Q4 ’26: Since U Been Gone (On Leave)

Universal Paid Leave Amendments

The District of Columbia’s Universal Paid Leave Act has been amended. Effective 10/1/2026, in an unusual move by a paid leave program, the program’s employee benefit entitlement and weekly maximum benefit was reduced.

Prior to 10/1/2026, the program offered employees up to 12 weeks of leave per year with 2 extra weeks for prenatal care. Below is the amount of leave an employee could take per leave reason (prior to 10/1/26):

• 12 weeks for parental leave
• 12 weeks for family leave
• 12 weeks for medical leave
• 2 extra weeks for prenatal leave

After 10/1/2026 (in other words, right now), employees will still be entitled up to 12 weeks of combined leave per year, however, the amount of entitlement granted per leave reason is decreasing. See the new leave allotments for each leave reason:

• 12 weeks for parental leave
• 6 weeks for family leave
• 10 weeks for medical leave
• 2 extra weeks for prenatal leave

The amendments are temporarily in effect from 10/1/2026 to 9/30/2030, after which the previous leave entitlement amounts will be restored. For those sad about this: don’t worry, 4 years isn’t that long. Think about it as being one whole college undergrad experience, or an entire presidential term, or when you get to watch the Olympics or FIFA World Cup again.

Wow, I guess that is a pretty long time… I already miss the FIFA World Cup and it’s only been 2 months. Godspeed, Washington DC-ites.

October 1st brought another change to the program as well. The maximum weekly benefit has been modified. Typically, the maximum weekly benefit is updated on October 1st of each year, but usually the maximum benefit increases. Instead, the program’s maximum benefit is decreasing from $1,190 to $1,100. This new maximum weekly benefit is only guaranteed to be in effect for one year; it will be updated again next October 1st.

Employers should post the updated mandatory Notice to Employees.

NOTE (for those of you still following along): The legislation was passed on an emergency basis, took effect on August 13, 2026, and expires on November 11, 2026. Permanent legislation with identical provisions is undergoing congressional review and is expected to take effect on November 20, 2026.

Voluntary Paid Family Leave Insurance Policies

Louisiana has officially entered the Paid Family & Medical Leave (PFML) game… kind of. Instead of the mandatory PFML that 15 other states have enacted across the country, Louisiana is permitting employers to offer voluntary Paid Family Leave (PFL) to their employees. So, they’ve entered the PFML game in the way your gregarious friend who is passively interested in board games joins a Catan game night. You can tell they attended to socialize rather than actually play—which is great, the more the merrier—but there isn’t a complete commitment to the game. The whole night they’re constantly reminded to play their turn because they’re distracted. It’s been 2 hours and you’ve thought to yourself roughly 32 times, “Stop flirting with Stephanie and roll the dice, Mark!”

Mark’s a good guy though and we appreciate his effort towards the friend-group. We hope it works out with Stephanie too.

Effective 6/8/2026, Louisiana is allowing employers to offer voluntary PFL benefits to their employees that work in the state. The benefit is available to employers as an insurance policy that is purchased from and administered by insurance carriers. A voluntary PFL line of coverage to Louisiana employees must provide a minimum level of benefits to employees.

Louisiana voluntary PFL policies must provide employees with at least two weeks of leave per year for the following reasons:

• To bond with a child during the first twelve months after the child’s birth or place of adoption or foster care
• For a family member’s active duty or impending call to active duty in the armed forces
• To care for a family member with a serious health condition
• To address a qualifying military exigency as defined under the Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
• To care for a family member who is a service member injured during military service

PFL policies are required to disclose the amount of benefits paid, the definition of income used to calculate benefits, the method used to determine an employee’s income for purposes of benefit calculation, and any offsets for other income the employee receives. An unpaid waiting period is permitted to be included in a policy plan design if the calculation method for the waiting period is described.

Eligibility limitations are permitted on a policy. An example situation of an eligibility limitation is disallowing employees to use PFL benefits if they are also eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. All limitations must be outlined in the employer’s policy.

Employer Registration is Live

Since September 1st, there have been reports on the North American continent of strange occurrences. Buildings suddenly tremoring, strange odors wafting in the air, electronic signal interference. Some have sighted a dense bioluminescent fog coalescing at the first hour of each day flowing towards the state of Maryland. You may have experienced some of these things yourself. Don’t worry – we know the answer and it’s not something scary like an earthquake, a gas leak, or hallucinogenic material getting into the water supply.

It’s the Maryland FAMLI Division concocting and beginning to roll out the FAMLI program from their headquarters in Maryland. Crazy, right? Those FAMLI program employees are using their immense powers to brew up the most efficient program possible. All that power can produce some minor and harmless environmental phenomena. On September 1^st, an important milestone occurred for the program causing a surge of power so intense that it is leaking from their headquarters and spreading across the continent.

Well, what could possibly have happened to make this power surge happen?

On September 1, 2026, employer registration for Maryland’s upcoming FAMLI program went live. All employers that have at least one employee working in the state of Maryland are required to register with the FAMLI Division. No Maryland employers are exempt from registration except for self-employed individuals who are not automatically eligible but can opt-in to the program. The FAMLI account an employer creates will be where they perform tasks such as submitting quarterly wage and hour reports, making quarterly contribution payments, and if opting for a private plan, filing a Declaration of Intent (DOI) as well as a private plan application.

FAMLI’s first quarterly reporting and contribution collection period is from January 1 to March 31, 2027, with reporting and contributions being available for submission from April 1 to April 30, 2027. It’s crucial that Maryland employers register their account as soon as they can to ensure they are prepared to submit the required wage and hour reporting and, if their benefits are administered by the state, any contributions owed in April.

We’ve highlighted a few important extra tidbits to noodle on when registering your employer’s FAMLI account:

• An Authorized Officer (a person who is legally permitted to act in an official capacity on behalf of an employer) must register their employer for FAMLI.
• Once the Authorized Officer creates a Login.gov account, they can register the employer and invite other team members (such as HR employees) to help manage their FAMLI account
  • Additional information required on employer registration: The Authorized Officer must provide information for the employer’s Resident Agent, a person or business designated to receive official legal documents on behalf of the employer.
• If an employer is using a payroll vendor, and the payroll vendor is willing, the vendor can assist the employer with FAMLI tasks such as submitting wage/hour reports and remitting contributions. To do this, the TPA can send the employer a Power of Attorney for signature; once signed, the employer will be listed as an Active Client in the TPA’s FAMLI account.
  • Important: TPAs are not allowed to register an employer for FAMLI.
• Only one EIN per registration. If an employer has multiple EINs, each EIN must be registered separately. If subagencies or divisions of an employer have the same EIN, they will be registered together under that single EIN.

Find further instructions on registering your employer for the program on the FAMLI website linked here.

Proof of Consultation Form (for Private Plan)

Employers who have decided to go with a private plan can submit a Declaration of Intent (DOI) in their FAMLI account between 9/1/2026 and 11/15/2026 to exempt themselves from remitting program contributions to the state during the pre-funding period of 1/1/2027 to 12/31/2027. Despite being exempt from remitting contributions to the state, an employer must still collect contributions and hold them in escrow.

An approved DOI does not mean an employer is approved for a private plan. To be approved for a private plan, employers must apply with their policy from an insurance carrier approved by the Division in summer 2027. Currently, insurance carriers are offering illustrative quoting for Maryland FAMLI private plan policies. Submitting a DOI only exempts an employer from remitting contributions to the state from 1/1/2027 to 12/31/2027.

The DOI process requires an employer to provide the Division with a Proof of Private Plan Consulting Form. This form acts as an attestation that an employer has met with an insurance agent licensed in Maryland to discuss the rules surrounding a DOI. The form includes a list of 15 topics curated by the Division that the insurance agent must cover. The intent of this form is to ensure employers understand items such as their FAMLI obligations when submitting a DOI, consequences for terminating their approved DOI before benefits go-live, consequences of having an approved DOI and terminating an approved private plan within the first two years of benefits, and what will happen if a DOI is approved but then their private plan application is denied. Once the discussion has occurred, the employer and insurance agent must sign the attestation before the employer submits it to the Division.

Review the linked Proof of Private Plan Consultation Form for a full list of the required discussion topics.

Paid Sick and Safe Time Rules

Minnesota employers received some welcome clarification this summer as the Department of Labor and Industry finalized rules implementing the state’s Earned Sick and Safe Time (ESST) law. While the law itself hasn’t changed, the new guidance helps answer many of the questions employers have been navigating since the program took effect.

We’ve summarized some of the key provisions below:

• Leave Use Can Be a Factor in Incentive Programs: Under Minnesota’s statute, “it shall be unlawful for an employer’s absence control policy or attendance point system to count earned sick and safe time taken as an absence that may lead to or result in retaliation or any other adverse action.” However, the rules distinguish “negative” from “positive” programs by stating, “if a bonus, reward, or other incentive is based on the achievement of a specified goal such as hours worked, products sold, or perfect attendance and the employee has not met that goal to use of earned sick and safe time, then the incentive may be denied, unless otherwise paid to employees on any other leave status.”
• Documentation Requests & Responses: Employers can require employees to supply reasonable documentation to support an absence of three or more consecutive scheduled workdays. Notably, the rules create an exception that allows employers to seek documentation earlier if there is a pattern or clear instance of suspected misuse.
• Designating & Changing a Year: The statute defines a “year” as a regular and consecutive 12-month period determined by an employer that is clearly communicated to each employee. Under the rules, if an employer does not designate and communicate its year, the year will be a calendar year.
• When Accrual Is Calculated, How Leave Accrues & Advances on Accrual: All similar US sick leave laws talk about the rate of accrual, but few discuss when the accrual calculation must occur. Minnesota’s rules address this issue and require that leave accrued based on hours worked during a pay period must be credited (considered “accrued”) no later than the payday for that pay period. Additionally, the rules clarify that leave accrues in whole-hour units rather than fractionally.
• Using Leave During Indeterminate-Length Shifts: Some employees work shifts without defined start and stop times. If an employee is scheduled, but needs to use leave, for such a shift, the rules give employers three different options for how to determine how many leave hours the employee will use: 1) hours worked by a replacement worker; 2) hours worked by the employee in the most recent similar shift; or 3) the most hours a similarly situated employee was scheduled to work for such a shift.

Think of these regulations less as a rewrite of the rulebook and more as the state finally adding the missing instruction manual. Minnesota employers should take the opportunity to review their leave policies, attendance programs, and administrative practices to ensure they align with the latest guidance.

Premium Rate Unchanged for 2027

In a bit of rare compliance news that doesn’t require employers to recalibrate their budgets, Minnesota announced that the state Paid Leave premium rate will remain unchanged at 0.88% of covered wages for 2027.

The decision follows the program’s first year of operation, during which more than 75,000 Minnesotans utilized Paid Leave benefits. According to the state, premium collections have generally kept pace with benefit payments, and actuarial projections indicate the program remains financially sustainable at the current rate.

For employers participating in the Minnesota state plan, the announcement provides some welcome predictability heading into 2027. Employers may continue to share premium costs with employees, with employee contributions capped at 0.44% of covered wages, while certain smaller employers may qualify for reduced employer contribution requirements.

While leave programs across the country continue to evolve through legislative and regulatory changes, Minnesota’s decision to maintain the current premium rate offers state plan employers a relatively stable outlook for the coming year. In the world of leave compliance, we’ll take a little certainty whenever we can get it.

Civil Air Patrol Leave

South Carolina employees that are part of the Civil Air Patrol are going to be soaring with glee after reading the news we have for them.  They may also feel like they’re flying over the moon with elation or on cloud nine with excitement.

I know I’d be on top of the world if I were them. Jeez, my spirits are flying high just thinking about the new leave benefits they are entitled to.

Effective 10/1/2026, employers must provide South Carolina employees with leave for qualifying Civil Air Patrol activities. If you didn’t already know, the Civil Air Patrol is a civilian branch of the U.S. Air Force.

At the beginning of each calendar year, employers must offer a fresh bank of leave that a qualifying employee can use for Civil Air Patrol purposes. Eligible employees are entitled to:

• 30 days of leave annually to respond to Civil Air Patrol emergency operations,
• 10 days of leave annually to participate in Civil Air Patrol training and proficiency activities

Employers may allow employees to use up to 5 days from one Civil Air Patrol leave reason to supplement the other leave reason. For example, an employer can permit an employee to use 5 days of their training activity leave for emergency operations if they have exhausted the 30 days of that leave reason’s entitlement. Unused leave does not carry over to the next year.

Qualifying emergency operations for leave can occur in the state of South Carolina or in other states and units outside the employee’s typical command pending approval from the employee’s commander and employer.

The law permits employers to deny Civil Air Patrol leave requests from eligible employees if the employers deem them as essential personnel. Additionally, employers are not required to provide Civil Air Patrol leave if the employee is also responding to the same or a concurrent emergency operation as a first responder or other emergency services personnel.

Employers have the option to provide paid or unpaid Civil Air Patrol leave. In the scenario where an employer provides paid Civil Air Patrol leave, they are not required to pay out any unused leave benefits upon separation from employment.

Employees have notice obligations to their employer regarding their Civil Air Patrol status. Within 30 days of hire, employees must notify their employer of Civil Air Patrol membership. Employees must provide their employer notice of their Civil Air Patrol active status within 30 days of October 1, 2026, if they are a member as of that date.

When using Civil Air Patrol Leave for emergency operations, employees are required to provide:

• Notice that their emergency service participation has ended within 8 hours after it has ceased or at the start of their next workday, whichever is later.
• Period updates on their anticipated absence length and return-to-work date

In the instance an employee takes training-related leave, employers can require:

• A minimum of two weeks’ notice before the absence occurs
• The expected return-to-work date
• Documentation proving their training has been approved by the employee’s higher authority
• Evidence of participation from the training provider

In the instance an employee takes emergency operation-related leave, employers can require:

• As much advanced notice as practicable prior to the absence
• Documentation proving their training has been approved by the employee’s higher authority including the employee’s commander
• Evidence of participation from the organization

Employees cannot be required to use or exhaust other leave types such as employer PTO prior to accessing Civil Air Patrol leave. All employment-related benefits and rights must be maintained while an employee is on leave. The employee must be reinstated to their former or an equivalent position that has the same pay, status, and benefits. Employers are prohibited from taking adverse action against employees for using Civil Air Patrol leave.

Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave Premium Rate Increasing Jan. 1, 2027

Washington’s Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) premium rate will increase effective Jan. 1, 2027. The new total premium rate will be 1.2% of each employee’s gross wages, up from 1.13% in 2026. The statutory maximum WA PFML premium rate is 1.2% of covered wages, meaning it has reached the current statutory cap.

For 2027, the premium will be divided as follows:

• Employees: 70.7% of the total premium
• Employers: 29.3% of the total premium

Employers classified by the Washington Employment Security Department as having fewer than 50 employees for the 2027 calendar year are not required to pay the employer portion. They must, however, continue to collect the employee portion or pay it on employees’ behalf.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, employers should:

• Update payroll systems to apply the 1.2% premium rate to wages paid on or after Jan. 1.
• Withhold premiums from employees’ gross wages, excluding tips, up to the Social Security wage cap. The 2027 Social Security wage cap is $192,300.

Employers should ensure payroll updates are completed timely, as premiums cannot be retroactively withheld from employees.

The state will continue updating employer guides, the 2027 mandatory workplace poster and paystub insert through the end of the year. Employers can monitor updates through Washington Paid Leave employer updates.

Washington Healthy Starts Act – Lactation Accommodation

Effective January 1, 2027, amendments made to the Washington Healthy Starts will require lactation/pumping breaks to be paid. Employers should be aware of the following rule changes:

• Lactation/pumping break time must be paid. Employees must be paid their regular compensation rate for reasonable break time used to express breast milk.
• Required travel time must also be paid. If an employee must travel to an employer-designated location to express milk, that travel time must be compensated.
• Employees cannot be required to use PTO or other paid leave for lactation break time.
• Lactation breaks are in addition to meal and rest periods and should not be treated as or substituted for required meal or rest breaks.
• The law also expands coverage to all Washington employers, rather than applying only to employers meeting the prior employee-count threshold.
• The lactation accommodation generally applies for two years following the child’s birth.

Employers with Washington employees should review and update their policies, timekeeping practices, and manager guidance before January 1, 2027. In particular, employers should ensure that employees are not being instructed to clock out, use PTO, or otherwise treat required lactation breaks as unpaid time.

Washington PFML Adopts Employer-Focused Administrative Changes

The Washington Employment Security Department (ESD) has adopted several amendments to Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) regulations that primarily affect employer premium reporting, penalty administration, payment plans, and job restoration requirements. The changes took effect October 2, 2026.

• New Penalty Waiver Process for Employers: ESD created a new rule establishing a formal process for employers to request waiver of PFML penalties. This provides employers with a clearer path for seeking relief when penalties are assessed.
• Payment Plans Available for Delinquent Premiums: Employers may now request payment plans for outstanding PFML premiums. ESD emphasized that employers generally will not need to demonstrate “good cause” to be considered for a payment plan.
• Additional Opportunity to Avoid Reporting Penalties: ESD amended its reporting rules to add an extra step before a warning letter is issued for late employer reports. The agency stated the change is intended to give employers acting in good faith additional opportunities to correct reporting issues before the formal penalty process begins.
• Interest on Late Premiums Reduced: Delinquent PFML premiums will now accrue simple instead of compound interest, potentially lowering employers’ late-payment costs.

Clarification to Job Restoration Eligibility: ESD clarified a key provision stemming from HB 1213. While the law reduced the PFML job restoration service requirement from one year to 180 days, the amended rule specifies that those 180 days must be completed following the employee’s most recent hire date. Prior periods of employment cannot be counted toward the requirement. This clarification may be particularly important for employers with rehired employees.