Washington Paid Sick Leave: Accrual, Use, and Carryover

Washington paid sick leave gives nearly every employee in the state at least one hour of paid time off for every 40 hours worked, usable for your own illness, a family member’s health needs, certain workplace or school closures, and safety-related absences tied to domestic violence.¹ The rule has been in effect since January 1, 2018, and it applies whether you work full-time, part-time, seasonally, or as a temporary employee.²

Who Is Covered

Coverage is broad. Employers must provide paid sick leave to all employees regardless of full-time, part-time, temporary, or seasonal status, and the rule reaches adults and minors, public sector and private sector alike.¹

The main workers left out are salaried employees who qualify as bona fide executive, administrative, professional, computer professional, or outside sales workers under the state’s Minimum Wage Act. Those categories have specific duties tests and salary thresholds.³ If you don’t fit one of those exemptions, you’re covered.

How You Earn Sick Leave

You earn a minimum of one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours you work.⁴ Every hour counts, including overtime.¹ Accrual starts on your first day. Your employer can offer a more generous rate but cannot go below the 1-per-40 floor, and there’s no cap on how many hours you can accumulate during the year.

Some employers frontload leave instead of tracking accrual hour by hour. To do that legally, the employer must provide at least 40 hours at the start of the benefit year, and the policy has to meet or exceed the same standards for use and carryover that apply to accrual.⁴

If your workplace uses a combined paid-time-off bank that blends vacation and sick leave, that PTO policy can satisfy the sick leave requirement, but only if it accrues at no less than one hour per 40 hours worked, carries over at least 40 hours, and is available for every purpose the sick leave law covers. Your employer must also tell you the PTO program is being used to meet the sick leave requirement.⁵

The 90-Day Wait Before You Can Use It

You accrue leave from day one, but you can’t actually use it until you’ve been employed for 90 calendar days.⁶ If you leave and come back to the same employer within 12 months, the days you already worked count toward that 90-day threshold. The clock doesn’t restart.

What You Can Use Sick Leave For

The statute authorizes paid sick leave for three broad reasons.⁴

Your own physical or mental illness, injury, or health condition, including doctor visits, treatment, and preventive care like annual checkups or flu shots.
The same health-related reasons when you’re caring for a qualifying family member.
A closure of your workplace, or your child’s school or daycare, ordered by a public official for a health-related reason.

Accrued sick leave also covers absences that qualify under Washington’s Domestic Violence Leave Act. If you or a family member is affected by domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, you can use sick leave to seek legal help, attend court, get medical treatment, access counseling or shelter services, create a safety plan, or relocate.⁷

The definition of family member is wider than many workers assume. It includes your spouse, registered domestic partner, child (biological, adopted, foster, or stepchild, regardless of age), parent (including in-laws and stepparents), grandparent, grandchild, and sibling. It also covers anyone who served as your legal guardian or filled a parental role when you were a minor.⁴

Bereavement is not on the state list. Tacoma adds it locally, but the state law does not.

How Much You Get Paid

For each hour of sick leave you use, you receive the greater of the state minimum wage or your normal hourly compensation.⁸ Normal hourly compensation includes your base rate, commissions, piece-rate earnings, non-discretionary bonuses, and shift differentials. It does not include tips, gratuities, service charges, holiday pay, or discretionary bonuses unless your employer’s policy or a collective bargaining agreement says otherwise.⁹ If you’re paid on commission or piece rate, your employer has to use a reasonable calculation method to arrive at an hourly figure.

You can use sick leave in increments that match how your employer already tracks time. If payroll runs in 15-minute blocks, you can use sick leave in 15-minute blocks.¹ Payment shows up on the regular payday for the period in which the leave was taken.

Notice and Verification

For an absence you know about ahead of time, your employer can require written notice at least 10 days out, or as early as practical when 10 days isn’t feasible. Any notice requirement has to be in a written policy; without one, your employer can’t penalize you for missing a notice deadline.

For unexpected absences, notify your employer as soon as you reasonably can. Someone else can call on your behalf if you’re too sick to do it yourself.

Verification is limited. Your employer can only request it when an absence stretches beyond three consecutive scheduled workdays.¹⁰ The verification only needs to confirm the leave was for an authorized purpose. You do not have to disclose the specific nature of a medical condition, and no verification can be required for absences of three days or fewer.

Carryover From Year to Year

At the end of your employer’s benefit year, any unused balance of 40 hours or less must carry over.⁴ If you have more than 40 hours banked, the employer can let the extra carry over but isn’t required to, and can cap carryover at 40 hours.

One quirk with frontloading: hours carried over from the prior year don’t count toward what the employer must provide in the new year. If you carry 40 hours into year two and the employer frontloads another 40, you start year two with 80 available hours, not 40.¹¹

Monthly Statements

Your employer must give you a written or electronic statement at least once a month showing how much sick leave you earned since the last notice, how much you used, and your current available balance.⁶ Many employers put this on the pay stub, and that satisfies the requirement.

Leaving the Job or Getting Rehired

Washington generally does not require employers to cash out accrued, unused sick leave when you separate.¹ If your employer chooses to pay it out, the terms have to be agreed to in writing or set by law or a collective bargaining agreement.

Come back to the same employer within 12 months and your previously accrued, unused balance must be reinstated. Any hours that were already cashed out at separation don’t have to be restored.¹²

Construction workers are treated differently. Workers covered under NAICS industry code 23 (excluding residential building construction under NAICS 2361) get a payout when they leave before hitting the 90-day usage threshold. The employer must pay the full balance of unused sick leave at the worker’s normal hourly rate by the end of the next established pay period, whether the separation is voluntary or involuntary.¹

Retaliation Is Prohibited

Your employer cannot discipline you, cut your hours, demote you, threaten you, or take any other adverse action because you used paid sick leave for an authorized purpose.¹³ No-fault attendance policies that assign points for every absence violate the law when they penalize authorized sick leave use.

Threats based on immigration status are treated as a separate violation. If your employer retaliates against you or threatens to report your immigration status because you used sick leave or filed a complaint, that is its own offense.¹³

You have 180 days to file a complaint with the Washington Department of Labor & Industries. Violations can carry civil penalties and, in some cases, criminal liability.

Seattle and Tacoma Rules Go Further

Local ordinances in Seattle and Tacoma can give you more than the state law. Where a local rule is more favorable to the employee, the local rule controls.

Seattle’s Paid Sick and Safe Time ordinance sets higher standards for larger employers. Companies with 250 or more full-time equivalent employees worldwide must accrue leave at one hour for every 30 hours worked and allow carryover of up to 72 hours, or 108 hours for employers using a PTO system. Smaller Seattle employers follow the state’s 1-per-40 rate but may face higher carryover limits. Seattle also expands the reasons you can use leave, including when a family member’s school or place of care closes for any reason, not just a health-related public order.¹⁴

Tacoma’s ordinance reaches salaried workers and elected or appointed officials who are exempt under state law, and it adds bereavement as a qualifying reason to use paid sick leave.¹⁵

How This Fits With Paid Family and Medical Leave

Washington’s Paid Family and Medical Leave program is separate. It provides up to 12 weeks of partial wage replacement for qualifying events like a serious health condition, a new child, or a family member’s military deployment, and it usually runs at the same time as federal FMLA when the qualifying event overlaps. Using FMLA does not reduce your state Paid Leave benefit.¹⁶ Your employer-provided sick leave is its own bank. Some employers let you supplement state Paid Leave benefits with accrued sick leave, but that depends on company policy.

1
Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. Paid Sick Leave Minimum Requirements
2
Washington Secretary of State. Initiative Measure No. 1433
3
Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. Administrative Exemption from Minimum Wage Act Requirements
4
Washington State Legislature. RCW 49.46.210 – Paid Sick Leave, Authorized Purposes, Limitations
5
Washington State Legislature. WAC 296-128-700 – Paid Time Off Programs
6
Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. Paid Sick Leave
7
Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 49.76 – Domestic Violence Leave
8
Washington State Legislature. WAC 296-128-600 – Definitions
9
Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. Paid Sick Leave – Normal Hourly Compensation
10
Washington State Legislature. WAC 296-128-660 – Verification for Absences Exceeding Three Days
11
Washington State Attorney General. Mandatory Sick Leave
12
Washington State Legislature. WAC 296-128-690 – Separation and Rehire
13
Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. Enforcement of Paid Sick Leave Laws
14
City of Seattle. Paid Sick and Safe Time
15
City of Tacoma. Minimum Employment Standards
16
Washington State’s Paid Family and Medical Leave. Find Out How Paid Leave Works