What Is the DFMLA? DC Family and Medical Leave Act

The District of Columbia Family and Medical Leave Act (DFMLA) gives eligible D.C. workers up to 16 weeks of unpaid, job-protected family leave and a separate 16 weeks of unpaid medical leave over any 24-month period. That combined 32-week ceiling is more generous than the 12 weeks offered by the federal FMLA, and the eligibility rules are easier to meet. The law protects your position while you are out; it does not pay you. For wage replacement, D.C. runs a separate Paid Family Leave program, and most workers end up using both at once.

Who Qualifies

An employer is covered if it keeps 20 or more employees on its D.C. payroll during at least 20 calendar workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year, counting both full-time and part-time staff.¹ Private companies, nonprofits, and D.C. government agencies all count. Federal agencies do not; federal workers follow the federal FMLA instead.

To qualify as an employee, you need one continuous year of service with the same employer (regular holidays and employer-granted leave do not break continuity) and at least 1,000 hours worked during the 12 months before leave begins.² That hours threshold is lower than the 1,250 required by the federal FMLA, so some D.C. workers who cannot use federal leave can still use the DFMLA.

Reasons You Can Take Leave

The law splits leave into two independent categories. Family leave covers four situations:³

Bonding with a newborn child.
Bonding with a child newly placed with you for adoption or foster care.
Assuming parental responsibility when a child comes to live with you and you permanently take on the parental role.
Caring for a family member with a serious health condition that requires inpatient care or ongoing treatment by a healthcare provider.

Medical leave applies when your own serious health condition keeps you from doing your job.⁴

“Family member” is defined broadly. It covers anyone related to you by blood, marriage, or legal custody, foster children, and a person with whom you share (or shared within the last year) a mutual residence and a committed relationship.² Partners and household members in committed relationships are included without any requirement of marriage.

How Much Time You Get

You can take up to 16 workweeks of family leave in any 24-month period and up to 16 workweeks of medical leave in that same 24-month window.³⁴ The two banks are independent. A long personal illness does not shrink the time available to care for a sick relative.

The 24-month clock starts the first day you use leave for a qualifying event. When that period ends, the allotment resets. Both types of leave are unpaid by default, though you may be able to apply accrued vacation or sick time to collect wages during part of your absence.

If you and your spouse or partner work for the same employer, the employer may cap combined family leave at 16 workweeks total between the two of you and limit simultaneous family leave to 4 workweeks.³

Intermittent and Reduced-Schedule Leave

Leave does not have to be taken in a single continuous block. For family leave to care for a relative’s serious health condition, the law allows intermittent leave when medically necessary, so you can take time in smaller increments for things like recurring treatments.³

You and your employer can also agree to spread 16 workweeks of family leave over up to 24 consecutive workweeks on a reduced schedule. This option requires mutual agreement; neither side can impose it. When planned medical treatment drives the schedule, you are expected to make a reasonable effort to schedule it in a way that does not unnecessarily disrupt the employer’s operations.

Notice and Medical Certification

For planned events like scheduled treatment, you must give your employer reasonable prior notice and try to schedule the appointment to minimize disruption.³ The DFMLA does not set a hard 30-day deadline the way the federal FMLA does. For emergencies, notify the employer as soon as you reasonably can. Putting notice in writing creates a record if a dispute surfaces later.

Your employer can require medical certification when you take family leave to care for a family member’s serious health condition or when you take medical leave for your own serious health condition. Certification is not required for bonding leave with a newborn or newly placed child.⁵

A valid certification states when the condition began, how long it is expected to last, the relevant medical facts, and either that you cannot perform your job (for medical leave) or how much time you need to provide care (for family leave).⁵ If the employer has reason to doubt the certification, it can require a second opinion at its own expense. If the second opinion conflicts with the first, you can request a tie-breaking third opinion from a provider you and the employer agree on, also paid by the employer, and that third determination is final. Reviewing providers cannot be anyone the employer or employee regularly uses. Employers can also require periodic recertification on a reasonable basis, and all medical information collected must be kept confidential and used only for leave decisions.

Job and Benefits Protection When You Return

At the end of your leave, your employer must put you back in the same position you held before leave started, or in an equivalent position with the same pay, benefits, seniority, and working conditions.⁶ Benefits and seniority you had already accrued stay intact, though you do not continue to accrue more during unpaid leave.

Group health coverage must be maintained at the same level and under the same conditions as if you had kept working. You still owe your share of the premium. Skip those payments and you can lose coverage until you return and resume paying.

You and your employer can also agree on alternative duties during a serious health condition. Taking the alternative assignment does not reduce your leave entitlement, and once you can return to your original job, you get restored to it.

The Key Employee Carve-Out

Reinstatement is not guaranteed for a narrow group of highly paid salaried employees whose return would cause substantial economic injury to the business. At employers with fewer than 50 workers, the carve-out applies to the five highest-paid employees; at employers with 50 or more, it covers the top 10 percent by compensation. Even in those cases, the employer must notify you of its intent to deny reinstatement and give the business reason at the time of the decision.⁶ The exception is rarely invoked, but senior staff should be aware of it before taking extended leave.

How DFMLA Pairs with DC Paid Family Leave

The DFMLA and D.C.’s Paid Family Leave program are two separate systems. The DFMLA protects your job while you are out. Paid Family Leave sends you a weekly cash benefit while you are out. Neither one does both on its own.

Paid Family Leave provides up to 12 weeks of parental leave, 12 weeks to care for a family member with a serious health condition, 12 weeks for your own serious health condition, and 2 weeks of prenatal leave. The combined annual cap is 12 weeks, except that a pregnant worker can collect up to 2 weeks of prenatal leave followed by up to 12 weeks of parental leave for a total of 14.⁷ The program is funded by a payroll tax on employers; employees do not pay into it.⁸

The practical move for most workers is to file for Paid Family Leave to collect the weekly benefit and use DFMLA leave (or federal FMLA, if you qualify for both) in parallel to protect the job. Collecting paid benefits by itself does not oblige your employer to hold your position, and that gap catches people off guard.

Retaliation and How to Enforce Your Rights

No one may interfere with, restrain, or deny your DFMLA rights. Your employer cannot fire you or discriminate against you for requesting or using DFMLA leave, filing a complaint, starting a legal proceeding, or giving testimony in a DFMLA matter.⁹ The protection also covers anyone who helps someone else pursue a claim.

Retaliation does not have to look like termination. A demotion, cut hours, reassignment to undesirable duties, or a pattern of hostility after you return can all qualify. Document the timeline: what leave you took, when you returned, and what changed afterward.

If your employer violates the DFMLA, you have two options and a one-year deadline from the date you discover the violation.¹⁰ You can file an administrative complaint with the D.C. Mayor’s office through the D.C. Office of Human Rights. That process, including a formal hearing, must be completed within 150 days of filing; if the agency does not make a reasonable effort to meet that timeline, you gain the right to file in court instead. You can also go straight to a private civil action.¹¹

Available remedies include lost wages and benefits plus interest; an additional amount equal to those lost wages, or consequential damages up to three times the lost wages plus uncovered medical expenses, whichever is greater; and reasonable attorney fees and costs for the prevailing party. An employer that acted in good faith with reasonable grounds to believe it was complying may have damages reduced, at the fact-finder’s discretion.¹⁰

Covered employers must also post a workplace notice summarizing DFMLA rights and complaint procedures, with a civil penalty of up to $100 per day for a willful failure to post.¹² If no notice is up at your workplace, flag it to HR or the Office of Human Rights.

DFMLA Compared to Federal FMLA

Many D.C. workers qualify for both laws and get the greater protection in any given situation. The main differences:

Employer size: DFMLA covers employers with 20 or more employees. Federal FMLA applies only to employers with 50 or more employees within 75 miles.¹¹³
Hours worked: 1,000 in the prior 12 months under DFMLA, 1,250 under federal FMLA.
Leave duration: 16 weeks of family leave plus 16 weeks of medical leave over 24 months under DFMLA; a combined 12 weeks over 12 months under federal FMLA.³
Family member definition: DFMLA includes blood, marriage, legal custody, foster children, and committed household partners. Federal FMLA is limited to spouses, children, and parents.
Worksite proximity: DFMLA has no worksite proximity requirement. Federal FMLA requires 50 employees within 75 miles of your location.

When both laws apply, leave for the same qualifying event generally runs concurrently rather than stacking. An employee caring for a spouse with cancer uses DFMLA family leave and federal FMLA leave at the same time. Because DFMLA allows 16 weeks and federal FMLA only 12, that employee still has 4 additional weeks of DFMLA-protected leave after the federal entitlement runs out.

1
DC Office of Human Rights. DC FMLA FAQ Factsheet
2
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-501 – Definitions
3
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-502 – Family Leave Requirement
4
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-503 – Medical Leave Requirement
5
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-504 – Certification
6
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-505 – Employment and Benefits Protection
7
DOES Office of Paid Family Leave. Workers
8
DC Office of the Chief Financial Officer. 2026 UL0 Universal Paid Leave
9
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-507 – Prohibited Acts
10
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-509 – Administrative Enforcement Procedure and Relief
11
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code 32-510 – Enforcement by Civil Action
12
D.C. Law Library. District of Columbia Code Subchapter I – Family and Medical Leave
13
U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act