NY State Sick Time Law: Accrual, Pay, and Permitted Uses

The New York State sick time law, Labor Law Section 196-b, gives nearly every private-sector employee in New York the right to sick leave, with most workers earning paid time off and only the smallest, lowest-revenue employers permitted to offer unpaid (but still job-protected) leave. The law has been in effect since September 30, 2020, and it covers part-time, full-time, and seasonal workers across every industry. Federal, state, and local government employees are not covered, but employees of charter schools, private schools, and nonprofits are.¹

How Much Sick Leave You Get

Your annual entitlement depends on the size of your employer and, for the smallest businesses, their prior-year net income:

1–4 employees with net income over $1 million the prior tax year: up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.
1–4 employees with net income of $1 million or less: up to 40 hours of unpaid sick leave per calendar year. You cannot be fired or disciplined for taking it.
5–99 employees: up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year, regardless of company revenue.
100 or more employees: up to 56 hours of paid sick leave per calendar year.

These are floors. Your employer is free to offer more generous leave than the law requires.¹

How Sick Time Accrues

You start earning sick leave on your first day of employment at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked. That rate applies to both part-time and full-time employees, so even someone working 15 hours a week builds a steady balance.² There is no minimum period of employment before you can use what you have accrued, though as a practical matter you need to work at least 30 hours before your first hour is in the bank.

Frontloading

Instead of tracking accrual hour by hour, your employer may grant the full annual allotment (40 or 56 hours, depending on employer size) at the start of each calendar year. If your employer frontloads, it cannot claw back any of that time later based on how many hours you actually worked.²

Carryover and Annual Use Caps

Unused sick time rolls over to the following calendar year automatically. Your employer can still cap how much you actually use in a single year at 40 hours (fewer than 100 employees) or 56 hours (100 or more).² Carryover matters most when you accrue hours late in the year and want a cushion going into the next one.

When you leave a job, your employer does not have to pay you for unused sick leave.²

What You Get Paid

Sick leave hours must be paid at your normal rate of pay or the applicable minimum wage, whichever is higher. If you earn different rates for different tasks, your employer uses the weighted average for the week. Tipped workers get an important protection: your employer cannot apply a tip credit to sick leave hours, so you must receive at least the full minimum wage for that time rather than the lower tipped rate.³

If sick leave falls during hours that would have been overtime, your employer does not have to pay the overtime rate. You get your normal straight-time pay for leave hours.³

What You Can Use Sick Leave For

The law covers two broad categories of qualifying reasons.

Health Needs (Sick Leave)

You can use accrued time for a mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition affecting you or a covered family member, including diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Preventive care counts too, such as routine checkups and screenings when no one is currently sick.²

Safety Needs (Safe Leave)

You can also use accrued time when you or a family member has been a victim of domestic violence, a sexual offense, stalking, or human trafficking. The statute covers a wide range of related activities, including obtaining shelter or crisis services, meeting with an attorney, filing a police report, enrolling children in a new school, and other steps to increase safety.² Someone who committed the underlying offense cannot use safe leave for situations arising from their own conduct.

Who Counts as a Family Member

Family member is defined broadly: your child, spouse, domestic partner, parent, sibling, grandchild, or grandparent, plus the child or parent of your spouse or domestic partner. Parent includes biological, adoptive, foster, and step-parents, legal guardians, and anyone who stood in a parental role when you were a minor.²

Paid Prenatal Leave Is Separate

Since January 1, 2025, every private-sector employer in New York must also provide 20 hours of paid prenatal leave during any 52-week period. This time is in addition to your regular sick leave balance, not drawn from it.⁴ It covers physical examinations, medical procedures, monitoring, testing, and discussions with a health care provider related to a pregnancy, paid at your regular rate or the applicable minimum wage, whichever is higher, in hourly increments.² Unused prenatal leave does not need to be paid out when you leave the job.

Notice, Documentation, and Checking Your Balance

You need to give notice before taking sick leave, either verbally or in writing depending on your company’s policy. Your employer cannot demand medical documentation unless you are out for more than three consecutive workdays.² A one- or two-day absence stays simple and paperwork-free.

When documentation is required after a longer absence, it must confirm the need for leave without revealing your specific diagnosis or medical condition. Your employer also cannot make you pay any costs related to obtaining that verification.¹

If you want to know how much sick time you have, ask your employer in writing. They must respond with a summary of your accrued and used sick leave within three business days. Employers also have to keep payroll records showing weekly accrual and use for six years, which is what investigators look at if you ever dispute whether you were credited correctly.¹

Minimum Increments of Use

Employers can set a minimum block of time per use. Some allow 15-minute increments; others require at least an hour. The law caps the minimum increment at four hours, so your employer cannot force you to burn a full day for a morning appointment.¹

Retaliation and Job Restoration

Your employer cannot fire, threaten, penalize, or otherwise punish you for requesting or using sick leave. Those protections apply up and down the chain of command, from direct supervisors to corporate officers.²

When you return from sick leave or prenatal leave, you are entitled to be restored to the same position you held before, with the same pay and conditions of employment.² If your employer moves you to a different role or cuts your hours after you take protected leave, that itself can be a violation.

How It Fits with Other Leave Programs

State sick leave is one layer in a stack of overlapping protections, and a few boundaries are worth knowing.

New York Paid Family Leave covers longer absences such as bonding with a new child or caring for a seriously ill family member, lasting up to 12 weeks. You cannot collect PFL benefits at the same time you are receiving your normal pay through sick leave.

If your employer has 50 or more employees, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act may also apply, giving you up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for serious health conditions. Where an absence qualifies under both FMLA and New York sick leave, your employer can require you to use paid sick time concurrently so the hours count against both entitlements.⁵

If you work in New York City, the city’s Earned Safe and Sick Time Act is more protective in several respects and continues to apply alongside the state law. Review the city rules as well.

One more boundary: if you are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, your union can negotiate different sick leave terms, as long as the CBA specifically acknowledges Section 196-b and provides a comparable benefit. If the agreement is silent on the subject, the statutory minimums apply.²

If Your Employer Breaks the Law

If your employer refuses to provide sick leave, retaliates against you for using it, or otherwise violates the law, you can file a complaint with the New York State Department of Labor’s Division of Labor Standards. Start with the Labor Standards Complaint Form (LS 223), which you can submit online or mail to the Division’s office in Albany.⁶ You do not need a lawyer to file.

After the Department receives your complaint, an investigator will typically follow up for details. Employers found in violation can be ordered to provide back pay, liquidated damages equal to the amount of unpaid leave, civil penalties, and, in retaliation cases, mandatory reinstatement of a terminated worker.² The liquidated damages provision effectively doubles what you are owed, which gives the law real force even for relatively small amounts of missed leave.

1
New York State. New York Paid Sick Leave
2
New York State Senate. NY Labor Law 196-B – Sick Leave Requirements
3
New York State. New York State Paid Sick Leave – Restaurant and Hospitality Workers
4
New York State. New York State Paid Prenatal Leave
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act
6
Department of Labor. The Labor Standards Complaint Process