Texas FMLA Maternity Leave: Eligibility, Pay, and Job Protection

Texas has no state maternity leave law, so maternity leave rights in Texas come almost entirely from federal law. The main protection is the Family and Medical Leave Act, which gives eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period and requires the employer to keep group health insurance in place during that time. Separate federal rules cover workplace accommodations during pregnancy, pumping breaks after you return, and protection against pregnancy discrimination. Whether any of this applies to you depends on the size of your employer and how long you have worked there.

Who Qualifies for FMLA in Texas

Three things must all be true before FMLA covers you. Your employer must have at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius of your worksite.¹ You must have worked for that employer for at least 12 months. And you must have logged at least 1,250 hours of actual work during the 12 months immediately before your leave starts. On a standard 40-hour week, 1,250 hours works out to roughly 24 weeks of full-time work in the prior year.

The 12 months of employment do not have to be continuous. An earlier stint with the same employer counts as long as the gap was seven years or less, and gaps caused by military service always count regardless of length.²

Public employees get broader coverage. If you work for a federal, state, or local public agency in Texas, FMLA applies to your employer regardless of headcount.¹ The 50-employee threshold only applies to private-sector and nonprofit employers.

One more wrinkle for couples: if you and your spouse both work for the same company, FMLA caps your combined bonding leave at 12 weeks total rather than 12 weeks each.³ That cap covers leave for birth, adoption, or foster placement. It does not touch leave for the birth parent’s own medical recovery, which is counted separately.⁴

What the 12 Weeks Cover

Maternity-related FMLA leave falls into two categories, and the difference matters because the rules are not the same.

The first is leave for your own serious health condition. Pregnancy-related medical needs, prenatal appointments, severe morning sickness, complications requiring bed rest, and physical recovery from delivery all qualify.³ Medical leave can be taken intermittently — a few hours for an appointment, a day for severe nausea — without needing your employer’s permission, as long as the schedule is medically necessary.

The second is bonding leave, available to either parent after the child arrives. Bonding leave has to be used within 12 months of the birth, adoption, or foster placement, and anything left after that anniversary is gone. Unlike medical leave, bonding leave cannot be taken intermittently unless the employer agrees to it.³ If the employer says no, you take it in one continuous block. Adoptive and foster parents have the same bonding rights as biological parents, starting when the child enters your household.

The 12 weeks are a ceiling for all FMLA reasons combined, not per reason. If you used three weeks earlier in the year to care for a sick parent, you have nine weeks left for maternity. How your employer measures the 12-month period also affects what you have available — some use a calendar year, some use a rolling lookback from the date your leave begins, some use a fixed anniversary date. Ask HR which method applies.

In practice, many Texas employees stack late-pregnancy medical leave, postpartum recovery, and bonding leave into one continuous absence that uses the full 12 weeks. That works, but the timing has to be mapped out before the baby arrives.

How to Request Leave

When the need is foreseeable, which a due date usually is, give your employer at least 30 days’ notice. If something unexpected happens, notify them as soon as you reasonably can. The notice does not have to be in writing unless your employer’s policy says so, but putting it in writing creates a record you will want if anything goes wrong later.

Your employer will almost certainly ask for a medical certification. The standard form is the Department of Labor’s WH-380-E, filled out by your healthcare provider, documenting your condition, the expected start of leave, and how long you will be out.⁵ You get at least 15 calendar days to return it. If your employer doubts the certification, it can require a second opinion at its own expense from a provider that does not regularly work for the company.⁶

Once you give notice, the employer has five business days to send a notice of eligibility (Form WH-381) explaining whether you qualify and what you are responsible for during leave, including how to pay health insurance premiums.⁷ Once it has enough information to decide, it has five more business days to issue a designation notice (Form WH-382), formally confirming the leave as FMLA and stating how much time will count against your 12 weeks.⁸

Health Insurance and Money During Unpaid Leave

FMLA leave is unpaid. Texas has no state-funded paid family leave program, so replacing income during those 12 weeks is on you.⁹

What does continue is your group health insurance. The employer must maintain your coverage on the same terms as if you were still working, including family coverage, any plan changes that happen while you are out, and the ability to add your newborn if the plan allows.¹⁰ You still owe your share of the premiums, and the eligibility notice will tell you how to pay. If you fall more than 30 days behind, the employer can drop coverage after giving you at least 15 days’ written warning. When you return, coverage resumes immediately with no waiting period and no new pre-existing condition exclusions.

If you decide not to come back after leave, the employer can recover the premiums it paid on your behalf during the unpaid portion.¹¹ It cannot do that if you are not returning because of a continuing serious health condition or circumstances beyond your control, such as a spouse’s job relocation.

For income, you have two realistic options:

Accrued paid leave. You can use your accrued vacation, personal, or sick leave at the same time as FMLA, and the employer can also require you to.³ Using paid leave does not extend the 12 weeks; it just means some of those weeks come with a paycheck. Many Texas employers make this mandatory rather than optional, so check your handbook before leave starts.

Short-term disability insurance. Texas has no state disability program. If your employer offers group short-term disability, it typically pays 50 to 70 percent of your salary during the medical disability period tied to childbirth, usually six weeks for a vaginal delivery and eight weeks for a cesarean. Some policies impose a one- or two-week waiting period. Individual short-term disability policies exist on the private market, but you generally need to buy one before becoming pregnant for a maternity claim to be covered.

Accommodations While You Are Still Working

FMLA covers time away from work. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which took effect in 2023, covers changes at work while you are still on the job. It applies to employers with 15 or more employees — a much lower bar than FMLA’s 50 — and requires reasonable accommodations for limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or recovery, unless the accommodation would be an undue hardship.¹²

Accommodations can include more frequent breaks, schedule adjustments, permission to sit instead of stand, telework, temporary reassignment to lighter duty, or time off for appointments.¹³ Importantly, your employer cannot push you onto leave if a different accommodation would let you keep working.¹² That matters in Texas, where losing work early means losing income with no state program to backfill it.

Coming Back to Work

When leave ends, the employer must restore you to the same job you held before or to a position virtually identical in pay, benefits, duties, and status.¹⁴ An equivalent position has to be at the same or a nearby worksite, carry the same shift or schedule, and offer the same pay premiums like overtime eligibility and shift differentials.¹⁵ Any unconditional raise that took effect while you were out, such as a cost-of-living adjustment, must be applied to your pay on return. Unpaid FMLA leave cannot be treated as a break in service for pension vesting or benefits eligibility, and you do not have to re-qualify for benefits you already had.

If your leave was for your own medical condition, the employer can require a fitness-for-duty certification before letting you back, but only if it has a uniform policy requiring the same of all similarly situated employees. The certification comes from your own provider, and you pay for it. If the employer wants the certification to address whether you can perform the essential functions of your job, it must give you a list of those functions no later than the designation notice. Second or third opinions are not allowed on fitness-for-duty certifications, and the employer cannot delay your return while contacting your provider for clarification.¹⁶

Once you are back, the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act requires reasonable break time to express breast milk for up to one year after the child’s birth, plus a private space that is not a bathroom, is shielded from view, and is free from intrusion.¹⁷ An employer may be exempt only if it can show compliance would create significant expense or unsafe conditions.

If You Don’t Qualify for FMLA

A lot of Texas workers fall outside FMLA because the employer is too small, the employee has not been there a year, or they have not hit 1,250 hours. Other federal protections still apply.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act covers employers with 15 or more employees and requires reasonable accommodations for pregnancy-related limitations, which may include time off for appointments or recovery if the employer cannot show undue hardship. It does not guarantee 12 weeks of leave.¹²
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, part of Title VII, applies to employers with 15 or more employees and bars discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions. If the employer provides leave or accommodations to other temporarily disabled employees, it must extend the same treatment to pregnant employees.¹⁸
The Americans with Disabilities Act does not treat pregnancy itself as a disability, but complications like gestational diabetes or preeclampsia can qualify. Employers with 15 or more employees must provide reasonable accommodations for qualifying pregnancy-related disabilities.¹⁸
Some Texas employers voluntarily offer maternity leave, parental leave, or short-term disability benefits that exceed what federal law requires, even at companies too small for FMLA. The handbook or benefits portal is the place to check.

Protection Against Retaliation

It is illegal for your employer to interfere with your right to take FMLA leave or to punish you for using it.¹⁹ That covers firing, demoting, cutting hours, reassigning to less desirable work, or any other adverse action motivated by your request for or use of leave. The same protection applies if you file a complaint, participate in an investigation, or testify in an FMLA proceeding.

Documentation is what makes a retaliation claim work. If the employer denied leave, pressured you to come back early, or treated you differently afterward, the paper trail from your request becomes evidence. You can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division or sue in court, and remedies can include back pay, reinstatement, and attorneys’ fees. For claims under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, PWFA, or ADA, the EEOC accepts charges within 180 days of the adverse action, extended to 300 days in states with their own enforcement agencies.¹⁸

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2611 – Definitions
2
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.110 – Eligible Employee
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2612 – Leave Requirement
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Leave Under the Family and Medical Leave Act When You and Your Spouse Work for the Same Employer
5
U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Forms
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28G – Medical Certification Under the Family and Medical Leave Act
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Notice of Eligibility and Rights and Responsibilities
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Designation Notice
9
Texas Workforce Commission. Texas Work and Family Policies
10
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.209 – Maintenance of Employee Benefits
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act Advisor – Recovery of Health Insurance Premiums
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 2000gg-1 – Nondiscrimination With Regard to Reasonable Accommodations Related to Pregnancy
13
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2614 – Employment and Benefits Protection
15
U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act Advisor – Equivalent Position and Benefits
16
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.312 – Fitness-for-Duty Certification
17
U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA Protections to Pump at Work
18
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pregnancy Discrimination and Pregnancy-Related Disability Discrimination
19
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2615 – Prohibited Acts