Paid Sick Leave

Washington state law requires employers to provide paid sick leave to their employees. It also sets the minimum requirements for an employer’s paid sick leave policy.

Workers that are exempt from the definition of “employee” under the Minimum Wage Act are also exempt from paid sick leave.

This includes bona fide exempt “white collar” executive, administrative, professional, computer professional, and outside sales employees.

You may not need a written paid sick leave policy, but having one is highly recommended.

If you have a written policy, it must be readily available to all your employees. If you do not have a written policy, state minimums still apply.

Your paid sick leave policy must meet or exceed the minimum requirements defined in state law. If a local ordinance requires more generous paid sick leave benefits for employees than state law, those requirements will apply.

Check with your local government about any sick leave requirements.

Paid sick leave policy minimum requirements

Employers in Washington, at a minimum, must provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours worked by an employee, regardless of full-time, part-time, temporary, or seasonal status. All hours that an employee works must be counted towards accrual, regardless of how many hours they work in a given week or pay period, including overtime hours.

You must pay your employee’s normal hourly compensation for paid sick leave hours that they use. You must allow your employees to use their paid sick leave to care for themselves or their family members no more than 90 days after they start working.

A family member is defined as a:

• child (biological, adopted, foster, stepchild, etc.), regardless of age or dependency status
• parent (biological, adoptive, foster, stepparent, etc.), or the parent of the employee’s spouse or registered domestic partner
• spouse or registered domestic partner
• grandparent or a grandchild
• sibling

Authorized uses of paid sick leave include:

• Illness or injury
• Physical or mental health conditions
• Doctor or dentist visits
• Preventive care
• Workplace, child’s school, or daycare closures ordered by a public official for any health-related reason
• Leave that qualifies under Washington’s Domestic Violence Leave Act

You must pay employees their paid sick leave in the same pay period that it was used, unless you require verification for absences exceeding three days. You must have written policy if you require verification. In addition to the minimum requirements of the paid sick leave law, employers can provide optional programs to augment or even replace parts of a basic paid sick leave program.

Any use of these optional programs must also meet the minimum requirements of the paid sick leave law. Employers are required to have a written paid sick leave policy before implementing any of these optional programs.

Time increments

You must allow employees to use paid sick leave in increments consistent with your normal payroll practices. For example, if you track your employees’ work in 15-minute increments, then employees can use their paid sick leave in 15-minute increments.

Employers can apply to L&I for a paid sick leave increments of use variance. Not all municipalities will accept this variance (e.g., the City of Seattle).

Paid sick leave balances and availability

Once an employee has reached 90 calendar days of employment, you must record and credit accrued paid sick leave to an employee’s available balance during your usual pay cycle (e.g., weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, monthly, etc.), but no later than 30 days after the leave was accrued.

At least once a month, employees must be given a notice that shows:

• the amount of paid sick leave they accrued since the previous notice,
• the amount of paid sick leave used since the previous notice, and
• the employee’s current, unused paid sick leave balances available for use.

You can satisfy these requirements by including this information in your employees’ payroll statements.

Paid time off (PTO)

PTO programs combine an employee’s paid sick leave, vacation time, and other leave into a single pool of paid time off. This combined time off can typically be used for any reason allowed by the employer, but must also be available to be used as paid sick leave if the employer wants the PTO program to cover the paid sick leave law’s minimum requirements.

If you offer a PTO program to meet the state’s paid sick leave requirements, it must meet the state’s minimum accrual rate, normal hourly compensation, carryover, notification, and access requirements. You must also have written paid sick leave policy.

If an employee uses their PTO for vacation or other leave and not for sick leave, and requests additional paid sick leave time after they have used all of their accrued PTO, employers are not required to provide any additional PTO to cover their request as long as their PTO program meets the minimum paid sick leave requirements.

Employees’ rights

You must provide an employee with a written or electronic notification of their paid sick leave rights by their first day of employment.

Employers cannot require employees to cover their shift before taking paid sick leave. They cannot be required to work a substitute shift when they use paid sick leave time.

• If both the employee and employer agree, an employee can work a different shift, or trade shifts with another employee instead of using paid sick leave.

Employees’ unused paid sick leave balances of 40 hours or less must carry over from year to year. Employers can offer a more generous carryover policy.

Employees’ unused paid sick leave balances must be reinstated if an employee is terminated or leaves their job for any reason and returns to the same employer within 12 months. Paid sick leave balances are not required to be reinstated if they are paid in full to the employee when employment ends.

Paid sick leave balances do not have to be cashed out or paid when employment ends, unless another state law or a collective bargaining agreement requires it. When an employee leaves their job for any reason, you can optionally cash out any sick leave balances. Balances not cashed out must be reinstated if the employee is rehired within 12 months.

Reasonable notice

If you want your employees to provide reasonable notice for their use of paid sick leave, you must have a written policy or a collective bargaining agreement that addresses it. Reasonable notice requirements cannot interfere with an employee’s right to use paid sick leave.

For foreseeable events, such as appointments scheduled in advance, you can require up to 10 days’ notice, or as early as practical. For example, a last-minute appointment scheduled 3 days in advance would require only 3 days’ notice, or as early as practical.

For unforeseeable uses of paid sick leave, you can require employees to notify you as soon as possible before the start of their shift, unless it is impractical to do so. If an employee cannot reasonably provide notice, another person can give notice for them.

Verification requirements

For absences exceeding three required work days or longer, you can require an employee to provide verification that their paid sick leave absences are for an authorized purpose.

However, you must include any verification requirements in your written paid sick leave policy. This policy must:

• Give employees at least 10 calendar days after the first day of absence to provide verification.
• Detail an employee’s right to appeal the verification requirement if it causes an unreasonable burden or expense on the employee.
• Allow an employee to present oral or written statements that their absence was allowable under the paid sick leave law and that the employer-required verification would create an unreasonable burden or expense for the employee.
  • You must consider your employee’s statement and respond within 10 calendar days by either:
    • accepting the employee’s oral or written statement, or
    • providing an alternate method of getting verification, such as helping to pay the employee’s out-of-pocket expenses to get a doctor’s note, etc.

Family Care Act

Washington Family Care Act (FCA) allows employees to take any paid leave offered by their employer to provide treatment or supervision for a child with a health condition or to care for qualifying family member with a serious or emergency health condition. The FCA cannot be used for an employee’s personal condition.

The FCA allows employees to choose the type of leave from any earned, paid leave benefit including:

• Paid sick leave
• Vacation
• Paid time off (PTO)
• Personal holidays
• Specific short-term disability plans

Discipline and retaliation

Use of paid sick leave time cannot be counted as an absence that leads to, or results in, any type of discipline. An employer cannot discipline an employee for using paid sick leave for authorized purposes, or for filing a complaint under the law.

It is unlawful for an employer to interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of any employee’s rights, including the lawful use of paid sick leave. If an employee thinks they are being or have been retaliated against by their employer for asserting their rights under the Minimum Wage Act, they have 180 days to file a claim, unless there are extenuating circumstances. L&I is required to investigate all such claims.

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