Work · Paid sick leave

Paid Sick Leave Laws by State: Who Must Provide It

Whether each state requires employers to provide paid sick leave, how much you accrue, who is covered, and where a city ordinance fills the gap the state leaves. Each cited to the statute.

10 of 50 states so far, starting with the largest. A growing set of states now require paid sick leave; many others have no state mandate, and a few even bar their cities from setting one.Here 4 require it. There is no federal mandate, so where the state does not act, a city ordinance may still. Every page links to the statute or the code it was read against.

Read this first: no federal mandate, so it is state by state

There is no federal law requiring private employers to give paid sick leave; the federal FMLA only protects your job during unpaid leave. So paid sick leave is set state by state, and increasingly city by city. Where a state requires it, leave usually accrues as you work, often one hour for every 30 worked, up to a yearly cap.

Two things surprise people. First, in a state with no mandate, a city ordinance may still require paid sick leave, so the answer can depend on where you work, not just the state. Second, a few states go the other way and preempt their cities, barring any local mandate. Every figure links to the statute, and pages still pending verification say so.

Every state in one table

Whether leave is required, how it accrues, and the statute in each row.

No state mandate (6)

State	Accrual and cap	Statute
Florida	No mandate; local preempted	Fla. Stat. §218.077
Georgia	No mandate, 5 days for family care	O.C.G.A. §§ 34‑1‑10
North Carolina	No mandate, local preempted	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 95‑25.1
Ohio	No mandate, local preempted	Ohio Rev. Code § 4113.85
Pennsylvania	No mandate; city ordinances only	Pa. Stat. tit. 43
Texas	No mandate; local struck down	Tex. Labor Code

Required (4)

State	Accrual and cap	Statute
California	1 hr per 30 worked, 40 hr/yr	Cal. Labor Code §§245‑249
Illinois	1 hr per 40 worked, 40 hr/yr	820 ILCS 192
Michigan	1 hr per 30 worked, 72 hr/yr	Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 408.961‑408.973
New York	1 hr per 30 worked, 40 to 56 hr/yr	N.Y. Labor Law §196‑b

What these pages are, and what they aren't

Each state page is a reference for the paid sick leave rule and the neutral steps around it. They are deliberately not advice for your job: accrual, caps, employer size, and city ordinances all matter, so each page links to the statute or the code it was read against. This is legal information, not legal advice.