The New York Paid Family Leave Law (PFL) gives eligible employees the right to take job-protected, paid time off to bond with a new child, care for a family member with a serious health condition, or address certain needs when a family member is deployed abroad on active military service. Unlike the federal FMLA, which provides unpaid leave, New York’s program replaces a portion of your wages and protects your job and health insurance while you are out.

Eligible employees may take paid leave for bonding with a newborn, adopted, or foster child during the first 12 months after placement or birth; caring for a family member with a serious health condition (covered family members include a spouse, domestic partner, child or stepchild, parent or stepparent, parent-in-law, grandparent, grandchild, and sibling); or handling qualifying exigencies related to a family member’s overseas active-duty deployment.

You can take up to 12 weeks of PFL in a 52-week period. Weekly benefits equal 67% of your average weekly wage, capped at 67% of the New York State Average Weekly Wage (NYSAWW). For 2025, the maximum weekly benefit is $1,177.32.

Most private employers with one or more employees must carry PFL insurance. If you work 20 or more hours per week, you become eligible after 26 consecutive weeks of employment. If you work fewer than 20 hours per week, you become eligible after 175 working days.

While on PFL, you must be returned to the same job or a comparable job with the same pay, benefits, and terms. Your health insurance must continue on the same terms while you are on leave, provided you keep paying your share of premiums. Employers may not punish you for requesting or taking PFL.

Employers sometimes break the law by:

• Refusing or delaying claim forms or failing to send them to the insurance carrier.
• Misclassifying employees as ineligible when they have met the 26-week or 175-day thresholds.
• Retaliating against workers for requesting or taking PFL (for example, by firing, demoting, cutting hours, or denying promotions).
• Failing to reinstate employees to the same or comparable job after leave.