The NYC sick leave law, formally the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA), gives most people who work in New York City up to 40 or 56 hours of paid leave per year depending on employer size, an additional 32 hours of unpaid protected time off, and 20 hours of paid prenatal leave. You start accruing on your first day, you can use the time for your own health or a family member’s, and your employer cannot retaliate against you for taking it.
Who Is Covered
If you physically work in the five boroughs, you are covered. That includes part-time, temporary, and per-diem employees, and it applies regardless of your immigration status or where your employer is headquartered. Domestic workers employed in private households are covered too, with their own rules. The trigger is the work happening in NYC.
How Much Leave You Get
Paid leave depends on how many people your employer has on payroll:
- 100 or more employees: up to 56 hours of paid safe and sick time per calendar year.
- 5 to 99 employees: up to 40 hours of paid safe and sick time per calendar year.
- 4 or fewer employees with net income of $1 million or more: up to 40 hours of paid safe and sick time per calendar year.
- 4 or fewer employees with net income under $1 million: up to 40 hours of unpaid safe and sick time per calendar year.
- Employers of domestic workers: paid safe and sick time regardless of headcount, up to the 40-hour cap.
When you use paid leave, your employer must pay you at your regular hourly rate or the applicable minimum wage, whichever is higher, calculated without any tip credit. Tipped workers get their full base rate during leave.1New York City Administrative Code. NYC Administrative Code Title 20 – 20-913 Right to Safe/Sick Time; Accrual
The Extra 32 Hours of Unpaid Leave
As of 2025, every employee also gets 32 hours of unpaid safe and sick time on their first day of work and again on the first day of each calendar year. This is on top of the paid hours above. At a large employer, that adds up to as much as 88 hours of protected time off in a single year.2NYC Rules. Protected Time Off Under the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act
Paid Prenatal Leave
A pregnant employee gets 20 hours of paid prenatal leave per year, separate from and in addition to regular protected time off. This mirrors a parallel requirement under New York State Labor Law and was codified in the NYC Administrative Code through Local Law 145 of 2025.3NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. NYC’s Protected Time Off Law
How You Earn and Use the Time
You earn one hour of safe and sick time for every 30 hours worked, starting on day one. The 40 or 56-hour figure is an annual cap, not a lump sum handed out at hiring. Part-time workers accrue on the same formula; the hours just build up more slowly.1New York City Administrative Code. NYC Administrative Code Title 20 – 20-913 Right to Safe/Sick Time; Accrual
Some employers front-load the full year’s leave on January 1 instead of tracking accrual hour by hour. If yours does, you have the full 40 or 56 hours available immediately and there’s no waiting period.
Employers can require you to take leave in set minimum increments, such as 15-minute or one-hour blocks, but the minimum can’t be larger than four hours. A rule forcing you to burn a full shift for a two-hour appointment is not allowed. Any increment policy must be given to you in writing before you start earning leave.4The State of New York. New York Paid Sick Leave
What You Can Use It For
Sick time covers your own mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition, whether or not it’s been diagnosed, and includes preventive care such as checkups, vaccinations, and screenings. The same protections extend to caring for or accompanying a family member for those needs.4The State of New York. New York Paid Sick Leave
Safe time covers absences tied to domestic violence, family offenses, sexual offenses, stalking, human trafficking, and workplace violence, whether it happened to you or a family member. You can use it to obtain services from a shelter, meet with an attorney, relocate, or enroll children in a new school.4The State of New York. New York Paid Sick Leave
Local Law 145 added several more reasons as of 2025: caring for a child or care recipient, attending a legal proceeding or handling matters related to public benefits or housing, staying home during a public disaster, and responding to workplace violence.2NYC Rules. Protected Time Off Under the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act
Who Counts as Family
The definition is wide. It includes your spouse, child, and parent, plus grandparents, grandchildren, siblings (including half and step-siblings), your in-laws’ parents and children, registered domestic partners, and anyone related to you by blood. It also covers any individual whose close association with you is the equivalent of a family relationship, so a chosen family member qualifies even without a legal or biological tie.5NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Protected Time Off Law FAQs
Carryover, Payout, and Rehire
Unused hours carry over into the next calendar year, up to 40 hours if your employer has 99 or fewer employees and 56 hours if it has 100 or more. The annual usage cap doesn’t change; carryover just protects hours you earned late in the prior year.1New York City Administrative Code. NYC Administrative Code Title 20 – 20-913 Right to Safe/Sick Time; Accrual
An employer can skip carryover only by doing two things at year-end: paying you for the unused time and front-loading the full required amount on the first day of the following year. Both have to happen. Zeroing out your balance without payment is not permitted.6NYC Rules. DCWP Notice of Adoption – Earned Safe and Sick Time Act
When you leave a job, your employer doesn’t have to pay out unused safe and sick time. But if the same employer rehires you within six months, your old balance is reinstated and available immediately, unless you were already paid out at separation and agreed to accept that payout.5NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Protected Time Off Law FAQs
Notice and Doctor’s Notes
For foreseeable leave, such as a scheduled surgery or a planned court date, your employer can require up to seven days’ advance notice. For sudden illness or emergencies, you have to give notice as soon as reasonably possible, generally before your shift starts or shortly after you realize you can’t come in.
If you’re out for more than three consecutive workdays, your employer can ask for documentation from a licensed health care provider confirming that you needed the time. That documentation must only verify the need for leave and its length. It cannot be required to disclose your diagnosis or the nature of your condition. This is a firm limit in the law.
For absences of three days or fewer, employers generally cannot require medical documentation at all, which stops employers from making short absences burdensome by demanding a note every time someone catches a cold.
How the City Law Fits With State Law
New York State has its own paid sick leave law, and if you work in NYC, both laws apply at the same time. Hours you work in the city count toward accrual under both.5NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Protected Time Off Law FAQs
The NYC law is more generous in several ways. It adds the 32 hours of unpaid protected time off that state law doesn’t provide, and it expands qualifying reasons to include care for a child or care recipient, attendance at legal proceedings related to benefits or housing, public disasters, and workplace violence. Where federal or state law requires more than the city law in a given situation, the more generous standard applies. You don’t have to pick between them; your employer must comply with both.5NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Protected Time Off Law FAQs
What Your Employer Has to Give You in Writing
Employers must keep records for at least three years showing every employee’s accrual, usage, and remaining balance of protected time off and prenatal leave for each pay period, plus standard payroll details.5NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Protected Time Off Law FAQs
Every employee must receive a written Notice of Employee Rights at hiring and whenever the rights change. The notice must be provided in English and, if a translation is available on the DCWP website, in the employee’s primary language. It must also be posted visibly in the workplace, but posting doesn’t substitute for handing it to each employee.5NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Protected Time Off Law FAQs
On request, your employer must give you a summary of your accrued and used leave for the current or any previous calendar year within three business days.
Retaliation and What You Can Recover
Your employer cannot fire you, demote you, cut your hours, threaten you, or take any other action meant to punish you for using or requesting protected time off. If they do, the remedies depend on what happened:
- Leave taken but not paid: three times the wages that should have been paid, or $250 per incident, whichever is greater.
- Leave requested but denied, and not taken: $500 per incident.
- Retaliation short of firing: full compensation for lost wages and benefits, plus $500, plus equitable relief.
- Unlawful termination: full compensation for lost wages and benefits, plus $2,500, plus reinstatement and other equitable relief.
- A policy of denying or refusing accrued leave: $500 per affected employee per calendar year.7NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. NYC Administrative Code Title 20 – 20-924 Penalties
How to File a Complaint
If your employer denies you leave, retaliates against you, or otherwise violates the law, file a complaint with the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Complaints can be submitted online, and DCWP treats your information as confidential.8NYC Consumer and Worker Protection. File Workplace Complaint
DCWP can order employers to pay back wages, reinstate terminated workers, and pay civil penalties. You don’t need a lawyer to file. Keeping your own records of denied requests, retaliatory actions, and communications with your employer will make any complaint stronger.