Wisconsin: Paid Sick Leave Requirements
The short answer
Wisconsin has no statewide law requiring a private employer to provide paid sick leave or a general earned paid leave bank; the Department of Workforce Development says employers are not required to grant sick leave with or without pay. Wisconsin's separate family and medical leave law expressly creates no wage entitlement and only lets an employee substitute leave the employer already provides. Section 103.10 also bars city, village, town, and county ordinances requiring private employers to provide paid or unpaid leave for health, family-care, safety, or other family and medical reasons.
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This is the general rule in Wisconsin. Ezel applies current Wisconsin law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and local interaction | No statewide private-employer paid-sick or general earned-paid-leave mandate; DWD states Wisconsin law does not require sick leave with or without pay. Wis. Stat. § 103.10(1m) bars city/village/town/county private-employer paid or unpaid leave ordinances for health, preventive care, family care, domestic/sexual abuse or stalking needs, and other family/medical/health issues; local-government employee ordinances are excepted, and covered ordinances in force May 20, 2011 are void. |
|---|---|
| Employer and employee coverage | Not applicable — no paid-sick-leave employer-size threshold, work test, or covered/excluded class. The separate Wisconsin FMLA generally covers 50+ permanent-employee employers and employees with >52 consecutive weeks and ≥1,000 hours, but it creates unpaid protected leave rather than a paid sick bank (§ 103.10(1)(c), (2)(c), (5)). |
| Accrual and annual entitlement | Not applicable — no statutory paid-sick-leave accrual rate, annual entitlement, waiting period, or alternative accrual method. Any paid sick/PTO accrual is supplied by employer policy or agreement. |
| Frontloading, caps, and carryover | Not applicable — no statutory paid-sick-leave frontloading rule, use cap, bank cap, carryover requirement, or PTO-substitute standard. Employer policy or agreement supplies any such terms. |
| Qualifying uses and family | Not applicable — no statewide paid-sick-leave qualifying-use list or covered-family definition. Section 103.10(1m) instead preempts local private-employer leave mandates across health, preventive-care, family-care, safety, and other family/medical reasons. |
| Requests, notice, documentation, and increments | Not applicable — no paid-sick-leave request form, notice standard, replacement-worker rule, documentation limit, confidentiality rule, or minimum increment. Any voluntary benefit uses its policy or agreement; separate Wisconsin FMLA procedures govern only qualifying protected family/medical leave. |
| Pay, payout, reinstatement, and records | No statutory paid-sick-leave rate, payout, rehire restoration, balance statement, or paid-leave record duty. DWD says Wisconsin employers need not provide sick-pay fringe benefits; once an employer creates a benefit policy, its written terms and conditions govern, including unused-benefit payout. |
| Posting, retaliation, enforcement, and remedies | No paid-sick-leave poster, individual notice, anti-retaliation provision, agency complaint, private action, or paid-leave-specific remedy. Rights tied to an established employer policy or a separate leave/wage law must be analyzed under that policy or law. |
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How paid sick leave works in Wisconsin
Wisconsin does not require an ordinary private employer to create a paid sick
leave or general earned paid leave bank. The Department of Workforce
Development states that employers are not required to grant sick leave “whether
with pay or without.” If an employer voluntarily creates sick leave or PTO, the
written policy or agreement supplies the accrual, use, carryover, proof, and
separation terms.
Wisconsin's family and medical leave law is separate. Section 103.10(5) says it
does not entitle an employee to wages or salary during family or medical leave.
It permits an employee to substitute paid or unpaid leave of another type only
when the employer already provides that leave. The FMLA therefore does not
create the paid bank surveyed on this page.
Section 103.10(1m) also blocks a city, village, town, or county from requiring a
private employer to provide paid or unpaid leave for the employee's health or
preventive care, family care, domestic-abuse, sexual-abuse or stalking needs, or
other family, medical, or health issues. The exception preserves ordinances
affecting the local government's own employees. Covered local ordinances that
were in effect on May 20, 2011 are void.
What trips people up
Protected leave is not necessarily paid leave. Wisconsin FMLA can protect a
qualifying absence, but § 103.10(5) expressly says the statute creates no wage
or salary entitlement. Substitution uses a benefit the employer already offers.
A voluntary benefit lives in its written terms. DWD says an employer need
not offer sick pay and may impose conditions when it creates a benefit policy.
Check the policy for accrual, carryover, proof, use increments, and separation
treatment.
Local preemption is broad but has a public-workforce exception. The statute
preempts private-employer local mandates across health, family-care, safety, and
other family/medical reasons. It does not affect an ordinance governing a city,
village, town, or county's own employees.
Other laws can still protect an absence. The lack of a paid-sick-leave bank
does not decide rights under Wisconsin or federal family and medical leave,
disability, pregnancy, workers' compensation, or an employment agreement.
Common questions
Must a Wisconsin private employer provide paid sick days?
No. Wisconsin law does not require a general paid sick leave or earned paid
leave bank.
Does Wisconsin FMLA make family or medical leave paid?
No. Section 103.10(5) says the law does not entitle the employee to wages or
salary. It allows substitution only of paid or unpaid leave the employer already
provides.
Who sets accrual, carryover, and proof rules for voluntary sick leave?
The employer's written policy or agreement does. Wisconsin has no statutory
paid-sick-leave accrual, carryover, or documentation floor.
Can a Wisconsin city require private employers to provide sick leave?
No for the broad health, family-care, safety, and other family or medical
reasons listed in § 103.10(1m). The statute preserves local rules for the local
government's own employees.
Statutes and sources
- Wis. Stat. § 103.10. States that Wisconsin FMLA does not create a wage or
salary entitlement, permits substitution of leave already provided by the
employer, and preempts specified local private-employer leave mandates.
Wisconsin
Legislature
(accessed July 22, 2026). - Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, Wisconsin Civil Rights and
Labor Standards Laws. States that Wisconsin does not require sick leave
with or without pay and summarizes separate protected-leave laws. Wisconsin
DWD (accessed July 22, 2026). - Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, Wage Payment and Collection
Law. States that sick-pay fringe benefits are not required and that a
voluntarily created benefit uses the employer's policy terms. Wisconsin
DWD (accessed July 22,
2026).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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