Iowa: Paid Sick Leave Requirements
The short answer
No. Iowa does not require ordinary private employers to provide general paid sick leave or earned paid leave, and Iowa Code §§ 364.3(12) and 331.304(12) bar cities and counties from imposing employment-leave terms that exceed or conflict with federal or state law. An employer's policy, contract, or collective bargaining agreement therefore controls the benefit; sick-leave payments that become due under that policy or agreement count as wages under Iowa's Wage Payment Collection Law.
Ask Ezel about your situation
This is the general rule in Iowa. Ezel applies current Iowa law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and local interaction | No statewide general private-sector paid sick leave or earned paid leave mandate in current Iowa Code ch. 91A. Local mandates are preempted: cities and counties may not impose employment-leave terms exceeding or conflicting with federal or state requirements (§§ 364.3(12), 331.304(12)). |
|---|---|
| Employer and employee coverage | No general mandate, so there is no paid-sick-leave employer-size threshold, hours-worked test, or covered-employee class. Any voluntary benefit is governed by employer policy, contract, or CBA; state employees, public-school employees, and other specialized classes have separate statutes outside this survey. |
| Accrual and annual entitlement | N/A No statutory private-sector paid-sick-leave accrual rate, annual entitlement, or use waiting period; any accrual and amount are set by the employer's policy or agreement. |
| Frontloading, caps, and carryover | N/A No statutory frontloading option, annual use cap, bank cap, or carryover rule for general private-sector sick leave; the employer's policy or agreement supplies those terms. |
| Qualifying uses and family | N/A No statewide general paid-sick-leave list of employee-health, family-care, safety, closure, bereavement, or other qualifying uses, and no family definition for such a benefit; the governing policy or agreement controls. |
| Requests, notice, documentation, and increments | N/A No general paid-sick-leave request method, notice standard, documentation limit, replacement-worker rule, confidentiality rule, or minimum increment; policy or agreement controls, subject to separately applicable law. |
| Pay, payout, reinstatement, and records | No statutory sick-leave pay rate, accrual record, balance statement, payout formula, or rehire-restoration rule. Sick-leave payments due under an employer agreement or policy are wages; amounts due and earned at separation are payable by the next regular payday (§§ 91A.2(7)(b), 91A.4). The policy decides whether unused sick time is due. |
| Posting, retaliation, enforcement, and remedies | No sick-leave-specific poster, notice, retaliation rule, or remedy scheme. For sick-leave payments actually due as wages, ch. 91A allows unpaid wages, costs and attorney fees, plus liquidated damages for intentional nonpayment; § 91A.10 protects a wage claimant from discharge or discrimination. These remedies enforce a policy-created payment, not a statewide leave entitlement. |
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What Iowa actually requires
Iowa does not require an ordinary private employer to create a general bank of
paid sick leave or earned paid leave. Current Chapter 91A addresses wage
payment, policy-created benefits, a narrow Veterans Day provision, adoptive
parent treatment, and enforcement, but it contains no general private-sector
paid-sick-leave accrual or use mandate.
The practical starting point is the employer's handbook, employment agreement,
or collective bargaining agreement. That document determines whether sick time
exists, who receives it, how it accrues, when it may be used, whether unused
hours carry over, what notice or proof is required, and whether a balance is
payable when employment ends.
Iowa's wage law gives those policy terms legal significance without creating the
benefit. Section 91A.2(7)(b) treats sick-leave payments as wages only when they
are due under an agreement or employer policy. If a policy makes a sick-leave
payment due and earned at separation, § 91A.4 requires it by the next regular
payday.
What trips people up
Cities and counties cannot fill the gap. Sections 364.3(12) and 331.304(12)
bar local employment terms that exceed or conflict with federal or state law and
expressly include “any form of employment leave.” Pre-2017 local measures that
violate those subsections are void and unenforceable.
A wage definition is not a leave mandate. Section 91A.2 includes sick-leave
payments only when they are already due under an agreement or policy. It does
not require an employer to create sick time, set an accrual rate, or promise a
cash-out.
Wage remedies begin only after a payment is due. Under § 91A.8, a claim may
include unpaid wages, costs and attorney fees, with liquidated damages for
intentional nonpayment. Under § 91A.10(5), the law separately protects an employee who
files or helps with a wage claim. Neither provision creates sick leave that the
policy did not promise.
Common questions
Must an Iowa employer provide five paid sick days?
No. Iowa sets no general private-sector paid-sick-leave minimum. Any fixed number
of days comes from the employer's policy, contract, or collective bargaining
agreement.
Can Des Moines or an Iowa county require paid sick leave?
Cities and counties may not impose an employment-leave term that exceeds or
conflicts with federal or state requirements. The Iowa Code states that rule in
§ 364.3(12) for cities and § 331.304(12) for counties.
Do unused sick days carry over?
State law sets no general sick-leave carryover rule. The employer's policy or
agreement decides whether unused time carries forward, expires, or is capped.
Must unused sick leave be paid when employment ends?
Only if the employer's agreement or policy makes the payment due. A due
sick-leave payment counts as wages under § 91A.2(7)(b); the statute does not make
every unused balance payable.
Statutes and sources
- Iowa Code ch. 91A. Current Wage Payment Collection Law, which addresses
policy-created sick-leave payments as wages but contains no general paid-sick-
leave mandate. Official 2026 chapter
PDF (accessed July 23, 2026). - Iowa Code §§ 91A.2(7)(b), 91A.4, 91A.8 and 91A.10. Policy- or
agreement-based sick payments as wages, separation timing, wage damages, and
wage-claim retaliation protection. Official § 91A.2
PDF and official chapter
text (accessed July 23, 2026). - Iowa Code § 364.3(12). Preempts city employment-leave terms exceeding or
conflicting with federal or state law. Official
text (accessed July 23, 2026). - Iowa Code § 331.304(12). Applies the same employment-leave restriction to
counties. Official text
(accessed July 23, 2026).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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