Paid Sick Leave Requirements in New Jersey

At a glance

Requirements one by one

One statewide rule covers employers of every size

N.J.S.A. § 34:11D-2 requires each employer to provide earned sick leave to each employee working in New Jersey. NJDOL describes the practical coverage as nearly universal: full-time, part-time, seasonal, temporary, salaried, hourly, cash-paid, and piece-rate employees all qualify without an employer-size floor.

The main exclusions are union construction employees, qualifying per-diem health-care employees, and public employees who already receive full-pay sick leave under another state law or rule. Independent contractors are not employees. A temporary-help employee accrues across assignments with the staffing firm rather than restarting a separate bank for each client.

Section 34:11D-8 makes the statewide rule exclusive at the local level. A county or municipality cannot adopt or maintain its own earned-sick-leave rule, but an employer policy or collective bargaining agreement may remain more generous than the statute.

Accrual, annual use, and carryover each stop at 40 hours

Employees accrue one hour for every 30 hours worked. The employer may cap the amount accrued, used, and carried into the next benefit year at 40 hours. Carrying 40 hours into a new year does not force the employer to allow more than 40 hours of use during that year.

Accrual starts when employment starts. The employer may delay use until the 120th calendar day of employment, after which leave may be used as it accrues. An employer can instead make the full 40 hours available at the beginning of the benefit year. A midyear advance may be prorated, but the employee must still receive at least the statutory one-per-30 result.

Year-end treatment depends on the method. Under accrual, the employer may offer full or 50% payment, and unpaid hours carry over. With a full advance, the employer must carry unused hours or pay them all in the final month; a full payout is allowed only if the employer advances the full bank again next year.

Sick, safe, public-health, and child-school needs qualify

Section 34:11D-3 covers the employee's or a family member's diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and preventive care. It also covers medical, counseling, victim-service, relocation, safety, and legal needs arising from domestic or sexual violence.

Public-health uses include specified workplace or child-care closures, isolation or quarantine, exposure findings, and determinations that the employee's or family member's presence would jeopardize community health. An employee may also attend a requested or required child-school conference, meeting, function, or a meeting concerning the child's health condition or disability.

Family is broader than a household or tax-dependent test. It reaches the listed children, parents, partners, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, specified in-laws and partners' relatives, any blood relative, and a person whose close association is equivalent to family.

Proof is limited, but a full-shift increment is possible

For foreseeable leave, an employer may require no more than seven calendar days' notice and reasonable scheduling that avoids undue disruption. For an unforeseeable need, notice may be required as soon as practicable only if the employer told the employee about that requirement.

Ordinarily, documentation may be required only after three or more consecutive days. The statute identifies acceptable health-care, domestic- or sexual-violence, and public-health records. It also permits an employer to name specific dates when foreseeable leave may be prohibited and to ask for reasonable proof if an unforeseeable absence occurs on one of those dates. Health and safety information must remain confidential.

The employer cannot require a replacement worker. It may choose the use increment, however, and New Jersey permits the required increment to be as large as the employee's entire scheduled shift.

Pay, reinstatement, and records follow separate rules

Earned sick leave is paid at the same rate and with the same benefits the employee normally earns, never below minimum wage. NJDOL directs employers to average nonstandard earnings, excluding overtime, over the employee's last seven days worked. Commission employees receive the hourly base wage or minimum wage, whichever is greater. Payment is due in the same pay period.

The statute does not require payout at separation unless a policy or CBA does. It does require restoring unused leave if the employee returns within six months. Leave also follows an employee transferred within the same employer and employees retained by a successor employer.

Employers must keep five years of records. NJDOL identifies hours worked, accrued or advanced leave, use, payout, and carryover as required fields. Inadequate records create a presumption that the employer failed to provide the required leave unless it proves otherwise by clear and convincing evidence.

What trips people up

Forty hours is not three different banks. The statute lets the employer cap accrual, use, and carryover at 40 hours. Carryover preserves unused time; it does not create an additional 40 hours of use in the next year.

A general PTO policy must follow every sick-leave condition. Matching the 40-hour headline is not enough. The policy must preserve the covered reasons, notice and proof limits, pay, carryover, confidentiality, and protection rules.

Local ordinances no longer layer on top. New Jersey expressly preempts county and municipal earned-sick-leave rules. More favorable employer policies and CBAs are different: the statute preserves them.

The pending CBA bills take different approaches. A3827 would create a broad, retroactive CBA compliance alternative. S2767 is limited to unionized ready-mix concrete workers, while S3054 would expand the construction-union exclusion. None is current law.

Common questions

Can a New Jersey employer make me wait before using sick leave?

Yes. Accrual begins with employment, but the employer may delay use until the 120th calendar day. It may allow earlier use.

Does unused earned sick leave have to be paid when employment ends?

No, unless the employer's policy or a collective bargaining agreement requires payment. A different year-end payout and carryover process applies while employment continues.

Can an employer require a doctor's note for one sick day?

Ordinarily no. Documentation is generally limited to three or more consecutive days, although reasonable proof may be requested for an unforeseeable absence on a properly designated no-use date.

Can a city require more than the state law?

No. N.J.S.A. § 34:11D-8 preempts county and municipal earned-sick-leave rules.

Statutes and sources

• N.J.S.A. §§ 34:11D-1 to -11. Coverage, accrual, caps, frontloading, uses, notice, documentation, pay, carryover, reinstatement, records, posting, retaliation, remedies, and local preemption. Official P.L.2018, c.10 (accessed July 22, 2026).
• N.J.S.A. § 34:11D-3(a)(4). Current public-health-emergency, isolation, quarantine, and exposure uses. Official P.L.2020, c.17 (accessed July 22, 2026).
• N.J.S.A. §§ 34:11-56a25 to -25.1. Current civil remedies and six-year limitations period imported through the Earned Sick Leave Law. Official P.L.2019, c.212 (accessed July 22, 2026).
• NJDOL Earned Sick Leave guidance. Current coverage, accrual, pay, payment timing, record fields, notice, and enforcement guidance. New Jersey Department of Labor (accessed July 22, 2026).