NYC Medical Leave: Sick Leave, Disability, PFL, and FMLA

If you work in New York City, medical leave usually means piecing together four programs at once: NYC’s Earned Safe and Sick Time Act for short absences, New York State disability benefits when your own illness or injury keeps you out of work, New York State Paid Family Leave when you’re caring for a family member or bonding with a new child, and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which keeps your job protected while the state programs pay you. Each has its own eligibility, pay rate, and time limit, and they often overlap. Knowing which one covers your situation is what stands between you and benefits you’ve already paid for through payroll deductions.

NYC Paid Sick Leave for Short Absences

The city’s Earned Safe and Sick Time Act covers most private-sector workers in the five boroughs. You earn one hour of protected time off for every 30 hours worked.¹ How much you can bank in a year depends on your employer’s size:

100 or more employees: up to 56 paid hours a year.
5 to 99 employees: up to 40 paid hours.
4 or fewer employees with $1 million or more in net income: up to 40 paid hours.
4 or fewer employees under $1 million in net income: 40 hours, unpaid but job-protected.

On top of that, every employer must give you 32 hours of immediately available unpaid protected time off, meaning you don’t have to accrue it first. Unused hours carry into the next calendar year, capped at 40 or 56 depending on employer size, but your employer only has to let you actually use the annual maximum in any given year.²

Sick leave covers your own physical or mental health, preventive care like flu shots and checkups, and time to care for a sick family member. The “safe leave” piece lets you take time off if you or a family member is dealing with domestic violence, unwanted sexual contact, stalking, or human trafficking. That includes meeting with an attorney, filing a police report, moving to a safe location, or enrolling children in a new school, and you don’t have to prove a crime was reported.²

Your employer cannot ask for a doctor’s note unless you miss more than three consecutive scheduled workdays. Even then, the note can only confirm that leave was needed. It cannot disclose your diagnosis or personal health information, and you must have at least seven days after returning to work to hand it in.

State Disability for Your Own Illness or Injury

If your own condition keeps you from working and it did not happen on the job, New York’s Disability Benefits Law is the wage-replacement program. You qualify after four consecutive weeks with a covered employer.³ Benefits begin on the eighth day out, so the first seven days are unpaid.⁴

Once payments start, you receive 50 percent of your average weekly wage, capped at $170 per week.⁵ That cap has not moved in years and will not cover most people’s bills. Some employers layer a private short-term disability policy on top, so check your benefits package. The maximum duration is 26 weeks in any 52-week period.⁶

Paid Family Leave to Care for Family or Bond With a Child

New York State Paid Family Leave replaces income when you need extended time to care for a family member with a serious health condition, bond with a new child, or handle certain military family needs. It’s funded entirely through employee payroll deductions, not by your employer.

Eligibility depends on your schedule. If you regularly work 20 or more hours a week, you qualify after 26 consecutive weeks with your employer. If you work fewer than 20 hours, you qualify after 175 days of actual work.⁷

Eligible workers can take up to 12 weeks in any 52-week period.⁴ The benefit is 67 percent of your average weekly wage, capped at 67 percent of the statewide average weekly wage. For 2026, that’s a maximum of $1,228.53 a week, based on a statewide average weekly wage of $1,833.63.⁸

You can take PFL in one block or in full-day increments. Partial days don’t count: if you work any part of a day, you cannot claim PFL for that day. For intermittent leave, list the specific dates upfront so payments aren’t delayed.

Covered family members include a spouse, domestic partner, child, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, and grandchild. As of January 1, 2023, siblings are also covered, including biological, adopted, step, and half-siblings.⁹

FMLA: The Job-Protection Layer

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act gives up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave a year. It applies to private employers with 50 or more employees. You must have worked for the employer for at least 12 months, logged at least 1,250 hours in the past year, and work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles.¹⁰

FMLA itself pays nothing. Its role is to protect your job while a state program cuts the check. In practice:

For your own illness, state disability covers wages (up to $170 a week) while FMLA protects the job for up to 12 weeks. If you qualify for both, your employer can require them to run at the same time.
For caring for a family member, PFL provides income (67 percent of pay, capped at $1,228.53 a week in 2026) and FMLA protects the job. Again, your employer can require concurrent use if both apply.⁷

For FMLA and PFL to run concurrently, your employer must tell you that the leave qualifies under both laws. Without that notice, the leaves may run separately, which can give you more total protected time.

The 26-Week Combined Cap

One limit catches people off guard: you cannot take more than 26 weeks of combined state disability and Paid Family Leave in any 52-week period.⁷ Twenty weeks of disability for your own recovery leaves only six weeks of PFL for the rest of the year.

Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Bonding

Pregnant workers in NYC also have rights under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Your employer must provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions, unless doing so would create undue hardship for the business.¹¹ Accommodations can include modified schedules, temporary reassignment, extra breaks, permission to sit during shifts, and temporary unpaid leave. “Related medical conditions” is defined broadly to cover morning sickness, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, lactation, miscarriage recovery, and fertility treatment. If the employer isn’t sure an accommodation is required, they must engage in a good-faith dialogue before denying it.

After a birth, the programs stack in sequence. State disability typically covers the medical recovery period (usually six to eight weeks for a vaginal delivery, longer for a cesarean), and then you transition to Paid Family Leave for up to 12 weeks of bonding time. FMLA job protection can run underneath both. Your employer must reinstate you to your original job or an equivalent one with equivalent pay when you return.¹¹

Filing a Claim

Where you file depends on which program you’re using.

Disability (Your Own Condition)

Use Form DB-450, Notice and Proof of Claim for Disability Benefits, available through your employer’s insurance carrier or the Workers’ Compensation Board website.¹² You fill in your personal information and the date your disability began. Part B goes to your doctor, who provides a diagnosis and an estimated return-to-work date and has seven days to return it to you.

Submit the completed form to your employer’s disability insurance carrier, not a government office.⁶ If you don’t know the carrier, the Workers’ Compensation Board has an online lookup tool. The carrier must respond within 18 days of receiving your completed claim or your first day of disability, whichever is later.¹²

Paid Family Leave

For PFL, the main form is PFL-1, available through your employer’s insurance carrier or the Paid Family Leave website. You fill in your section, gather medical documentation from the family member’s healthcare provider, and submit everything to the carrier. For foreseeable needs like a scheduled surgery, give your employer at least 30 days’ notice. For emergencies, notify them as soon as you can.

If You Are Denied

A denial isn’t the end. You can request a hearing before the Workers’ Compensation Board. If a judge rules against you, you have 30 days from the decision to appeal, and the other side has 30 days to respond.¹³ Missing that window usually means losing the right to appeal, so put the deadline on a calendar the day you receive any written decision.

Health Insurance and Taxes While You Are Out

Under FMLA, your employer must keep your group health insurance on the same terms as if you were still working.¹⁰ New York’s Paid Family Leave law has the same rule.⁸ You still owe your share of the premium, though. Without a regular paycheck, your employer may ask you to pay your portion directly, and if you fall behind, coverage can eventually be dropped. Arrange payment before your leave starts.

Both disability and PFL benefits count as taxable income federally and at the state level. Taxes are not automatically withheld from PFL payments. You can request voluntary withholding when you file, which saves you from a surprise bill at tax time.¹⁴ If you skip withholding, set aside a portion of each payment. Your benefits will be reported to the IRS, and you’ll get a form at year-end.

Retaliation Is Illegal

New York law makes it illegal for an employer to fire, demote, or otherwise punish you for using leave you’re entitled to. The state labor commissioner can impose civil fines of $1,000 to $10,000 for a first offense and up to $20,000 for repeat violations, plus order reinstatement and lost wages. You can also sue privately within two years for reinstatement, back pay, and liquidated damages of up to $20,000.¹⁵ Retaliation can also be charged as a class B misdemeanor.

The most common retaliation isn’t an outright firing. It’s cut hours after you return, a skipped promotion, or sudden “performance issues” that weren’t documented before your leave. If a pattern like that starts soon after you come back, document everything and talk to an employment attorney while the two-year filing window is still open.

1
NYC.gov. New York City Earned Safe and Sick Time Act
2
NYC.gov. Protected Time Off Law FAQs
3
New York State Senate. New York Workers Compensation Law 203
4
New York State Senate. New York Workers Compensation Law 204 – Disability and Family Leave During Employment
5
New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. Introduction to the Disability Benefits Law
6
New York State Insurance Fund. About Your Disability Benefits Claim
7
Paid Family Leave. Paid Family Leave and Other Benefits
8
Paid Family Leave. New York Paid Family Leave Updates
9
Office of the Governor. Governor Hochul Signs Legislation Expanding New York States Paid Family Leave
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act
11
NYC.gov. Pregnancy Legal Guidance
12
New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. Notice and Proof of Claim for Disability Benefits (DB-450)
13
New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. Appeals Information and Resources
14
Paid Family Leave. Benefits
15
New York State Senate. New York Labor Law 215 – Penalties and Civil Action, Prohibited Retaliation