NJ paid sick leave gives nearly every worker in the state up to 40 hours of paid time off each year, earned at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked. You start accruing on your first day, but you generally cannot use the time until you’ve been on the job for 120 calendar days. The law covers your own illness, care for a family member, domestic violence situations, certain school events, and public health emergencies.
Who Gets Sick Leave in New Jersey
If you work for pay in New Jersey, the law almost certainly applies to you. Full-time, part-time, temporary, and seasonal workers are all covered, as are people placed through staffing agencies. The size of the employer doesn’t change anything: a three-person business has the same obligation as a three-thousand-person one.1State of New Jersey. Earned Sick Leave Law
Three narrow groups are excluded: construction workers covered by a union contract (their agreement governs instead), per diem healthcare workers who set their own shifts, and public employees who already receive full-pay sick leave under another New Jersey law or regulation. Outside those categories, employers cannot opt out.1State of New Jersey. Earned Sick Leave Law
How You Earn Sick Time
Accrual is one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, starting your first day. Your employer can cap total accrual and use at 40 hours per benefit year. The benefit year is any consecutive 12-month period the employer chooses; it doesn’t have to line up with the calendar.2New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Earned Sick Leave – What Employers Need to Know
Employers can skip the hour-by-hour tracking and front-load the full 40 hours at the start of the benefit year, so all your sick time is available on day one. Front-loaded amounts can be prorated for part-time or mid-year hires, but if you end up working more hours than the proration assumed, your employer has to true up the balance so you still get at least one hour for every 30 worked.3Justia. New Jersey Code 34-11D-2 – Provision of Earned Sick Leave by Employer
The 120-Day Wait Before You Can Use It
Earning sick time and using sick time are two different things. Even though your bank starts filling on day one, you generally can’t draw from it until you’ve been employed for 120 calendar days. Your employer can let you use time sooner but doesn’t have to. After 120 days, whatever you’ve accrued is available.4Legal Information Institute. New Jersey Administrative Code 12-69-3.5 – Earned Sick Leave Use
What You Can Use Sick Leave For
The permitted reasons are broader than just being sick. You can use earned sick leave for:
- Diagnosis, treatment, or recovery from any physical or mental illness or injury, whether it’s yours or a family member’s.
- Preventive care, including routine checkups, screenings, and vaccinations.
- Circumstances tied to domestic or sexual violence against you or a family member, including medical care, counseling, victim services, obtaining a restraining order, and preparing for court.
- Closure of your workplace, or your child’s school or daycare, ordered by a public official because of a public health emergency.
- Attending a school-related conference, meeting, or event for your child when requested by a teacher or administrator.
Who Counts as Family
New Jersey’s definition of family member is wide. It includes children, spouses, domestic partners, parents, grandchildren, grandparents, siblings, in-laws, siblings of your spouse or partner, and anyone else related to you by blood. It also reaches people whose close association with you is the equivalent of a family relationship, so someone who isn’t a legal relative but functions as family in your life can still qualify.5State of New Jersey. Earned Sick Leave
How to Request Sick Leave
For foreseeable absences, such as a scheduled procedure or a planned school conference, your employer can require up to seven calendar days of advance notice. For unforeseeable situations, you only need to notify your employer as soon as reasonably possible.4Legal Information Institute. New Jersey Administrative Code 12-69-3.5 – Earned Sick Leave Use
Documentation is only required in limited cases: when you use sick leave for three or more consecutive workdays, or when you use it on dates your employer has designated in advance as high-demand (“blackout”) days. Acceptable documentation might be a healthcare provider’s note or, in a domestic violence situation, related legal paperwork. Anything you provide has to be kept confidential.5State of New Jersey. Earned Sick Leave
Your employer can set a minimum increment of use per shift, but the largest increment they can require is the number of hours you were scheduled to work that day. You cannot be forced to burn more sick leave than the shift itself would have covered.6State of New Jersey. Earned Sick Leave FAQs
What You Get Paid
Sick leave is paid at your regular hourly rate, and never less than the state minimum wage, which is $15.92 per hour for most workers as of January 1, 2026. Payment goes out in the regular pay cycle following the leave.7State of New Jersey. Wage and Hour Compliance FAQs
If you’re tipped, your rate is calculated by adding your total earnings (excluding overtime premiums) from the seven most recent workdays you actually worked, then dividing by the hours worked over those days. Where that calculation isn’t feasible, your employer can pay your agreed hourly wage, still no lower than the state minimum. Commissioned workers receive at least the state minimum wage for any sick leave hours used.8Legal Information Institute. New Jersey Administrative Code 12-69-3.6 – Earned Sick Leave Payment
Carryover, Payout, and Leaving a Job
Unused hours don’t disappear at year-end. Under the accrual method, your employer must either allow carryover into the next benefit year or offer to pay out the unused time. Carryover is capped at 40 hours, so your available bank never exceeds a single year’s entitlement.2New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Earned Sick Leave – What Employers Need to Know
When your employer offers a payout, the decision is yours. The offer has to be made during the final month of the benefit year, and you have 10 calendar days to respond. You can take a full payout of unused hours, take 50 percent (with the remainder carrying over), or decline. If you don’t answer within 10 days, everything carries over automatically. Under the front-loading method, the employer picks between payout and carryover.9Legal Information Institute. New Jersey Administrative Code 12-69-3.7 – Payout and Carry-Over of Earned Sick Leave
When you leave a job, New Jersey does not require your employer to pay out unused sick leave unless a contract or company policy says so. If you’re rehired by the same employer within six months of being terminated, laid off, furloughed, or otherwise separated, your previously accrued balance is reinstated and your earlier time with that employer counts toward the 120-day eligibility period.3Justia. New Jersey Code 34-11D-2 – Provision of Earned Sick Leave by Employer
Retaliation and How to File a Complaint
Your employer cannot fire you, demote you, cut your hours, suspend you, threaten to report your immigration status, or take any other negative action against you for using earned sick leave. Sick leave taken under the law also cannot be counted as an “absence” that triggers discipline under an attendance policy.10State of New Jersey. NJ State Wage and Hour Laws – Section 34-11D-4
The same protection applies if you file a complaint, tell coworkers about their rights, or cooperate with an investigation. If your employer takes adverse action against you within 90 days of any of those activities, the law presumes retaliation and the employer must show a legitimate, unrelated reason. Remedies include reinstatement, full lost wages, and up to 200 percent of those lost wages in additional damages. You’re protected even if you turn out to be wrong about the violation, as long as you raised it in good faith.10State of New Jersey. NJ State Wage and Hour Laws – Section 34-11D-4
To act on a violation, file a wage complaint with the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development. There is no filing fee, and you can submit online or by mail. Save pay stubs, schedules, and any written exchanges with your employer about the leave; employers must keep sick leave records for five years, and the Department can request them going back that far during an investigation.5State of New Jersey. Earned Sick Leave