day of leave and usually lands three to five business days later. Those first seven days aren’t an unpaid waiting period; they’re a “qualifying event” and get paid retroactively in the first check. The seven-day qualifying event doesn’t apply to bonding leave at all, so there’s no built-in delay for the family-leave portion.3Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes Chapter 268B – Family and Medical Benefits
How to Apply
Applications go through the state portal at pl.mn.gov. Before you start, pull together your Social Security number, wage history for the past four to five quarters, and contact information for every employer during that period. Having it in front of you keeps the application from stalling.
For medical leave tied to pregnancy or postpartum recovery, your healthcare provider must complete a certification form that verifies the medical basis for your leave and gives an estimated duration, signed with their credentials. For bonding leave, you submit documentation of the family relationship instead, such as a birth certificate or placement papers.
Notice to Your Employer
You owe your employer at least 30 days’ advance notice when leave is foreseeable, which it generally is around a due date. If something changes unexpectedly or an emergency comes up, you have to notify them “as soon as practicable” — the statute reads that as the same day or the next business day when possible. A phone call or text is enough as long as it tells them you need leave and when you expect it to start and end. Your employer can require you to follow their normal call-out procedures, but they cannot shorten the notice window the statute gives you.3Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes Chapter 268B – Family and Medical Benefits
Your Job While You’re Out
When you come back, your employer has to put you in the same position you held or in an equivalent one — “virtually identical” in duties, responsibilities, skill level, and authority — at the same pay, benefits, and working conditions. Any unconditional raises that happened while you were out, including cost-of-living increases, apply to you too. If a required training or license renewal came due during leave, your employer has to give you a reasonable chance to catch up.3Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes Chapter 268B – Family and Medical Benefits
Health insurance has to continue on the same terms as if you were still working. You stay responsible for your share of the premiums, so set up a payment arrangement with HR before you leave so a bill doesn’t lapse while you’re home with a newborn.
Retaliation is barred. Your employer can’t fire, discipline, demote, or otherwise penalize you for requesting or using paid leave, and they can’t interfere with your benefit application. The Commissioner of Labor and Industry can order penalties of $1,000 to $10,000 per violation, paid to you, and you can pursue damages in court on top of that, including liquidated damages that can effectively double the recovery.3Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes Chapter 268B – Family and Medical Benefits Importantly, these protections don’t depend on your employer’s size, which matters if your company is too small for federal FMLA.
What Comes Out of Your Paycheck
The program is funded by payroll premiums split between employers and employees. For standard employers in 2026, the total premium is about 1.32% of wages, and employers must pay at least half. The employee share works out to roughly 0.44% of wages — on a $50,000 salary, that’s about $220 a year, or around $8.50 per biweekly check. Deductions happen automatically; there’s no separate enrollment for employees of covered employers.5Minnesota Paid Leave. Small Employers
How This Fits with Federal FMLA
If you’ve been with your employer at least 12 months and the company has 50 or more employees, you likely also qualify for unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. Employers can run FMLA and Minnesota Paid Leave at the same time, so the weeks overlap rather than add together. The federal law protects your job; the state program pays you and provides its own job protections. If your employer is too small for FMLA, Minnesota’s protections stand on their own, since the state program has no minimum employer size.
If Your Employer Uses a Private Plan
Some employers run their own “equivalent plan” instead of participating in the state program. To qualify, the private plan has to match or beat the state plan on weekly benefit amount, total duration, eligibility, job protections, and intermittent leave, and it can’t cost employees more in premiums than the state plan would.6Minnesota Paid Leave. Equivalent Plans for Paid Leave If you leave a job covered by an equivalent plan, your coverage continues for 26 weeks after separation or until you start a new job, and a leave application filed during that window has to be paid in full. An employer can also use a private plan for only one leave type and the state program for the other. Ask HR for a copy of your plan documents so you can compare it to the state plan yourself.
Taxes on Your Benefits
Family leave benefits (the bonding portion) are fully taxable as income at both the federal and Minnesota state level and are reported to you on Form 1099-G, not a W-2, because they come from the state.
Medical leave benefits are only partly taxable. For 2026, the taxable portion is limited to the share tied to your employer’s premium contributions — generally about 50% of the benefit amount, or roughly 33% if you work for a small employer paying the reduced premium rate. The rest, representing your own premium contributions, is excluded from taxable income.
You can elect voluntary withholding of 10% for federal income tax and 5% for Minnesota income tax on your benefit payments.7Minnesota Department of Revenue. Minnesota Paid Leave If you don’t elect withholding, set aside something for April. The family-leave portion in particular can produce a tax bill people aren’t expecting.