Paid Sick Leave in California: Your Rights and Your Employer’s Obligations
California requires employers to provide paid sick leave to most employees, subject to narrow statutory exceptions. The right is broader than most employees realize — it covers more than your own illness, it accrues from the first day of work, and your employer may not penalize you for using it.
California’s Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act, codified at Labor Code sections 245 through 249, guarantees paid sick leave to virtually every employee in the state. The law generally covers full-time, part-time, and temporary employees, regardless of employer size, with narrow statutory exceptions. It is not optional, it is not discretionary, and it cannot be waived.
Despite its broad coverage, the right is routinely violated — not always by employers who refuse to provide sick leave, but by employers who penalize employees for using it, who apply attendance policies that discourage its use, or who fail to understand the breadth of the purposes for which sick leave can be taken.
The basics
Most employees who work in California for the same employer for thirty or more days within a year are entitled to paid sick leave. Under the ordinary accrual method, leave accrues at least one hour for every thirty hours worked; compliant alternative accrual schedules are also permitted. Employers must allow use of at least forty hours or five days, whichever is greater, of available paid sick leave per year. The increased minimum took effect January 1, 2024; for an employee working ten-hour days, five days means fifty hours.
Accrual begins on the first day of employment. The employee may begin using accrued sick leave on the ninetieth day of employment. Alternatively, the employer may satisfy the requirement by frontloading the full amount of sick leave at the beginning of the year rather than using an accrual method.
Sick leave is paid at the employee’s regular rate of pay for the hours they would have worked during the period of absence.
What sick leave covers
Paid sick leave is not limited to the employee’s own illness. The statute permits its use for a wide range of purposes.
The employee’s own health. Diagnosis, care, or treatment of an existing health condition, or preventive care for the employee. This includes doctor’s appointments, dental visits, therapy sessions, and any medical appointment.
A family member’s health. Diagnosis, care, or treatment of a health condition, or preventive care, for a family member. “Family member” is defined broadly under the statute to include the employee’s spouse or registered domestic partner, child (including adult children), parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, grandchild, and sibling. It also includes a designated person identified by the employee when requesting leave; an employer may limit this to one designated person in a twelve-month period.
Qualifying acts of violence and court proceedings. Paid sick leave may be used for covered purposes under Government Code section 12945.8. These include specified court-related absences and relief to protect a victim or their child. At employers with twenty-five or more employees, broader purposes include medical and mental-health care, victim services, safety planning, relocation, legal proceedings, and care connected with a qualifying act of violence affecting the employee or a family member. The statute also protects specified crime victims and family members attending covered judicial proceedings beginning January 1, 2026.
The breadth of covered purposes means that an employee who takes a sick day to accompany a parent to a medical appointment, to stay home with a sick child, or to attend a therapy session for their own mental health is using the leave exactly as the statute intends. An employer that questions or discourages these uses is violating the law.
What employers cannot do
The anti-retaliation provisions of the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act are critical — and frequently violated.
No retaliation for using sick leave. Labor Code section 246.5 prohibits an employer from denying an employee the right to use accrued sick leave, from discharging or threatening to discharge the employee for using or requesting sick leave, and from retaliating against the employee in any manner for using or requesting sick leave.
No attendance-based discipline for protected absences. An employer that maintains a no-fault attendance policy — one that assigns “points” or “occurrences” for any absence, regardless of reason — violates the statute when it applies points for absences covered by paid sick leave. An employee who calls in sick, uses accrued paid sick leave, and receives an attendance point has been penalized for exercising a statutory right.
This is one of the most common violations in practice. Many employers have automated attendance tracking systems that do not distinguish between protected sick leave and unexcused absences. The system applies the same point to both. After enough points, the employee is disciplined or terminated. The employer treats the policy as neutral, but a neutral policy that penalizes the use of a statutory right is not neutral — it is retaliatory.
Medical certification is generally not a condition of paid sick leave. An employer may not deny accrued paid sick leave solely because the employee has not supplied a doctor’s note. The rule is not limited to absences of three days or fewer. The Labor Commissioner recognizes that a documentation request may be reasonable when the employer has information indicating that leave is being requested for an invalid purpose; the particular facts matter.
The relationship with other leave laws
Paid sick leave is distinct from — and in addition to — other California leave entitlements.
CFRA leave provides up to twelve weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for a serious health condition or to care for a family member. Paid sick leave may be used concurrently with CFRA leave to receive pay during an otherwise unpaid absence, but the two are separate entitlements with different eligibility requirements and different scopes.
Pregnancy disability leave is a separate entitlement that provides up to four months of leave for pregnancy-related disability. Paid sick leave may supplement PDL to the extent the employee has accrued leave available.
Workers’ compensation provides benefits for workplace injuries. Paid sick leave is not a substitute for workers’ compensation, but an employee may use accrued sick leave to cover the waiting period before workers’ compensation benefits begin, or to supplement benefits if the employee’s temporary disability payments are less than full pay.
The key point is that paid sick leave is a baseline — a floor, not a ceiling. It exists alongside other leave protections and does not reduce or replace them.
Local ordinances
Several California cities — including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and others — have enacted paid sick leave ordinances that provide greater benefits than the state law. These local ordinances may require faster accrual, higher caps, broader definitions of family, or additional covered purposes. An employee in a city with a local ordinance is entitled to the more protective standard.
An employer must generally comply with both state and local requirements and provide the more protective benefit. State law controls where a local ordinance contradicts its specified rules on lending sick leave, wage-statement information, calculating and paying sick leave, foreseeable-leave notice, or payout at separation.
If your employer has penalized you for using sick leave — through attendance points, discipline, termination, or any other adverse action — the penalty is unlawful. California law guarantees paid sick leave, protects your right to use it, and prohibits retaliation for doing so. The protection applies from your first day of employment.
This article is general information about California law and is not legal advice. Every situation turns on its particular facts.