Understanding your rights and benefits when it comes to taking time off work for significant life events is crucial. In Washington State, the Paid Family and Medical Leave program offers vital support to employees. This guide breaks down everything you need to know about Washington Paid Family Leave, ensuring you’re well-informed about your eligibility, the types of leave available, and how to access these important benefits.
Types of Paid Leave in Washington State
The Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave program is designed to support employees through two primary types of leave: Medical Leave and Family Leave. Each type caters to different life situations, ensuring comprehensive coverage for workers in Washington.
Medical Leave Explained
Medical leave is available when you are facing situations concerning your own health. Specifically, you can utilize medical leave for:
- Your Serious Health Condition: If you have a serious health condition that prevents you from performing your job duties, you are eligible for medical leave.
- Prenatal and Postnatal Care: This includes leave for prenatal check-ups, postnatal care, and any complications arising from pregnancy or childbirth. Notably, any leave taken by a birthing parent during the postnatal period is automatically designated as medical leave unless specified otherwise.
Family Leave Scenarios
Family leave is designed to support you when you need to care for family or bond with new family members. You can take family leave for:
- Caring for a Family Member with a Serious Health Condition: If a family member is suffering from a serious health condition, you can take family leave to provide them with the necessary care and support.
- Bonding with a New Child: This leave is for bonding with a new baby after birth, or a child newly placed in your family through adoption or foster care.
- Military Exigency: You can spend time with a family member who is either preparing for deployment overseas or returning from overseas deployment, addressing the unique challenges and needs associated with military service.
Qualifying Events for Washington Paid Leave
It’s important to understand that not every illness or situation qualifies for Paid Family and Medical Leave. The program is structured around “qualifying events” that trigger eligibility for leave.
Paid family leave is specifically for events such as:
- The birth of a child
- Adoption or placement of a child
- Caring for a family member with a serious health condition
- Addressing a qualifying military exigency
Paid medical leave is exclusively for situations where you are experiencing your own serious health condition.
Understanding a “Serious Health Condition”
The definition of a “serious health condition” is legally defined and is central to eligibility for both medical and family leave when caring for a family member. Generally, a serious health condition encompasses an illness, injury, impairment, or physical or mental condition that involves:
-
Inpatient Care: This includes situations requiring an overnight stay in a hospital, hospice, or residential medical care facility, along with any period of incapacity related to this care.
-
Continuing Treatment by a Healthcare Provider: This broad category includes several specific scenarios:
- Incapacity of More Than Three Consecutive Days: This involves being unable to work, attend school, or perform regular daily activities for more than three days due to a serious health condition, including recovery or subsequent treatment.
- Pregnancy-Related Incapacity: Any period during which a person is unable to work due to pregnancy or for prenatal care appointments.
- Chronic Conditions: Conditions that:
- Continue over an extended period and may involve recurring episodes.
- Require periodic visits to a health care provider for treatment.
- Cause episodic incapacity rather than continuous incapacity. Examples include asthma, diabetes, and epilepsy.
- Permanent or Long-Term Incapacity: Conditions that are permanent or long-term and may not have effective treatment. This requires ongoing supervision by a health care provider, even if active treatment isn’t continuous, such as Alzheimer’s, severe stroke, or terminal stages of a disease.
- Multiple Treatments: Situations requiring multiple treatments (and recovery periods) such as chemotherapy, dialysis, or physical therapy for conditions like arthritis.
- Restorative Surgery: Surgery after an accident or injury, restorative dental or plastic surgery after injury or cancer treatment, and cosmetic surgery if it requires inpatient hospital care or leads to complications.
It’s also important to note that substance abuse can be considered a serious health condition if the treatment aligns with the requirements defined above.
Eligibility: Working Hours Requirement
To be eligible for Washington Paid Leave, you must have worked at least 820 hours during your qualifying period.
-
Types of Work that Count: Full-time, part-time, temporary, and seasonal work all contribute to your hours. You do not need to be currently employed when you apply for Paid Leave.
-
Qualifying Period: This is a 12-month period that the Employment Security Department (ESD) looks at to determine your eligibility. Qualifying periods start on the first day of a calendar quarter, typically about 15 months before your leave application date or leave start date (whichever is earlier).
-
Calendar Quarters: For clarity, the calendar quarters are:
- Quarter 1: January, February, March
- Quarter 2: April, May, June
- Quarter 3: July, August, September
- Quarter 4: October, November, December
Job Protection While on Paid Leave
Job protection is a significant aspect of taking leave. In Washington, your job may be protected under Paid Family and Medical Leave if:
- You work for a company with more than 50 employees in Washington.
- You have been employed for at least a year.
- You have worked at least 1,250 hours in the year prior to taking leave.
However, job restoration can be denied in certain circumstances:
- If you are among the highest-paid 10% of salaried employees within 75 miles of the work facility.
- If your employer can demonstrate that your position would no longer exist upon your return from leave for legitimate business reasons unrelated to your leave.
If you do not qualify for job protection under Paid Family and Medical Leave, it’s worth checking if other local, state, or federal laws might offer job protection or reinstatement in your situation. Regardless of job protection, you are still required to comply with your employer’s leave notification policies.
Workers Not Automatically Eligible
Certain categories of workers are not automatically eligible for Washington Paid Leave. These include:
- Federal employees
- Employees of tribally-owned businesses on tribal land
- Self-employed individuals who have not opted into the state program
- Workers covered by an employer-approved voluntary plan that provides equivalent benefits to the state program.
Paid Family and Medical Leave vs. Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
It’s important to distinguish between Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave and the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). You can use both types of leave, and using FMLA does not reduce your Washington Paid Leave benefits. In many cases, Paid Leave and FMLA will run concurrently, as many situations qualify under both.
Here’s a comparison:
Washington Paid Leave:
- Program Type: State program specifically for Washington workers.
- Leave Type: Offers paid leave.
- Employer Size Applicability: Available to workers in businesses of all sizes.
- Family Definition: Broad definition of “family,” including siblings, grandparents, and anyone with an expectation to rely on you for care, regardless of living situation.
Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA):
- Program Type: Federal program applicable throughout the U.S.
- Leave Type: Offers unpaid leave.
- Employer Size Applicability: Only available to workers in businesses with 50 or more employees.
- Family Definition: Narrower definition of “family.”
Application Process and Leave Duration
How Much Leave Time Can You Take?
Within a single claim year, you are entitled to:
-
Up to 12 weeks of medical leave OR family leave. This means you can take up to 12 weeks for your own serious health condition, or up to 12 weeks to care for a family member, bond with a new child, or for military exigency.
-
Up to 16 weeks of combined medical and family leave if you experience more than one qualifying event within the same claim year. For example, you might take medical leave for pregnancy and childbirth recovery, followed by family leave to bond with your newborn.
-
Up to 18 weeks of combined medical and family leave are possible if you experience pregnancy-related complications that result in incapacity, such as needing bed rest or undergoing a C-section. In these cases, your healthcare provider will need to complete the necessary sections of the Certification form for pregnancy and birth.
Using Your Paid Leave Flexibly
Washington Paid Leave offers flexibility in how you take your leave:
- Intermittent or Continuous Leave: You don’t have to take your leave all at once. You can take leave in increments, but you must claim at least eight consecutive hours of leave each week if taking leave intermittently, or claim zero hours for weeks you don’t need leave. For example, you could take one day off per week for several weeks to care for a family member undergoing treatment, or take several full weeks off for surgery recovery.
Understanding Your Pay During Leave
To estimate your potential weekly pay benefit, you can use the Washington State Paid Leave calculator:
Estimate My Pay
Your weekly benefit amount is calculated based on wages reported by your employers. While on Paid Leave, you can receive up to 90% of your regular weekly pay, subject to a maximum weekly benefit amount that is updated annually.
Maximum Weekly Benefit Amounts (for reference):
- 2025 = $1,542 / week
- 2024 = $1,456 / week
- 2023 = $1,427 / week
- 2022 = $1,327 / week
- 2021 = $1,206 / week
- 2020 = $1,000 / week
The maximum weekly benefit amount is fixed for the duration of your claim, even if your claim extends into a new calendar year with an updated maximum.
Washington Paid Family Leave provides a crucial safety net, ensuring financial support and job security for workers during significant life events. By understanding the program’s details, you can confidently access the benefits you are entitled to when you need them most.
