Nevada Leave of Absence: Types, Job Protections, and Penalties

Nevada leave of absence laws combine state statutes and federal protections to give employees paid time off for any reason at larger employers, unpaid job-protected leave for serious medical and family situations, and targeted rights for domestic violence survivors, military members, jurors, voters, parents, and pregnant workers. What you qualify for depends on your employer’s size, how long you’ve worked there, and why you need the time.

Paid Leave You Can Use for Any Reason

NRS 608.0197 is the state’s broadest leave law. Private employers with 50 or more employees must let workers accrue at least 0.01923 hours of paid leave per hour worked, which comes out to about 40 hours a year for a full-time schedule.¹ Employers can cap annual use at 40 hours.

You can start using the leave on your 90th calendar day of employment. Part-time workers qualify — there’s no minimum-hours threshold. You don’t have to explain why you’re taking it, and your employer can’t force you to find your own replacement.¹

Every paycheck must show how many paid leave hours you have available, and employers are required to post a bulletin about the benefit at each worksite.

Family and Medical Leave (FMLA)

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period. Qualifying reasons include the birth or placement of a child, caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition, and your own serious health condition.² Your employer also has to keep your group health insurance in place.

You’re eligible if you’ve worked for your employer for at least 12 months, logged 1,250 hours in the last 12 months, and work at a site where your employer has 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius.² Public agencies and public or private schools are covered regardless of employee count.

A separate FMLA rule allows up to 26 weeks in a single 12-month period to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness, if you are the servicemember’s spouse, child, parent, or next of kin.³

Giving Notice

If you can see the leave coming — a scheduled surgery, an expected due date — you owe your employer at least 30 days’ advance notice. For emergencies, notify your employer the same day you learn of the need or the next business day.4

Getting Your Job Back

When your FMLA leave ends, your employer must return you to your same job or an equivalent one with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions. You can’t be forced to requalify for benefits you already had.²

Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Leave

Under NRS 608.0198, employees who are victims of domestic violence or sexual assault — or whose family or household members are victims — can take up to 160 hours of leave in a 12-month period. Eligibility begins after 90 days of employment. The leave can be paid or unpaid at the employer’s discretion, and you can take it in one stretch or in smaller pieces.⁵

Watch the overlap with FMLA. If the same absence qualifies under both laws, the hours run concurrently. You don’t stack 160 hours of state leave on top of a full 12 weeks of FMLA.

Using Sick Leave to Care for Family

NRS 608.01975 doesn’t create sick leave. It says that if your employer already offers sick leave, you’re allowed to use accrued time to care for an immediate family member with an illness, injury, or medical appointment. The employer can cap this family-member usage at what you’d accrue in six months.⁶

Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Lactation

The federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. Leave counts as an accommodation, whether for prenatal appointments, childbirth recovery, or a related condition. Your employer can’t push you onto leave if a different accommodation would let you keep working, and can turn down an accommodation only by showing undue hardship.⁷

After the birth, nearly all employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act have the right to reasonable break time to express breast milk for up to a year. Your employer must provide a private space that isn’t a bathroom, shielded from view and free from intrusion. If you’re fully relieved of duties during the break, it doesn’t have to be paid, but if your employer pays for other short breaks, it has to pay for these too. Employers with fewer than 50 employees can claim an undue-hardship exemption.⁸

Disability-Related Leave After FMLA Runs Out

The Americans with Disabilities Act covers employers with 15 or more employees and can require unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation for a qualifying disability. This matters most once you’ve used your 12 weeks of FMLA. The EEOC’s position is that exhausting FMLA doesn’t end the ADA obligation. If you need another five weeks to recover, your employer has to provide it unless doing so would create an undue hardship.⁹

The ADA can also require leave when an employer doesn’t offer leave as a benefit at all, or when you don’t qualify under the employer’s own policy. The controlling question is undue hardship, judged against the employer’s size, resources, and operations.⁹

Military Leave

The federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act protects employees who leave a civilian job for military service. USERRA guarantees reemployment with the seniority, pay, and benefits you would have earned had you stayed. Give advance notice when you can; the law excuses notice when military necessity or other circumstances make it impossible or unreasonable.¹⁰ USERRA does not require private employers to pay you during military leave.

Nevada adds more for public workers. Under NRS 412.139, state and local government employees who are National Guard or reserve members get up to 15 days of paid military leave per year and must be reinstated to their prior position or a comparable one.¹¹

Jury Duty, Witness Service, Voting, and School Activities

Firing or threatening to fire an employee for jury duty is a gross misdemeanor in Nevada. NRS 6.190 also bars employers from requiring you to use sick leave or vacation for jury service, or from scheduling you within 8 hours before your court appearance. If your jury service runs four or more hours, your employer can’t require you to work between 5 p.m. that day and 3 a.m. the next.¹² The law doesn’t require employers to pay you for jury service, though some do.

Witness leave gets similar protection. Under NRS 50.070, firing or threatening to fire an employee who was summoned as a witness in a judicial or administrative proceeding is a misdemeanor. An employee fired in violation can sue for lost wages, reinstatement, damages equal to those lost wages, and attorney’s fees.¹³

On election days, Nevada employers must let registered voters take paid time to vote when doing so outside working hours would be impractical. The amount depends on distance to the polling place: one hour if two miles or less, two hours if between two and ten miles, and three hours if over ten miles. Your employer picks the time slot but can’t dock your pay or discipline you.¹⁴

Parents, guardians, and custodians of children in public school can take four hours of unpaid leave per school year under NRS 392.4577 for parent-teacher conferences, school activities, volunteering during school hours, and school-sponsored events. The leave comes in one-hour minimum blocks. Employers can require five school days’ written notice and documentation of attendance. It applies to employers with 50 or more employees, and the four-hour entitlement counts separately for each enrolled child.¹⁵

Health Insurance While You’re Out

During FMLA leave, your employer must keep your group health insurance going on the same terms as if you were still at work. You still owe your share of the premium. If your payment runs more than 30 days late, your employer can drop your coverage after giving you at least 15 days’ written notice.¹⁶

Even if coverage lapses during leave, your employer must restore it when you come back. No new waiting period, no medical exam, no waiting for open enrollment. Failing to restore coverage can expose the employer to the value of lost benefits and other monetary damages.¹⁶

If you decide not to return after FMLA leave, that can trigger COBRA. The qualifying event is the last day of FMLA leave, not the day you tell your employer you’re not coming back. COBRA applies to employers with 20 or more employees.¹⁷

Retaliation, Enforcement, and Penalties

Nevada law prohibits retaliation for using leave rights. Under the paid leave statute, your employer can’t deny your accrued time, discipline you for using it, or retaliate in any way.¹ The family sick leave statute similarly bars retaliation against employees who use accrued sick leave for a family member’s needs or report violations.⁶

If you think your employer retaliated or denied leave you were owed, you can file a complaint with the Nevada Office of the Labor Commissioner, which handles state leave laws. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division handles FMLA. Multiple complaints against the same employer can trigger an audit.¹⁸

FMLA violations carry real money. An employer that interferes with FMLA rights can be liable for lost wages, employment benefits, and other compensation, plus liquidated damages equal to the total of lost wages and interest, which effectively doubles the payout. A court can shrink that only if the employer proves it acted in good faith with reasonable grounds to believe its conduct was lawful.¹⁹

What Nevada Law Doesn’t Cover

Nevada does not mandate bereavement leave for private-sector employees. Whether your employer offers paid or unpaid time after a death in the family is up to the employer, and the terms will be in your employee handbook or employment agreement rather than in state law.

1
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 608.0197 – Employer Required to Provide Paid Leave
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28M(a) – Military Caregiver Leave for a Current Servicemembera>
4
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.302 – Employee Notice Requirements for Foreseeable FMLA Leave
5
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 608.0198 – Employee Entitled to Leave Related to Domestic Violence or Sexual Assault
6
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 608.01975 – Employer Required to Allow Employee Use of Sick Leave to Assist Member of Immediate Family
7
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
8
U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA Protections for Employees to Pump Breast Milk at Work
9
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employer-Provided Leave and the Americans with Disabilities Act
10
eCFR. 20 CFR Part 1002 Subpart C – Requirement of Notice
11
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 412.139 – Military Leave for Public Employees
12
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 6.190 – Terminating or Threatening to Terminate Employment Because of Jury Duty Prohibited
13
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 50.070 – Termination or Threat of Termination of Employment Because of Service as Witness Prohibited
14
Nevada Public Law. Nevada Revised Statutes 293.463 – Employees May Absent Themselves From Employment to Vote
15
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 392.4577 – Parental Involvement
16
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.212 – Employee Failure to Pay Health Plan Premium Payments
17
eCFR. 26 CFR 54.4980B-10 – Interaction of FMLA and COBRA
18
Department of Business and Industry Office of the Labor Commissioner. Complaints
19
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2617 – Enforcement