NYC Paid Sick Leave: Hours, Safe Leave, and Employee Rights

If you work in New York City, you earn one hour of paid safe and sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to a yearly cap of 40 or 56 hours depending on how large your employer is. NYC paid sick leave is governed by the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act under Title 20 of the NYC Administrative Code, and it covers full-time, part-time, and seasonal workers regardless of immigration status.¹ You can use the time for your own health, a family member’s health, or situations involving domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault, or human trafficking. On top of the paid hours, every covered employee gets 32 hours of unpaid protected time off per year, and pregnant workers get a separate 20 hours of paid prenatal leave.

Who Is Covered

You qualify if you work more than 80 hours in a calendar year within New York City. That low threshold pulls in most part-time and seasonal workers alongside full-time staff, and it applies whether you’re hourly or salaried.² Workers in transitional jobs programs are covered too.

A few groups fall outside the law. Federal, state, and city government employees aren’t covered. Neither are independent contractors, work-study participants, or employees whose hours are paid through a qualified scholarship. If your employer calls you an independent contractor but you suspect you’re really an employee, the test under New York Labor Law Section 190 decides that question, not the label on your paperwork.²

How Many Hours You Get

Your annual cap depends entirely on your employer’s size:

Employers with 100 or more employees: up to 56 hours of paid safe and sick leave per year.
Employers with 5 to 99 employees: up to 40 hours of paid safe and sick leave per year.
Employers with 4 or fewer employees: up to 40 hours of unpaid leave per year, unless the business had net income above $1 million in the prior tax year, in which case the 40 hours must be paid.³

Every covered employee also gets an additional 32 hours of unpaid protected time off, separate from the paid cap. That 32-hour bucket is available from your first day and isn’t prorated if you start partway through the year.¹ It covers a broader list of reasons than the paid hours, including responding to public disasters, severe weather, and legal proceedings tied to public benefits or housing.

How You Earn Hours and Carry Them Over

Accrual starts on your first day of work at a rate of one hour of leave for every 30 hours you work.³ At a standard 40-hour schedule, you’ll hit a 40-hour cap in about 30 weeks and a 56-hour cap in roughly 42 weeks. Part-time schedules accrue at the same rate but take longer to reach the cap.

Unused paid leave carries into the next calendar year. Your employer isn’t allowed to wipe your balance on January 1. What they can do is limit how many hours you actually use within a single year to 40 or 56, depending on their size.³ The carryover rule matters most for people hired late in the year, who can bank hours instead of restarting from zero.

What You Can Use the Time For

Sick Leave

Sick leave covers physical and mental health needs, including diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and preventive care such as routine checkups and dental visits. It covers your own care and a family member’s care. You can also use it when your workplace closes for a public health emergency, or when your child’s school or daycare closes for the same reason.⁴

“Family member” is defined broadly. It includes your child, spouse, registered domestic partner, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, and the parent or child of your spouse or domestic partner. It also includes anyone related to you by blood and anyone whose close association with you is the equivalent of a family relationship. That last category means you don’t need a legal or biological link for someone who truly functions as family in your life.⁴

Safe Leave

Safe leave is time off when you or a family member is dealing with domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault, or human trafficking. You can use it to seek legal help, go to court, move to a safer place, enroll children in a new school, or get services from a victim assistance organization. Your employer cannot ask for details about the underlying incident, and documentation rules are more flexible than for sick leave.

Paid Prenatal Leave

As of January 1, 2025, every privately employed pregnant worker in New York City gets 20 hours of paid prenatal leave in any 52-week period. This is completely separate from your regular safe and sick leave balance.⁵ A pregnant worker at a large employer could therefore have 56 hours of paid safe and sick leave, 32 hours of unpaid protected time, and 20 hours of paid prenatal leave available in the same year.

Prenatal leave covers health care services during pregnancy: physical exams, procedures, monitoring, testing, and discussions with a provider. You can take it in one-hour increments, and you must be paid at your regular rate or the applicable minimum wage, whichever is higher.³ The NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection enforces prenatal leave violations through the same process it uses for safe and sick leave.⁶

How to Request Leave and When Documentation Applies

For a foreseeable absence like a scheduled appointment, give your employer at least seven days’ notice. For sudden needs, notify your employer as soon as reasonably possible.¹ Use whatever method your employer has set up, whether that’s a phone call, email, or an HR system.

Your employer can only ask for documentation if you’ve missed more than three consecutive workdays, and only if their written policy told you about the documentation requirement before you took the leave. For a health-related absence, a note from a licensed health care provider confirming the need for leave is enough. The note cannot be required to disclose your diagnosis. For safe leave, acceptable documentation includes a letter from an attorney, social worker, clergy member, or government agency, a police report, or a notarized statement you write yourself.⁴

If your provider charges a fee for the note, your employer has to reimburse you. The same applies to reasonable costs for obtaining other protected leave documentation. Reimbursement is due no later than the payday of the next regular pay period after you submit proof.⁴

Retaliation Is Illegal

Your employer cannot punish you for requesting or using protected leave. That includes firing, demotion, and suspension, but also subtler moves like cutting your hours, denying a promotion, harassing you about the absence, or giving a negative reference based on your use of leave.⁴

Attendance-point systems are a frequent trouble spot. If your employer runs a “no-fault” policy that assigns demerits for any absence, applying those points to time that qualifies as protected leave or paid prenatal leave counts as retaliation. The same is true if you’re penalized for missing a productivity quota during protected leave.⁴ You don’t have to cite the law by name when you ask for leave. As long as you’re using the time for a covered reason and acting in good faith, the retaliation protections apply.

What to Do If Your Employer Violates the Law

File a Complaint with DCWP

The NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection enforces the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act. You can file online through DCWP’s portal or submit a paper form by mail.⁷ The deadline is 270 days from the date you knew or should have known about the violation.²

DCWP can investigate, subpoena records, and order remedies that depend on what the employer did:

Leave used but not paid: three times the wages owed, or $250, whichever is greater.
Leave requested but denied: $500 per instance.
Retaliation short of firing: full compensation for lost wages and benefits, plus $500 and equitable relief.
Unlawful termination: full compensation for lost wages and benefits, $2,500, and reinstatement where appropriate.²

Sue in Court

Since March 2024, employees also have a private right of action under NYC Administrative Code Section 20-924 and can sue their employer directly in civil court. The same remedies available through DCWP are available in court, plus attorney’s fees, court costs, and injunctive relief. You cannot pursue both routes at the same time for the same claim: if you file in court, DCWP will pause any related investigation until the court case is resolved. The statute of limitations for a court action is two years from the date you knew or should have known about the violation.

Keep your own records of hours worked and leave taken. Employers are required to maintain payroll records showing accrual and use on a weekly basis for six years,⁸ and if a dispute arises and your employer can’t produce them, that gap works in your favor. Your own log of dates, hours, and requests makes any complaint or lawsuit much stronger.

1
NYC Consumer and Worker Protection. NYC’s Protected Time Off Law
2
Chapter 8 – EARNED SICK TIME ACT. NYC Administrative Code Title 20 Chapter 8
3
New York State Senate. New York Labor Law Section 196-B – Sick Leave Requirements
4
NYC Consumer and Worker Protection. Protected Time Off Law FAQs
5
The State of New York. New York State Paid Prenatal Leave
6
NYC Rules. Section 7-213 Enforcement and Penalties
7
NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. File Workplace Complaint
8
The State of New York. New York Paid Sick Leave