Portland Sick Leave: Accrual, Coverage, and Employee Rights

If you work in Portland, you earn one hour of protected sick time for every 30 hours you work, up to 40 hours a year, starting your first day on the job. Portland sick leave is paid time if your employer has six or more employees, and unpaid but still job-protected if the employer is smaller. The rules come from Portland City Code Chapter 9.01, which runs alongside Oregon’s statewide sick leave law and, on the paid-leave threshold, gives Portland workers more than the state minimum.¹²

How Sick Time Accrues and When You Can Use It

Accrual begins on your first day. You earn one hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked inside Portland’s city limits, capped at 40 hours a year. Some employers skip the hour-by-hour tracking and frontload the full 40 hours at the start of the year instead.¹

You can’t actually use the time until you’ve been employed for at least 90 calendar days. Your employer can let you use it sooner, but nothing requires them to.¹

Unused hours carry over into the following year, again up to 40 hours. Carryover doesn’t raise the ceiling on how much you can use, though. Even if you roll a full balance into a new year and keep accruing, your employer isn’t required to let you use more than 40 hours in any single year.¹

Paid or Unpaid: The Six-Employee Threshold

This is the piece of the ordinance that matters most to your paycheck. If your employer has six or more workers anywhere in Oregon and any presence in Portland, whether that’s an office, a restaurant, or a storefront, your sick time must be paid. Oregon’s statewide law only requires paid time once an employer hits 10 employees, so Portland’s lower threshold pulls thousands of small-business workers into paid coverage.²

Employers with five or fewer workers still have to let you accrue and use sick time on the same terms, but they don’t have to pay you for it. Unpaid sick time is still job-protected: you can’t be fired or disciplined for taking it.¹

Employee count is based on the average number of workers on payroll during the previous calendar year, not a snapshot on any given day.²

Who Is Covered

The ordinance covers anyone who performs work inside Portland’s city limits, including part-time, full-time, and temporary workers. Home care workers are included. A handful of categories are not: independent contractors, business co-partners, participants in government-funded work training programs, students in work-study programs, and railroad workers covered by the Federal Railroad Insurance Act.¹

The ordinance also doesn’t apply to workers of the federal government, the State of Oregon and its agencies, or political subdivisions like counties. City of Portland employees are covered.¹

What You Can Use Sick Time For

Permitted uses run wider than most workers realize. You can use accrued sick time for:

Your own physical or mental illness, injury, or health condition, including diagnosis, treatment, and preventive care like dental cleanings and eye exams.
The same health-related care for a family member. Portland uses Oregon’s statutory definition of family, which covers spouses, domestic partners, children, parents, grandparents, grandchildren, and parents-in-law, among others.
Domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment, or stalking situations — including seeking legal help, getting a protective order, obtaining medical care or counseling, accessing victim services, or relocating for safety. These protections extend to your minor children and dependents.
Public health emergencies, such as when officials close your workplace or your child’s school, or when a health authority determines your presence in the community would endanger others.
Bereavement, including attending a family member’s funeral, making arrangements after a death, or grieving. This use comes from Oregon’s statewide law, which applies alongside the Portland ordinance.

¹²

Telling Your Employer and Providing Documentation

For foreseeable absences like a scheduled surgery or medical appointment, notify your employer as soon as practicable and make a reasonable effort to schedule the time so it doesn’t unnecessarily disrupt operations. For unexpected illness, tell your employer before your shift starts, or as soon as you reasonably can. Your employer has to have a clear policy telling you how to give this notice, such as a phone number to call.¹

Your employer can only ask for documentation if you’re out for more than three consecutive scheduled workdays. What counts as reasonable documentation is flexible: a note from a health care provider, documentation related to a domestic violence or stalking situation, or a signed personal statement that your leave was for a covered purpose.¹

If your employer does ask for a medical provider’s note, they have to cover any out-of-pocket cost you incur getting it, including co-pays and fees your insurance doesn’t cover. There’s one exception. If your employer suspects a pattern of abuse, such as repeated Friday call-outs or absences the day before holidays and mandatory shifts, they can require a provider’s note at your expense even for shorter absences.¹

Two things your employer can’t do: require you to find a replacement worker before taking sick time, or require you to work an alternate shift to make up for it.¹

Protection From Retaliation

Your employer can’t fire, suspend, demote, or otherwise punish you for using sick time, asking about your sick time rights, or taking part in a complaint investigation. They also can’t interfere with your ability to use the time in the first place.¹

Attendance point systems get a specific mention. It’s a separate violation for an absence-control policy to treat protected sick leave as an unexcused absence that could trigger discipline. If your workplace uses points, protected sick time can’t add to your count.¹

You’re also protected if you file a complaint in good faith and turn out to be mistaken about your rights.

Leaving a Job and Coming Back

Neither the Portland ordinance nor Oregon’s statewide law requires your employer to pay out unused sick time when you leave. Some employers do, either voluntarily or through their own written policy, but there’s no legal obligation.

If you’re rehired by the same employer within 180 days, your previously accrued unused sick time has to be restored, up to 40 hours. You can start using it once your combined days of employment pass 90 calendar days. Past 180 days, the employer isn’t required to bring back your old balance.³

Filing a Complaint

Enforcement runs through the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), which handles complaints under both the state sick time law and the Portland ordinance. You can file through BOLI’s website or contact their office directly. If your employer failed to provide paid sick time you were owed, BOLI can order back pay in addition to any civil penalty.

Portland’s ordinance authorizes civil penalties from $1,000 to $2,500 per violation.¹ The state law adds a separate penalty of up to $1,000 for willful violations, assessed by the BOLI Commissioner.⁴

When FMLA Also Applies

Some absences qualify under both Portland’s ordinance and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. FMLA gives you up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave a year, but the eligibility bar is higher: at least 12 months of employment, 1,250 hours worked in the preceding year, and an employer with 50 or more employees within 75 miles.⁵

When both apply, your Portland sick time and FMLA leave generally run at the same time. Your employer can require you to use accrued paid sick time during an FMLA absence, so your 40 hours may get folded into the first week of a longer FMLA leave. Portland’s ordinance adds a paid layer to what would otherwise be unpaid FMLA time. It doesn’t stretch the total protected period beyond what FMLA already gives you.

1
Portland.gov. Portland Code 9.01 – Protected Sick Time
2
BOLI. Sick Time
3
OregonLaws. Oregon Code 653.606 – Employee Count; Paid and Unpaid Sick Time
4
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes 653 – Minimum Wage
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act