New York State Sick Leave (NYSSL): Accrual, Uses, and Carryover

New York State sick leave, set by Labor Law Section 196-b, gives every private-sector employee up to 40 or 56 hours of job-protected sick leave each calendar year, paid or unpaid depending on the size and income of the employer. You start earning it on your first day, and you can use it for your own health, a family member’s health, or safe-leave situations tied to domestic violence, stalking, sexual offenses, or human trafficking.¹

Who the Law Covers

Every private-sector employee in New York is covered from day one. Part-time, seasonal, temporary, and overtime-exempt workers are all included, and there is no minimum tenure or hours-worked threshold to qualify.¹ If you work for a private employer in the state, the law applies to you.

How Much Leave You Get and Whether It’s Paid

The amount and pay status depend on the size of your employer, and for the smallest employers, on net income from the previous tax year.²

Employers with 4 or fewer employees and net income of $1 million or less the prior tax year: up to 40 hours of unpaid sick leave per calendar year.
Employers with 4 or fewer employees and net income above $1 million the prior tax year: up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.
Employers with 5 to 99 employees: up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.
Employers with 100 or more employees: up to 56 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.

Because the income test looks backward one tax year, a small business that had a strong year may owe paid leave the following calendar year even if revenue has dropped since.² Paid leave is paid at your regular rate or the applicable minimum wage, whichever is higher.¹

How You Earn the Hours

Accrual begins on your first day of employment. You earn at least one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked.² A full-time schedule of 40 hours a week banks about 1.33 hours per week, reaching 40 hours in roughly 30 weeks and 56 hours in about 42 weeks.

An employer can skip rolling accrual and frontload the full annual amount at the start of the calendar year. If they do, they cannot later claw hours back because you did not end up working enough to have earned them under the 1-for-30 formula.²

Your employer may set a reasonable waiting period before a new hire can use accrued leave, but the accrual itself cannot be delayed past your start date.

What You Can Use It For

Sick leave covers your own health needs and those of a family member. Qualifying uses include diagnosis, care, or treatment of a mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition, as well as preventive care such as a routine checkup or a flu shot.²

The statute defines “family member” broadly: your child, spouse, domestic partner, parent, sibling, grandchild, or grandparent, and the child or parent of your spouse or domestic partner. Foster children and step-relatives fall within these categories.² Siblings and grandparents are included, which is wider than many workers expect.

Safe Leave

The same accrued hours can be used as safe leave when you or a family member has been the victim of domestic violence, a sexual offense, stalking, or human trafficking. Covered activities include:

Visiting a domestic violence shelter, rape crisis center, or similar program.
Relocating temporarily or permanently or taking other steps to increase safety.
Meeting with an attorney, filing a complaint with law enforcement, or meeting with a district attorney’s office.
Enrolling children in a new school.
Any other action necessary to protect the health or safety of the employee or a family member.

Safe leave draws from the same bank of hours as health-related sick leave. It is not an additional allotment.³

Requesting Leave and Documentation

You can request sick leave verbally or in writing. Your employer cannot require you to find a replacement worker as a condition of approving the leave.¹ Demanding that you arrange your own coverage is one of the most common violations of the law.

State regulations limit documentation requests. Your employer cannot ask for medical verification for an absence of fewer than three consecutive previously scheduled workdays or shifts. For an absence of three or more consecutive scheduled workdays, an employer may request documentation confirming you qualify for sick leave.⁴

You do not have to disclose the specific nature of the illness, injury, or condition, and the same protection applies to the details of a domestic violence, sexual offense, stalking, or human trafficking situation. The statute treats this as a bright-line rule.² Any documentation an employer does receive must be kept confidential and stored separately from general personnel files.

Carryover and What Happens When You Leave

Unused sick leave carries over automatically to the next calendar year. Your employer can still cap how much you actually use in a single year: 40 hours for employers with fewer than 100 employees, and 56 hours for those with 100 or more.² So you might carry over 20 hours from the previous year and accrue another 40, for a 60-hour balance, and still be capped at using 40 during the current year.

The law does not require your employer to pay out unused sick leave when you quit, retire, or are fired. The statute says so explicitly.² Some employers pay out unused hours voluntarily through company policy or a collective bargaining agreement, but nothing in Section 196-b compels them to.

Retaliation and What to Do If Your Employer Shorts You

Your employer cannot fire, threaten, penalize, or otherwise retaliate against you for requesting or using sick leave. Retaliation claims are handled under Labor Law Section 215.² A sudden cut in hours, a write-up, or a schedule change that follows a sick-leave request can fit the pattern.

Employers must keep payroll records for six years showing sick leave accrued and used by each employee on a weekly basis.¹ Those records matter if a dispute arises about your balance.

If your employer fails to pay sick leave you were owed, you can seek the unpaid wages. Under Labor Law Section 198, you may also recover liquidated damages equal to 100 percent of the unpaid amount, plus reasonable attorney’s fees and prejudgment interest, unless the employer proves a good-faith basis for believing it was in compliance.⁵ That essentially doubles the recovery.

How This Fits With Other Leave Laws

Federal FMLA

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave, but only if you have worked for your employer at least 12 months, logged at least 1,250 hours in the prior 12-month period, and work at a location with 50 or more employees within 75 miles.⁶ New York’s sick leave covers you from day one at any private employer regardless of size. For short-term illness and routine medical needs, state sick leave is usually the relevant protection; FMLA is the tool for extended serious health conditions when you meet its eligibility rules.

New York Paid Family Leave

Paid Family Leave is a separate, insurance-funded program that provides partial wage replacement for up to 12 weeks to bond with a new child, care for a family member with a serious health condition, or address certain military family needs. PFL does not cover your own illness. If you are the one who is sick, you use your Section 196-b sick leave.

Union Contracts

If you are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, the CBA can substitute its own leave provisions for the state requirements, but only if it was entered into after September 30, 2020, provides comparable benefits or paid days off, and specifically references Labor Law Section 196-b. The Department of Labor treats leave with fewer restrictions on its use as comparable even if it is labeled differently, such as vacation or annual leave.¹ If the CBA does not meet all three conditions, the default state law applies.

New York City Workers

If you work in New York City, the city’s Earned Safe and Sick Time Act also applies. It adds administrative requirements, including pay-stub disclosures showing your accrued, used, and available leave each pay period. Where the city and state laws overlap, the provision more generous to the employee governs.

Existing PTO Policies

If your employer already offers a PTO, vacation, or personal leave policy that meets or exceeds the state law’s requirements for accrual, carryover, and permissible uses, the employer does not have to create a separate sick leave program.¹ The policy has to actually match on every element. A 40-hour PTO plan limited to vacation, with no allowance for medical appointments or safe-leave purposes, does not satisfy the law even if the hour count is right.

1
New York State. New York Paid Sick Leave
2
New York State Senate. New York Labor Law 196-B – Sick Leave Requirements
3
New York State. New York State Paid Sick and Safe Leave
4
Cornell Law Institute. New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations Title 12 196-1.3
5
New York State Senate. New York Labor Law 198 – Penalties
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 29 Section 2611 – Definitions