Minnesota FMLA Requirements: Eligibility, Duration, and Paid Leave

If you work in Minnesota, three separate leave laws may apply to you: the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, Minnesota’s Pregnancy and Parenting Leave Act, and the state’s new Paid Family and Medical Leave program that began paying benefits on January 1, 2026. Federal FMLA requirements in Minnesota give eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year, the state parenting statute extends similar unpaid protection to workers at employers of any size, and the paid leave program now replaces part of your wages while you are out. Which ones cover you depends on your employer’s size, how long you have worked there, and why you need the time off.

Who Qualifies Under Federal FMLA

Three conditions have to be true on the day your leave begins.

You need at least 12 months of employment with your current employer. Those months don’t have to be consecutive. You also need at least 1,250 hours worked during the 12 months right before leave starts, which comes out to about 24 hours a week. Only actual hours on the job count; paid time off, holidays, and earlier leave periods do not.¹

Then there’s the worksite test, which trips up more people than the other two combined. Your worksite must have at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius.² You can work for a national company with thousands of employees and still fall outside federal FMLA because your local office is too small.

On the employer side, private-sector businesses are covered if they had 50 or more employees for at least 20 workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. Public agencies and public or private elementary and secondary schools are covered no matter how many people work there, so government workers and school staff have federal FMLA protection even at small locations.³

Who Qualifies Under Minnesota State Law

Minnesota’s Pregnancy and Parenting Leave Act fills the gaps federal law leaves open. It applies to every Minnesota employer with one or more employees, including corporations, nonprofits, government subdivisions, and sole proprietors.⁴ A five-person shop in Minnesota has the same obligation as a large corporation.

There is no minimum tenure and no minimum hours requirement. The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry confirms that employees qualify regardless of employer size or length of service.⁵ That matters for part-time workers, new hires, and anyone whose local worksite is too small to trigger federal FMLA.

For the state’s paid leave program, the threshold is earnings-based: at least $3,900 in wages over the prior year, combining income from one or multiple Minnesota employers.

Reasons You Can Take Leave

Federal FMLA covers four situations, up to 12 workweeks per year:⁶

Birth of a child, or placement of a child with you for adoption or foster care.
Caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition.
Your own serious health condition that makes you unable to do your job.
A qualifying exigency arising from a spouse, child, or parent’s covered military active duty.

“Serious health condition” is broader than the phrase sounds. It covers chronic conditions like diabetes or epilepsy that flare periodically, long-term conditions requiring ongoing medical supervision, and anything involving an overnight hospital stay.⁷

A separate military caregiver entitlement provides up to 26 workweeks in a single 12-month period to care for a current servicemember or veteran discharged within the past five years who has a serious injury or illness, if you are the spouse, child, parent, or next of kin. That 26 weeks is a combined ceiling with any other FMLA leave used during the same period, not an addition to the standard 12.²

Minnesota’s Pregnancy and Parenting Leave Act covers a narrower set of reasons: birth or adoption, prenatal care, and pregnancy-related health conditions. It provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for those situations.⁸

How Much Time You Get

Federal FMLA gives eligible employees up to 12 workweeks per 12-month period, with military caregiver leave extending that to 26 weeks in specific circumstances. Minnesota’s state parenting law also gives up to 12 weeks.

When both laws cover the same situation, they generally run at the same time. Taking 12 weeks after the birth of a child usually counts against both banks simultaneously, so you don’t get 24 weeks by stacking them. There are narrow situations where only one law applies and the timing works out differently, but the general rule is concurrent use.

Minnesota Paid Leave Starting January 1, 2026

This is the piece that changes the practical math for most Minnesota workers. Federal FMLA and the state parenting act both guarantee unpaid time off. Minnesota’s Paid Family and Medical Leave program under Chapter 268B now provides actual wage replacement during covered leave.⁹

Your weekly benefit depends on how your wages compare to the statewide average, using a tiered formula:¹⁰

90% of wages up to $711.50 per week (half the state average).
66% of the portion between $711.50 and $1,423 per week.
55% of the portion above $1,423 per week.

The maximum weekly benefit is $1,423, which is the current state average weekly wage. Lower-wage workers see a proportionally higher replacement rate; most workers earning a typical wage will land somewhere between 66% and 90%.

The program is funded through payroll premiums. For 2026, the premium rate is 0.88% of wages. Employers cover at least half, and the rest comes from employee payroll deduction. Small employers pay a reduced rate equal to 75% of the standard premium, with the minimum employer share dropping to 25%. The premium can be adjusted annually but cannot exceed 1.1% of taxable wages.¹¹⁹

The paid leave benefit and FMLA’s job protection are separate things. Paid leave replaces income; FMLA holds your job. For most workers, the two work together: you receive state benefits while your position stays protected under federal or state unpaid-leave law.

How to Request Leave

When leave is foreseeable, such as a scheduled surgery or an expected due date, give your employer at least 30 days’ advance notice.¹² For emergencies, notify your employer as soon as practical. Minnesota’s state law similarly allows employers to require reasonable notice of the timing and expected length of leave.⁸

For leave connected to a serious health condition, your employer can require medical certification from your healthcare provider. Optional Department of Labor forms exist, but a letter on your doctor’s letterhead with the same information works.¹³ The certification should cover when the condition began, how long it is expected to last, and enough medical detail to establish that it qualifies. If your paperwork is incomplete, your employer must give you 15 days to fix the deficiencies before denying the request.

Your employer has obligations on a clock too. Within five business days of your leave request, it must issue an eligibility notice telling you whether you meet the FMLA requirements.¹⁴ Once it has enough information to decide, it has another five business days to issue a designation notice formally approving or denying the leave.¹⁵

Intermittent Leave

You don’t always have to take leave in one continuous block. When a serious health condition makes it medically necessary, you can take FMLA leave in smaller increments or on a reduced schedule without needing employer approval.¹⁶ This is how people manage chemotherapy, physical therapy, or chronic flare-ups. Try to schedule foreseeable appointments so they don’t unnecessarily disrupt operations.

Bonding leave with a newborn or newly placed child is different. Intermittent bonding leave requires your employer’s agreement, unless the child has a serious health condition that itself qualifies for FMLA. Employers can track intermittent leave in the same increment they use for other kinds of leave, but no larger than one hour.¹⁷

Pay and Benefits During Leave

Federal FMLA leave is unpaid on its own, but you have several ways to keep money coming in.

You can use accrued vacation, sick leave, or personal time concurrently with FMLA. Your employer can also require you to use paid leave first before switching to unpaid status.¹⁸ Either way, the paid time runs alongside FMLA rather than extending it. Two weeks of vacation used during FMLA doesn’t add two weeks to your 12-week bank.

Minnesota’s Earned Sick and Safe Time law gives most employees another pool to draw from: one hour of sick and safe time for every 30 hours worked, up to 48 hours a year, for anyone anticipated to work at least 80 hours in a year for a Minnesota employer.¹⁹ ESST can cover many of the same absences that qualify for FMLA and can run concurrently.

With the new state paid leave program on top of all of this, most Minnesota workers can now layer state wage replacement over federal FMLA job protection instead of choosing between paycheck and protection.

Health Insurance

Your employer must maintain your group health coverage during FMLA leave on the same terms as if you were still working.²⁰ Family coverage continues; the employer keeps paying its share of premiums. You remain responsible for your share, which you can pay on the payroll schedule, prepay before leave, or catch up on after returning.

If your payment is more than 30 days late, your employer can drop your coverage, but only after sending written notice at least 15 days before termination.²¹ Miss that notice, and the employer cannot cancel the coverage regardless of nonpayment.

Coming Back to Your Job

When your leave ends, your employer must restore you to your original position or an equivalent one with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions.⁶ Equivalent means genuinely equivalent: same shift, same location, same responsibilities, same advancement opportunities. Bringing you back at the same salary but assigning you to a dead-end role violates the law.

One narrow exception exists. If you are a salaried employee in the highest-paid 10% of the workforce within 75 miles of your worksite, your employer can classify you as a “key employee” and potentially deny restoration if reinstating you would cause substantial and grievous economic injury.²² That standard is deliberately high, and minor inconvenience or the cost of a temporary replacement does not meet it. The employer must notify you of key employee status in writing at the time of your leave request, then send a second written notice if it later decides to deny restoration, giving you a reasonable chance to return. Skip either notice and the employer loses the exception.

If your leave was for your own serious health condition, your employer can require a fitness-for-duty certification before letting you return, as long as it applies the requirement uniformly. The certification only has to address the condition that caused the leave. Your employer can also require confirmation you can perform the essential functions of your job, but only if it gave you a list of those functions with the original designation notice.²³

If Your Employer Breaks the Rules

Employers violate FMLA by interfering with your right to take leave, retaliating against you for asking for it, or failing to restore your position when you return. You have two paths.

You can file a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division at 1-866-487-9243. Complaints are confidential, and your employer cannot retaliate against you for filing or cooperating with an investigation.²⁴

You can also sue in federal court. The statute of limitations is two years from the last violation, or three years if the violation was willful. Available damages include lost wages and benefits, out-of-pocket costs you incurred because of the violation, interest, and liquidated damages equal to that total plus interest, which effectively doubles your recovery unless the employer proves it acted in good faith on reasonable grounds. Courts can also order reinstatement, promotion, and payment of your attorney’s fees.²⁵

Minnesota’s paid leave statute has its own penalties for employers that ignore notice and posting rules: $50 per employee for a first violation, and $300 per employee for each violation after that.⁹

1
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.110 – Eligible Employee
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet – Using FMLA Leave Because of a Family Members Military Service
3
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.104 – Covered Employer
4
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181.940 – Definitions
5
Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. Unpaid Pregnancy and Parental Leave, FMLA
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2612 – Leave Requirement
7
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.112 – Qualifying Reasons for Leave, General Rule
8
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 181.941 – Pregnancy and Parenting Leave
9
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code Chapter 268B – Paid Family and Medical Leave
10
Minnesota Paid Leave. Estimate Your Payments
11
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Paid Leave Confirms Premium Rate, Remains on Track for Launch in 2026
12
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.302 – Employee Notice Requirements for Foreseeable FMLA Leave
13
U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Forms
14
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.300 – Employer Notice Requirements
15
U.S. Department of Labor. Designation Notice Under the Family and Medical Leave Act
16
U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Frequently Asked Questions
17
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.205 – Intermittent Leave or Leave on a Reduced Leave Schedule
18
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.207 – Substitution of Paid Leave
19
Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. Earned Sick and Safe Time
20
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.209 – Maintenance of Group Health Plan Coverage
21
U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Advisor – Employee Failure to Pay Health Plan Premium Payments
22
U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Advisor – Key Employee
23
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.312 – Fitness-for-Duty Certification
24
U.S. Department of Labor. How to File a Complaint
25
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2617 – Enforcement