What Are New York’s Paid Sick Leave Laws in 2025?

New York Paid Sick Leave (PSL) law, also known as New York Safe and Sick Leave (NYSSL) law, was enacted in 2020 to enable employees statewide to take time off for safety and health matters without putting their employment at risk.

Every private employer, including non-profit organizations, must provide sick leave, but the specific type of leave (paid vs. unpaid), accrual rates, and annual usage limits depend on workforce size and net income.

To avoid penalties, sanctions, and legal actions, employers must comply with the state law and navigate stricter local ordinances in New York City and Westchester County.

Deel's Professional Employer Organization (PEO) service brings together in-house expertise and powerful automation to keep US companies compliant with complex state and federal leave policies, while making it easier to care for their teams.

Whether you're overseeing a small team or hundreds of employees, this guide will help you understand your obligations and ensure that the rights of your workforce are properly protected.

Understanding paid sick leave in New York

Effective September 30, 2020, employees in New York began accruing sick leave for health and safety-related concerns, which they could start using from January 1, 2021. Any employees hired after these dates will begin accruing paid sick leave from their first working day, and they can access this time off as soon as it’s earned.

The paid sick leave law applies to nearly all employers in the state and covers all private sector employees, regardless of their occupation, industry, overtime exempt status, or part-time status.

Find out how sick leave laws differ by state.

Which employers must provide paid sick leave?

All private employers in New York are required to offer sick leave. However, whether the leave is paid or unpaid and the amount of leave hours employees can accrue depends on the employer’s size and/or net annual revenue in the previous tax year.

All employers, regardless of their size or net annual income, are also required to provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave to domestic workers and 20 additional hours of paid prenatal leave to pregnant employees.

Employer size must be based on the highest number of employees nationwide at any given time during the current calendar year, including:

• Part-time employees
• Temporary and seasonal employees
• Per-diem and on-call employees
• Employees on paid or unpaid leave
• Owners who are considered employees
• Transitional job program employees
• Employees who are family members but not owners
• Employees jointly employed by more than one employer

A calendar year can be any consecutive 12-month period, such as a fiscal year, tax year, contract year, or the typical year from January 1 through December 31.

Who isn’t covered?

Earned sick leave benefits don’t apply to certain categories of workers in New York, including:

• Independent contractors who don’t qualify as employees under New York State Labor Law
• Federal, state, and local government employees
• Participants in federal work-study programs or Work Experience Programs (WEP)
• Certain farm laborers who are exempt under state law
• Owners who don’t qualify as employees under state law
• Employees who are compensated by qualified scholarship programs for their work
• Union workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement with comparable benefits or an alternative sick leave arrangement that differs from the law

When can sick leave be used?

Employees can take earned sick leave for a host of reasons, including:

• For an employee’s own physical or mental illness, injury, health condition, medical diagnosis, treatment, or preventive medical care
• To care for a covered family member (biological or foster children, domestic partners, parents, guardians, grandparents, etc.) with a mental or physical illness or health condition, or who needs medical diagnosis, treatment, or preventive care
• For absences related to an act or threat of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human trafficking, of which the employee or a family member is a victim
• For business or school closures due to public health emergencies

Accrual rules: how sick time builds up

Employees must be allowed to accrue at least one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

Although there is no cap on the number of leave hours employees can accrue in a year, employers may decide to limit annual use to the statutory maximum amount of 40 or 56 hours, depending on their size.

Employers who don’t want the trouble of tracking hours worked and accruals throughout the year can choose to frontload the maximum required amount at the start of the calendar year.

Usage limits based on employer size

Small employers with fewer than 100 employees can cap annual usage at 40 hours, while those with 100+ employees can restrict usage to 56 hours annually, even though an employee accrued more leave hours.

Employees can use sick leave in increments based on the employer’s policy, but the policy must not compel employees to take more than a minimum of four-hour increments. Prenatal leave can be used in one-hour increments.

Sick leave can be taken without advance notice, but employees have to submit an oral or written request before taking the time off. Employers can only request documentation proving the necessity of the leave if an employee’s absence exceeds three consecutive work days.

This documentation can be either:

• A note from the employee confirming that they have an eligible reason to take time off
• A note from a licensed medical provider verifying the existence of the need for sick leave, the amount of time off required, and when the employee can be expected to return to work

Carryover and payout policies

Any sick leave that’s unused at the end of the year must carry over into the next year. Unlike some other states, like Michigan and Massachusetts, that cap the number of unused sick hours that can be carried over, New York doesn’t impose such limitations.

However, employers can set usage limits based on the annual maximum of 40 or 56 hours. They’re also allowed to offer employees payment for unused sick leave, whether accrued or frontloaded, as an alternative to carrying it over.

Employers don’t have to pay out unused sick leave at termination, unless their PTO policy states that unused time will be paid when an employee leaves.

Calculating pay for sick leave

When sick leave is used, employees must be paid for it at their regular pay rate or the applicable minimum wage rate, whichever is higher. Credits and allowances need not be paid for leave hours.

Employees aren’t permitted to reduce an employee’s pay rate for sick or prenatal leave hours or to delay payment for sick leave beyond the next regular payday.

Recordkeeping and enforcement

New York’s paid sick leave law requires employers to keep track of leave accruals, usage, and balances for each employee on a weekly basis. These records must be maintained for at least six years.

Employees have a right to request orally or in writing a summary of the amounts of sick leave they’ve earned and taken during the current year and/or any past year. Employers must provide this summary within three business days of receiving the request.

Enforcement is overseen by The New York State Department of Labor is responsible for enforcing the sick leave law and investigating employers who are suspected of violating its provisions.

Notice and posting requirements

There are two ways employers must go about informing employees about their entitlement to time off, including sick leave:

• Provide written notice of sick leave rights upon hire
• Post a state-issued notice in the workplace describing time off policies in a spot where it can be easily seen by workers.

The information featured in the notice can also be included in employee handbooks, union contracts, workplace manuals, and other written documents

Anti-retaliation and job protection

Sick and safe leave is a job-protected leave in New York, so employees who exercise their rights to use sick leave must be returned to the position, benefits, and pay they held before taking time away.

Employers cannot retaliate against employees in any way for requesting or using sick leave. Employees who believe they have experienced retaliatory actions for taking advantage of their sick leave rights can file a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Anti-Retaliation Unit.

Successful retaliation claims can result in damages, penalties, and reinstatement.

Additional notes for New York employers

The New York paid sick leave law doesn’t preempt all local ordinances or stop cities within the state from establishing separate sick leave rules. It explicitly permits cities with a population over 1 million to set and enforce local laws for sick leave that meet or exceed the requirements of state law.

In addition, sick leave policies provided by local laws that were in effect as of the effective date of the NYSSL will continue and are not diminished by the new law.

New York City and Westchester County have their own stricter sick leave laws that employers with employees in these cities must comply with. Where both state and local laws apply, the provisions of the law that provide greater benefits and protections to employees must be followed.

Under the PSL, collective bargaining agreements made on or after the law’s effective date may provide comparable benefits instead of PSL sick leave, as long as the agreement explicitly acknowledges the law and states its intention to deviate from it.

See also: What is New York State’s Paid Maternity Leave in 2025?

How New York differs from other states

New York’s paid sick leave law is distinct from other states’ in these key areas:

• Employer obligations vary by size and net income, unlike in states such as California, which impose uniform requirements
• Larger employers must provide more time off (up to 56 hours), exceeding many other states’ caps
• Large cities like NYC and Westchester are allowed to enact local ordinances with stricter or more generous requirements, whereas states like Texas ban local rules
• New York explicitly includes domestic violence, family offense, stalking, and human trafficking protections as valid reasons to take sick leave

Staying compliant with New York’s paid sick leave law

Failure to offer sick leave to employees can result in significant penalties, so it’s critical to revisit your leave policies and update them where necessary to satisfy the requirements of both state law and local ordinances.

Partnering with Deel PEO helps cut through the legal complexities, simplifying compliance and freeing up resources and personnel to focus on business operations.

With Deel PEO, you can:

• Automate leave tracking, annual usage cap enforcement, and absence management, reducing admin workload
• Create custom policies to match your workflow and processes for easier benefits administration
• Access round-the-clock compliance monitoring, ensuring your business is up to date on all relevant federal, state, and local regulations, including New York’s paid sick leave laws
• Leverage support from certified advisors, licensed professionals, and dedicated HR and payroll managers to grow your business

Discover how Deel takes the stress out of US and global leave, payroll, and HR compliance. Book a demo to speak with our experts.