NY Paid Family Leave Act: Eligibility, Benefits, and Job Protections

The New York Paid Family Leave Act gives most private-sector employees up to 12 weeks of job-protected, paid time off each year to bond with a new child, care for a seriously ill family member, or handle certain needs tied to a family member’s active military deployment. In 2026, the benefit pays 67% of your average weekly wage, capped at $1,228.53 per week. The program is funded entirely through employee payroll deductions, and it comes with protections for your job and your health insurance while you’re out. It does not cover your own illness or injury; those fall under New York’s separate disability benefits.

Who Qualifies

Eligibility turns on your work schedule, not your employer’s size. If you work 20 or more hours a week, you qualify after 26 consecutive weeks with your employer. If you work fewer than 20 hours a week, you qualify after 175 days of work.¹ Job title and industry don’t matter, and coverage applies regardless of citizenship or immigration status.²

Almost every private-sector employer in New York must provide the coverage. Public employers (the state, counties, cities, public authorities) are not automatically covered but can opt in.³ A few narrow categories of workers are excluded from automatic coverage, including railroad and maritime workers, golf caddies, and some employees at nonprofit religious, charitable, or educational institutions such as clergy and executive officers. Employers can voluntarily extend coverage to these groups, but they must cover the entire class rather than picking individuals.

Waivers for Workers Who Won’t Qualify

If your schedule means you’ll never meet the eligibility thresholds during your employment, you can file a waiver to stop the payroll deductions. A part-time employee who works fewer than 20 hours a week and won’t reach 175 days in a year is the typical example. The waiver stops contributions and gives up eligibility for benefits. If your schedule later changes so that you do meet the thresholds, the waiver is automatically revoked, deductions resume, and your employer can collect retroactive contributions back to your hire date or January 1, 2019, whichever is later.

Reasons You Can Take Leave

Three categories of events qualify.

Bonding with a New Child

You can take bonding leave during the first 12 months after a child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement.⁴ Both parents are eligible, and you don’t have to be the biological or legal parent. Someone who stands “in loco parentis,” meaning they carry full day-to-day and financial responsibility for the child, also qualifies.⁵

Caring for a Family Member with a Serious Health Condition

The family definition is broad: spouse, domestic partner, child, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, grandchild, and sibling. In-loco-parentis relationships count on this side too, so someone who raised you as a parent figure counts as a parent for the leave.⁵

A “serious health condition” is an illness, injury, or physical or mental condition that involves inpatient care or continuing treatment by a health care provider. That covers chronic conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy, or bipolar disorder, long-term conditions such as Alzheimer’s or terminal illness, and treatment regimens such as chemotherapy or dialysis. Mental health conditions and substance use disorders are included. Routine ailments like colds, flu, earaches, and minor stomach issues generally are not, and neither are cosmetic procedures unless complications develop.

Military Family Leave

When a spouse, domestic partner, child, or parent is deployed abroad on active military duty, you can take leave for qualifying needs arising from the deployment. These track the qualifying exigencies under the federal FMLA and include short-notice deployment preparations, military events and ceremonies, arranging childcare, legal or financial arrangements, counseling, and post-deployment reintegration activities.⁶

What the Benefit Pays in 2026

The benefit is 67% of your average weekly wage, capped at 67% of the statewide average weekly wage. For 2026, the statewide average is $1,833.63, which sets the maximum weekly benefit at $1,228.53 and the maximum total for a full 12 weeks at $14,742.36.⁷ If your wage is below the statewide average, your benefit is 67% of your own average weekly wage.

Employees pay the whole cost through payroll deductions. For 2026, the contribution rate is 0.432% of gross wages per pay period, with a maximum annual contribution of $411.91. Workers earning below the statewide average pay less than the cap.⁷ Employers do not contribute.

One detail worth planning around: PFL benefits are taxable income, and taxes are not automatically withheld. You can request voluntary withholding or set money aside for tax time.⁸

How to Apply

You can take leave in one continuous stretch or in single-day increments, which helps when a family member needs periodic medical treatment.⁹ The application steps are the same either way.

Give Notice to Your Employer

For foreseeable leave (a planned birth, a scheduled adoption, a known treatment date), give at least 30 days’ advance notice. For unexpected situations, notify your employer as soon as you reasonably can.¹⁰

Complete the Forms

Every request starts with the Request for Paid Family Leave (Form PFL-1). You fill out Part A, then hand it to your employer, who must complete Part B with your employment details and return it within three business days.¹¹ You then attach the supplemental form for your leave type:

Bonding leave uses the Bonding Certification (Form PFL-2).
Family care leave uses the Release of Personal Health Information (Form PFL-3) and the Health Care Provider Certification (Form PFL-4), which your family member’s doctor completes.
Military family leave uses the Military Qualifying Event form (Form PFL-5), along with documentation of the family member’s active duty status.

Forms come from your employer’s HR department, the employer’s PFL insurance carrier, or the state’s paid family leave website.¹²

Submit to the Insurance Carrier

Send the completed packet directly to your employer’s PFL insurance carrier, not to your employer. You have 30 days from the start of leave to submit; missing that deadline can cost you benefits.⁵ Keep copies and note the dates you sent things.

After You File

The carrier has 18 calendar days from receiving your completed request, or your first day of leave (whichever is later), to approve the claim and pay, or deny it with an explanation.¹³

A denial must state the reason and explain how to request arbitration. All PFL disputes go through the New York State Paid Family Leave Arbitration Program, administered by National Arbitration and Mediation (NAM). The filing fee is $25.¹⁴ Arbitration is also the route if you think the benefit amount is wrong.

Job, Health Insurance, and Retaliation Protections

When leave ends, your employer must return you to the same job or a comparable position with the same pay and benefits.⁹ Health insurance must continue on the same terms you had while working, though you remain responsible for your share of the premium during leave.¹⁵

If you fall more than 30 days behind on premiums, your employer can drop your coverage, but only after mailing you a written warning at least 15 days before the cutoff date. If coverage does lapse, your employer must restore you to equivalent coverage when you return.¹⁵

Your employer cannot fire you, cut your pay or benefits, discipline you, or take any other negative action because you requested or took PFL. If you believe retaliation happened, you file a Formal Request for Reinstatement (Form PFL-DC-119) with your employer and send a copy to the state. The employer has 30 calendar days to respond. If they don’t comply, you can request a hearing before the Workers’ Compensation Board, where an administrative law judge can order reinstatement, back pay, attorney’s fees, and penalties up to $500.¹⁶

How PFL Works with FMLA and Disability

If your employer has 50 or more employees, you may also qualify for unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. When an event qualifies under both laws, such as bonding with a newborn, your employer can require the two leaves to run at the same time. To do so, the employer has to notify you that the leave qualifies under both and will be designated as concurrent.¹⁷ Running them together means you get paid during your 12 weeks of FMLA leave rather than stacking separate leave banks.

PFL and New York disability benefits share a combined cap of 26 weeks in any 52-week period.¹⁸ This matters most for birth mothers, who often use short-term disability for physical recovery and then switch to PFL for bonding time. Using 8 weeks of disability still leaves up to 12 weeks of PFL available inside the 26-week combined limit, but sequencing it before the birth avoids surprises.

If You’re Self-Employed

Freelancers, sole proprietors, and independent contractors are not automatically covered, but they can opt in by buying a policy that covers both PFL and disability benefits. You cannot buy PFL alone. If you already have employees in New York, you must have coverage in place for them before adding yourself.¹⁹

Timing shapes how quickly you can collect. Buy your policy within the first 26 weeks of starting your business and you become eligible for benefits 26 weeks after getting coverage. Wait longer than 26 weeks to opt in and a two-year waiting period applies before you can collect. Enrolling early is worth real money.¹⁹

1
New York State Senate. New York Workers Compensation Code WKC – Section 203
2
New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. Paid Family Leave Model Language for Employee Materials
3
Paid Family Leave. Public Employers
4
Paid Family Leave. Paid Family Leave for Bonding
5
Paid Family Leave. Paid Family Leave for Family Care
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Paid Family Leave. Paid Family Leave for Military Families
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Paid Family Leave. New York Paid Family Leave Updates for 2026
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Paid Family Leave. Benefits
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Paid Family Leave. New York Paid Family Leave Updates for 2025
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New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. 12 CRR-NY 380-3.1 – Employee Notice Requirements for Paid Family Leave
11
New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. PFL Bonding Leave Forms – PFL-1 and PFL-2
12
NYSIF. About Your Paid Family Leave Claim
13
Paid Family Leave. Handling Requests
14
New York State Paid Family Leave Arbitration Program. New York State Paid Family Leave Arbitration Program
15
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. 12 CRR-NY 380-7.3 – Health Insurance During Paid Family Leave
16
Paid Family Leave. Employer Responsibilities and Resources
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Paid Family Leave. Paid Family Leave and Other Benefits
18
Workers’ Compensation Board. Workers Disability Benefits
19
New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. Information for Self-Employed Individuals