If you work inside Seattle city limits, you earn paid sick and safe time (PSST) under Seattle Municipal Code Chapter 14.16, starting on your first day. The Seattle sick leave requirements cover full-time, part-time, temporary, and salaried overtime-exempt employees, and the leave can be used for your own illness, a family member’s care, domestic violence and safety needs, school or childcare closures, and immigration-related legal matters. How fast you accrue and how much rolls over depends on your employer’s size.
Who Earns Seattle PSST
Every employee performing work within Seattle earns PSST, no matter how many hours you work or how long you’ve been on the job. Seattle’s ordinance is broader than Washington State’s paid sick leave law in one key way: it also covers salaried, overtime-exempt workers, who the state law leaves out.1Seattle Office of Labor Standards. Comparison Chart – Seattle PSST and Statewide Paid Sick Leave
If you’re normally based somewhere else and only work in Seattle occasionally, you become covered once you exceed 240 hours of Seattle-based work in a year. Coverage begins at your 241st hour and continues for the rest of your time with that employer.2Seattle Office of Labor Standards. Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance Q&A
You start earning PSST immediately, but your employer is allowed to make you wait up to 90 calendar days before you can actually use it. Some employers set a shorter waiting period or waive it entirely.3Seattle Office of Labor Standards. Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance Q&A
How Fast You Accrue
The ordinance sorts employers into three tiers based on total full-time-equivalent employees worldwide, not just those in Seattle. Your tier sets your accrual rate:
- Tier 1 (1–49 FTEs): one hour of PSST for every 40 hours worked.
- Tier 2 (50–249 FTEs): one hour of PSST for every 40 hours worked.
- Tier 3 (250 or more FTEs): one hour of PSST for every 30 hours worked.
Workers at large companies accrue leave roughly a third faster than workers at smaller businesses.4Seattle.gov. Paid Sick and Safe Time
Carryover and Frontloading
Unused PSST rolls into the next calendar year up to a cap set by your employer’s tier:
- Tier 1: up to 40 hours carried over.
- Tier 2: up to 56 hours carried over.
- Tier 3: up to 72 hours carried over, or up to 108 hours if your employer uses a combined PTO plan instead of separate sick and vacation buckets.
The higher 108-hour cap accounts for combined plans blending sick time with vacation, so a larger rollover keeps the sick-leave portion meaningful.1Seattle Office of Labor Standards. Comparison Chart – Seattle PSST and Statewide Paid Sick Leave
Employers can also frontload PSST at the start of the year rather than tracking it hour by hour. The frontloaded amount must be based on a reasonable estimate of the hours you’ll work, and if your employer underestimates, they have 30 days to adjust. If they frontload too many hours, they cannot deduct the excess from your wages or ask for reimbursement, even when you leave. Frontloading also doesn’t wipe out carryover: unused frontloaded hours still roll into the next year.2Seattle Office of Labor Standards. Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance Q&A
What You Can Use PSST For
PSST breaks into two categories. Sick time covers your own or a family member’s physical or mental illness, injury, health condition, medical appointment, or preventive care. For sick time, “family member” includes your child, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse, or registered domestic partner.5Seattle Office of Labor Standards. Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance Q&A
Safe time covers absences tied to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking affecting you or someone in your household. You can use it to seek legal help, attend court, get medical treatment, access shelter or crisis services, obtain counseling, or relocate for safety. The definition of covered relationships is wider for safe time than for sick time and reaches current and former spouses, co-parents, adult relatives by blood or marriage, roommates, and anyone 16 or older you live with or have dated.5Seattle Office of Labor Standards. Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance Q&A
You can also use PSST when a public official closes your workplace for a health reason. For school and childcare closures, a 2020 amendment loosened the rules considerably: any family member’s school or place of care closing for any reason now qualifies, and the closure no longer has to come from a public official.4Seattle.gov. Paid Sick and Safe Time
Seattle also lets you use PSST to prepare for or attend immigration-related legal proceedings, a use the Washington State law does not recognize.1Seattle Office of Labor Standards. Comparison Chart – Seattle PSST and Statewide Paid Sick Leave
Notice, Documentation, and How You Get Paid
For a foreseeable absence like scheduled surgery or a court date, you must give at least 10 days’ written notice unless your employer’s policy allows less. For unexpected absences, notify your employer as soon as you reasonably can before your shift.6Seattle Office for Civil Rights. Seattle Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance
Documentation can only be required if you’re out more than three consecutive workdays. For sick time, that generally means a healthcare provider’s note. For safe time, acceptable documentation includes a police report, a court order, or your own written statement. Your personal written statement is enough on its own; a police report or court document is not required. Employers also cannot demand documentation that costs you an unreasonable amount or invades your privacy, and any medical information you provide must be kept confidential.6Seattle Office for Civil Rights. Seattle Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance
When you use PSST, your employer pays you at your normal hourly rate, and for overtime-eligible workers that includes commissions you would have earned. The pay must land in the same pay period the leave was used.7Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. Paid Sick Leave
You can take PSST in small increments. For hourly workers, the minimum block is one hour or the smallest unit your employer uses to track time, whichever is smaller. If timekeeping runs in 15-minute or one-minute increments, PSST is available in those same increments. Your employer can’t force you to use a full hour for a 20-minute appointment.8City of Seattle. Paid Sick and Safe Time (PSST) Model Policy
Every paycheck must show three things: your current PSST balance, the hours you accrued during that pay period, and the hours you used. This information usually appears on your paystub.8City of Seattle. Paid Sick and Safe Time (PSST) Model Policy
Retaliation Is Prohibited
Your employer cannot punish you for requesting or using PSST. Firing, cutting hours, changing your schedule, threatening immigration-related action, or any other adverse treatment because of PSST use is a violation. An employer found to have retaliated can be ordered to reinstate the worker, pay back wages with interest, pay liquidated damages of up to twice the unpaid wages, and pay an additional penalty of up to $5,000 directly to the worker.9Municode Library. Seattle Municipal Code 14.16.055 – Retaliation Prohibited
Requiring you to find your own shift replacement before approving sick leave is also a violation. PSST is a legal right, not something your manager grants when staffing allows.
What Happens If You’re Rehired
Leave a job and come back to the same employer within 12 months, and your previously accrued, unused PSST must be reinstated. The one exception: if your employer fully cashed out your balance at your normal hourly rate when you left, they don’t have to bring it back. Reinstated hours are available immediately on rehire, unless you hadn’t finished the initial 90-day waiting period before you separated.10Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. Paid Sick Leave Minimum Requirements
How Seattle’s Rules Compare to Washington State’s
Washington State has its own paid sick leave law, and Seattle workers are covered by both at the same time. When they conflict, the more generous provision wins. Seattle exceeds the state baseline in several ways:
- Coverage: state law covers only overtime-eligible workers; Seattle also covers salaried, overtime-exempt employees.
- Accrual: state law is one hour per 40 hours worked for everyone; Seattle matches that for Tier 1 and Tier 2 but gives Tier 3 workers one hour per 30 hours worked.
- Carryover: state caps rollover at 40 hours; Seattle allows up to 56, 72, or 108 hours depending on tier and plan structure.
- School closures: state law requires a public official to order the closure for a health reason; Seattle dropped both requirements in 2020.
- Immigration proceedings: Seattle covers them; the state law does not.
- Frontloading: state law lets employers recoup excess frontloaded hours at termination with the employee’s agreement; Seattle prohibits reimbursement outright.
Your Seattle employer has to apply whichever rule is better for you in each situation.1Seattle Office of Labor Standards. Comparison Chart – Seattle PSST and Statewide Paid Sick Leave
Filing a Complaint
The Seattle Office of Labor Standards (OLS) enforces PSST. If your employer denies leave, fails to pay for time used, retaliates, or violates any other part of the ordinance, you can file a complaint by calling 206-256-5297, emailing workers.laborstandards@seattle.gov, or submitting a worker inquiry form on the OLS website.
Penalties escalate with repeated violations. A first offense can carry up to $500 in civil penalties per affected worker, plus back pay with 12 percent annual interest and liquidated damages of up to twice the unpaid wages. Later violations climb to $1,000, then to $5,000 or 10 percent of unpaid wages, capped at $20,000 per affected worker.11Municode Library. Seattle Municipal Code 14.16.080 – Remedies