Oregon Bereavement Leave Under OFLA: Eligibility, Time, and Notice

Oregon bereavement leave, under the Oregon Family Leave Act (OFLA), gives eligible employees up to two weeks of unpaid, job-protected time off for each family member’s death, with a cap of four weeks in a single leave year. All leave tied to a particular death must be used within 60 days of the date you learn about it. The time off is unpaid by default, but you can layer accrued paid time off on top of it.

Who Is Eligible

OFLA applies only if your employer has at least 25 employees in Oregon for 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current year or the year before.¹ Smaller employers have no legal obligation to provide bereavement leave, though many offer it through their own policies.

You personally qualify once you’ve worked for that employer for at least 180 days and averaged at least 25 hours per week during that period.² Both conditions have to be met. A long-tenured part-timer averaging 20 hours a week doesn’t qualify, and neither does a full-time employee in their first five months.

Which Family Members Are Covered

Oregon defines family broadly. The following deaths trigger the right to bereavement leave:

Spouse or domestic partner
Child, including your child’s spouse or domestic partner
Parent, including your parent’s spouse or domestic partner (which covers stepparents and in-laws)
Sibling or stepsibling, including their spouse or domestic partner
Grandparent, including their spouse or domestic partner
Grandchild, including their spouse or domestic partner

The statute also includes a catch-all: anyone related to you by blood or affinity whose close association with you is the equivalent of a family relationship.³ That provision exists for the situations real life produces, like an aunt who raised you or a lifelong family friend who functioned as a grandparent. If an HR representative tells you someone doesn’t count because they aren’t on a rigid list, the catch-all is worth pointing to.

What You Can Use the Leave For

OFLA protects three uses: attending a funeral or memorial service, handling arrangements necessitated by the death, and grieving.⁴ The third category sometimes surprises employers. You don’t have to justify each day with a specific errand. If you need time to grieve, that alone is a protected reason.

The “arrangements” category covers things like coordinating with a funeral home, handling the deceased person’s immediate affairs, or traveling to be with family. You don’t have to itemize these tasks for your employer.

How Much Time You Get and When You Have to Use It

You’re entitled to up to two weeks of bereavement leave for each family member who dies. If you lose more than one family member in the same year, you can take up to two weeks per death, but total bereavement leave is capped at four weeks in a single OFLA leave year.²

All bereavement leave tied to a specific death must be completed within 60 days of the date you learn about it.⁴ The clock runs from when you receive notice of the death, not from the date of death itself, which matters if you find out after the fact. After the 60-day window closes, remaining time loses its protected status.

Bereavement Leave Is Unpaid

OFLA bereavement leave is job-protected but unpaid. Your employer is not required to pay wages during the time off.² That catches a lot of people who assume “protected leave” means “paid leave.”

You can use accrued paid time off to cover the gap. Sick leave, vacation, PTO, and other paid banks are all available during OFLA bereavement leave. Your employer can generally dictate the order in which paid banks are used, unless a union contract or company policy says otherwise.²

Oregon’s Paid Leave program, which provides wage replacement for medical and family leave, does not cover bereavement.⁵ No federal law requires private employers to provide paid bereavement leave either. If your employer offers paid bereavement days, that benefit comes from their own policy, not from state law.

Notifying Your Employer

Because a death is inherently unforeseeable, you don’t have to give advance notice before starting bereavement leave. The law specifically exempts it from the 30-day advance written notice requirement that applies to other OFLA leave.⁶

You do need to provide verbal notice within 24 hours of starting your leave. Someone else can make the call on your behalf if you’re not able to.⁷ Your employer may then require written notice within three days of your return to work.⁶ Note the phrasing: the employer has to actually require it. If they never ask, you’re not obligated to submit one unprompted.

Missing these deadlines has consequences. If you fail to give timely notice, your employer can reduce your total OFLA leave entitlement by three weeks. That penalty cannot reduce bereavement leave itself, but losing three weeks of OFLA time for other qualifying purposes is worth avoiding with a quick phone call.⁶

Job Protection and Benefits

When you return, your employer must restore you to the same position you held before, as long as that position still exists. If it was eliminated for legitimate reasons while you were out, they must offer an equivalent position with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions. If no equivalent role is available at your worksite, the employer has to offer one within 50 miles.⁸

Your employer must continue your group health insurance during the leave on the same terms as if you were still working. Family coverage stays in place too. You remain responsible for your share of premium payments. If you fall behind, the employer can recoup what they advanced through paycheck deductions of up to 10 percent of your gross pay per pay period after you return.⁸

Any benefits you accrued before the leave, like seniority or retirement contributions, stay intact. Taking OFLA leave cannot erase what you already earned.

If Your Employer Retaliates

Oregon law makes it an unlawful employment practice for a covered employer to deny OFLA leave to an eligible employee or to retaliate against anyone for requesting it, taking it, or asking about it.⁹ That covers demotions, schedule changes designed to push you out, and negative performance reviews tied to your absence.

If your employer denies bereavement leave or punishes you for taking it, you can file a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries through the online Complaint Resolution Center.¹⁰ Document everything. Save emails, note dates and times of conversations, and keep copies of any written requests you submitted. An employer who fires someone two weeks after they returned from bereavement leave has a timing problem that BOLI investigators notice.

One boundary worth knowing: no federal law requires private employers to offer bereavement leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act doesn’t list bereavement as a qualifying reason. Oregon’s OFLA protections exist because the state legislature chose to fill that gap, and only a handful of other states have similar laws.

1
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Code 659A.153 – Covered Employers
2
State of Oregon. Oregon Family Leave Act
3
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Code 659A.150 – Definitions for ORS 659A.150 to 659A.186
4
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Code 659A.159 – Purposes for Which Family Leave May Be Taken
5
Paid Leave Oregon. Employees and Paid Leave Oregon
6
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes 659A.165 – Notice to Employer
7
Oregon Secretary of State. Oregon Administrative Rules 839-009-0250 – OFLA Notice by Employee
8
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes 659A.171 – Job Protection and Benefits
9
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes 659A.183 – Denying Family Leave Prohibited and Retaliation Prohibited
10
State of Oregon. File a Complaint