Nevada Paid Leave Law: Accrual, Usage, and FMLA Overlap

Nevada’s paid leave law requires private employers with 50 or more employees in the state to provide paid time off that workers can use for any reason. Employees earn at least 0.01923 hours of leave for every hour worked, which adds up to roughly 40 hours a year for a full-time schedule. The rule took effect January 1, 2020, and unlike most state leave mandates, it does not tie the time to illness or any specific qualifying event.¹

Who Is Covered

The law reaches private employers with 50 or more employees working in Nevada. Business structure is irrelevant; if the headcount is there, the obligation applies. Government employers at every level are excluded entirely.¹

Two employer-side exemptions matter. Businesses in their first two years of operation are not required to comply. And an employer that already offers a paid leave or PTO policy for all scheduled employees at a rate of at least 0.01923 hours per hour worked is exempt, because the policy already delivers what the statute demands.¹

On the employee side, the statute explicitly excludes temporary, seasonal, and on-call workers. Independent contractors are also outside the law’s coverage.¹

Eligible employees start accruing leave on their first day of work. Employers can, however, make workers wait until the 90th calendar day of employment before using any of it.¹

How Leave Accrues

The minimum accrual rate is 0.01923 hours for every hour worked. A full-time employee working 2,080 hours a year reaches about 40 hours of paid leave. Part-time workers earn at the same rate but accumulate less because they work fewer hours.¹

Employers pick one of two ways to grant the leave. Under the accrual method, hours build up gradually across the benefit year as the employee works. Under the lump-sum method, the employer credits the full year’s worth of leave on the first day of each benefit year. A benefit year is any 365-day period the employer uses to track accrual, and the employer decides when it begins.¹

Carryover, Usage Caps, and Minimum Increments

When leave accrues gradually, unused hours carry over from one benefit year to the next. Employers may cap that carryover at 40 hours. Carryover does not apply to lump-sum grants, because the employee receives a fresh allotment at the start of each year.¹

Regardless of method, the employer can cap total leave used in a benefit year at 40 hours. Even if you rolled hours over from last year, this year’s usage can still be limited to 40.¹

Employers may also set a minimum increment for taking leave, but that minimum cannot exceed four hours. So a policy requiring hour-long or two-hour blocks is allowed; a five-hour minimum is not. It’s a detail that surprises workers who want to leave 30 minutes early and find out their policy forces a bigger chunk.¹

Using the Leave

You can use paid leave for any reason, and you do not have to tell your employer why. That is the feature that separates this law from a traditional sick leave statute. A medical appointment, a family event, a mental health day, or personal errands all qualify equally.¹

A few rules shape how requests work in practice:

Notice must be given “as soon as practicable” before the leave. The statute does not fix a number of days, so what counts as practicable depends on the situation.
Employers cannot make you find a coworker to cover your shift as a condition of taking leave.
Employers cannot discipline, demote, or fire you for using accrued paid leave.

Because no reason is required, employers should not condition approval on the purpose behind the request or demand documentation to justify it.¹

Pay Rate While on Leave

You are paid at your current rate when you take leave, not the rate you were earning when you accrued it. For hourly workers, that means whatever hourly rate applies on the day off.¹

For salaried, commissioned, or piece-rate employees, the rate is calculated by dividing total wages earned over the previous 90 days by the hours worked in that period. Agreed-upon and earned bonuses count in that calculation. Discretionary bonuses, overtime, hazard pay, holiday pay, and tips do not. The pay must appear on the payday that would normally cover those hours.²

What Happens to Unused Leave If You Leave the Job

Employers are not required to pay out unused paid leave when an employee separates. Payout is optional; the law does not treat accrued Nevada paid leave the way some states treat accrued vacation.¹

There is one exception on the rehire side. If an employee is involuntarily separated and then rehired by the same employer within 90 days, previously unused leave hours must be reinstated. This does not apply to workers who resigned voluntarily.²

What Employers Have to Show You

The Nevada Labor Commissioner prepares a bulletin explaining the paid leave benefits, and every covered employer has to post it in a conspicuous spot at each workplace. The bulletin is also on the Labor Commissioner’s website.²

On every payday, your employer must provide an accounting of your available paid leave hours. Most satisfy this with a line item on the pay stub or through the payroll portal. Employers must also keep leave accrual and usage records for at least a year and make them available to the Labor Commissioner on request.¹

How Nevada Paid Leave Lines Up with FMLA

Federal FMLA offers up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year for specific qualifying reasons such as a serious health condition, the birth of a child, or caring for a family member. It applies to employers with 50 or more employees within 75 miles, and the employee must have worked at least 1,250 hours in the preceding 12 months.³

When an absence qualifies under both laws, the time can run concurrently. An employer can require you to use accrued Nevada paid leave during FMLA leave, which turns unpaid FMLA time into paid time. The tradeoff for you: FMLA weeks become paid, but your Nevada leave balance shrinks in the process.⁴

Filing a Complaint and Retaliation Protection

The Nevada Labor Commissioner enforces the paid leave law. If your rights have been violated, you can file a complaint with that office. In many cases, the Commissioner first sends a warning letter to the employer explaining the law and asking for compliance before escalating.

Retaliation is where employers most often get into trouble. The statute prohibits any adverse action against an employee for using available paid leave, including termination, demotion, reduced hours, and disciplinary write-ups. Remedies can include restitution, reinstatement, or back wages. The law also preserves other rights and remedies, so a claim under NRS 608.0197 does not block you from pursuing additional legal options.¹

1
Nevada Legislature. NRS 608.0197 – Employer Required to Provide Paid Leave
2
Nevada Legislature. NRS Chapter 608 – Compensation, Wages and Hours
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act
4
eCFR. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993