What Are Virginia’s Maternity Leave Laws?

Virginia’s maternity leave laws do not require private employers to offer paid leave, but they do give most pregnant and postpartum workers a combination of job-protected time off, workplace accommodations, and nursing breaks. State government employees get the strongest benefit: eight weeks of fully paid parental leave. Everyone else relies on a mix of Virginia’s pregnancy accommodation statute, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and, often, private short-term disability insurance to bridge the paid-leave gap.

Paid Leave: Only State Employees Get It

Virginia Code § 2.2-1210 provides eight weeks (320 hours) of paid parental leave at 100 percent of your regular salary following the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child under 18. The benefit applies only to classified or at-will state government employees who have worked for the Commonwealth for at least 12 consecutive months. Private employers, local governments, and federal agencies are not covered by this statute.¹

You have to use the leave within six months of the child’s arrival. If both parents work for the state, each gets a separate eight-week entitlement, and you can take it at the same time, consecutively, or on different schedules.¹

This paid leave does not eat into your annual leave, sick leave, or Virginia Sickness and Disability Program benefits. It does run concurrently with FMLA leave, meaning your paid parental leave and your FMLA clock tick down together. Running it alongside the Virginia Sickness and Disability Program, however, is optional, which gives you room to sequence benefits for maximum total time off.¹

If you do not work for the state, Virginia has no paid maternity leave mandate for you today. Paid time off from your employer, short-term disability insurance, or the concurrent use of accrued vacation and sick leave are how most private-sector workers cobble together income during their time off.

Unpaid, Job-Protected Leave Under the FMLA

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for the birth or placement of a child.² It applies to private employers with 50 or more employees on the payroll during 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding year.³ State and local government employers and public schools are covered regardless of size.

To qualify personally, you must have worked for your employer for at least 12 months, logged at least 1,250 hours during the 12 months before your leave starts, and work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles.⁴ That last requirement catches people off guard. If your office is small and the nearest company location is 80 miles away, you may not qualify even if the company employs thousands nationally.

FMLA leave is unpaid, but you can use accrued paid leave to cover part or all of it. The critical protection is job restoration: when you return, your employer must place you in the same position or an equivalent one with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions, even if someone was hired or the role was restructured during your absence.⁵ Your health insurance must also continue on the same terms while you are out.

For Virginia state employees who qualify for both, the eight weeks of paid parental leave runs concurrently with FMLA, producing roughly eight weeks paid followed by up to four weeks unpaid, for about 12 weeks of job-protected time off in total.¹

Workplace Accommodations During and After Pregnancy

Two laws give you the right to reasonable accommodations for limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions, including lactation.

Virginia Code § 2.2-3909

Virginia’s pregnancy accommodation law applies to every employer in the state with five or more employees.⁶ The statute lists examples of what counts as a reasonable accommodation:

Modified work schedules, light duty, temporary transfers to less strenuous positions, and help with manual labor
Modified equipment or seating, and access to a private location other than a bathroom for expressing breast milk
More frequent or longer bathroom breaks and breaks to express breast milk
Leave to recover from childbirth, though your employer cannot force leave on you if another accommodation would work

An employer can refuse only by showing undue hardship, weighed against the nature of the business, the size of the facility, and the cost. If the employer already grants a similar accommodation to other employees, that creates a presumption that it is not an undue hardship. When you request an accommodation, your employer must engage in a timely, good-faith interactive process. Retaliation, whether by firing, demotion, or denied promotion, is prohibited, and you have the right to return to your previous position or an equivalent one once the accommodation is no longer needed.⁶

The Federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

The PWFA took effect in June 2023 and applies to employers with 15 or more employees. It layers on top of Virginia’s law with similar accommodation rights. Under the PWFA, your employer cannot force an accommodation you didn’t agree to, deny you job opportunities because accommodating you would be necessary, require leave when a different accommodation would work, or retaliate against you for requesting an accommodation.⁷

Accommodations under the PWFA include schedule changes, telework, temporary reassignment, lighter duties, more frequent breaks, and temporary suspension of job functions you cannot perform during pregnancy.⁸ An employer that skips the interactive process and denies an accommodation that was available without undue hardship faces liability.⁹

Break Time for Nursing Employees

Federal law requires employers to provide reasonable break time for nursing employees to express breast milk for one year after the child’s birth, along with a private space that is not a bathroom, shielded from view, and free from intrusion.¹⁰

Employers with fewer than 50 employees can seek an exemption by showing that compliance would cause undue hardship given their size, financial resources, and business structure.¹⁰ The Department of Labor calls this a stringent standard, with the burden of proof on the employer.¹¹

Virginia’s accommodation law separately requires employers with five or more employees to provide breaks for expressing breast milk and access to a private, non-bathroom location.⁶ Because the state threshold is lower, nursing employees at small Virginia workplaces may still be protected when federal law does not reach their employer.

Which Laws Apply to Your Employer

Your employer’s size determines which protections you get. Multiple laws often apply at once, and when they do, you get the benefit of whichever is most generous on any given point.

5 or more employees: Virginia’s pregnancy accommodation law (§ 2.2-3909) applies, covering workplace accommodations and lactation breaks.
15 or more employees: The federal PWFA and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act add another layer of accommodation rights and prohibit pregnancy-based discrimination in hiring, firing, and promotion.¹²
50 or more employees within 75 miles: FMLA provides 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave, and the federal nursing break time law applies without an undue-hardship escape.
Virginia state employees with 12+ months of service: Eight weeks of paid parental leave under § 2.2-1210 on top of everything above.

Virginia’s accommodation law reaches employers as small as five workers, where the PWFA would not apply, while the FMLA’s job-restoration guarantee goes further than either accommodation statute. The laws stack rather than compete.

Short-Term Disability as a Paid Leave Alternative

Because Virginia does not mandate paid leave for private-sector workers, many employees rely on short-term disability insurance to replace income during the weeks after childbirth. These policies typically cover a portion of your salary for a set number of weeks following a qualifying medical event. Most have a waiting period before benefits begin, and the length of paid coverage depends on the plan and whether delivery involved complications.

If your employer offers short-term disability, review the policy well before your due date. Check the waiting period, the percentage of salary replaced, the maximum benefit duration, and whether you have to use accrued paid leave first. Individual policies are available if your employer does not offer group coverage, but they are generally more expensive and need to be purchased before you become pregnant to cover a maternity-related claim.

A Statewide Paid Family Leave Program Under Consideration

Virginia’s legislature has advanced SB 2, a bill that would create a statewide paid family and medical leave insurance program administered by the Virginia Employment Commission. Under the bill, premiums assessed to employers and employees would begin April 1, 2028, with benefits starting January 1, 2029. The proposed benefit would pay 80 percent of an employee’s average weekly wage, capped at 100 percent of the statewide average weekly wage, for up to 12 weeks in a benefit year.¹³

The bill is pending the governor’s action and is not yet law. If signed, it would meaningfully change what private-sector workers in Virginia can count on. For now, it’s worth tracking, but not something you can plan around.

1
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 2.2-1210 – Parental Leave
2
U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Frequently Asked Questions
3
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.105 – Counting Employees for Determining Coverage
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act
5
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.214 – Employee Right to Reinstatement
6
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 2.2-3909 – Causes of Action for Failure to Provide Reasonable Accommodation for Known Limitations Related to Pregnancy, Childbirth, or Related Medical Conditions
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC Chapter 21G – Pregnant Worker Fairness
8
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
9
eCFR. Part 1636 Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 218d – Breastfeeding Accommodations in the Workplace
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Frequently Asked Questions – Pumping Breast Milk at Work
12
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pregnancy Discrimination and Pregnancy-Related Disability Discrimination
13
Virginia LIS. SB2 – 2026 Regular Session