Does Texas require paid family or sick leave in 2026?
No. Texas has no state paid family leave law and no state paid sick leave law. Federal FMLA gives 12 weeks unpaid at employers with 50 or more employees. Everything else is the policy you write.
· Texas, United States guide
Illustration · San Antonio, Texas
Texas mandates no paid family leave and no paid sick leave. There is no state programme, no payroll withholding line, and no claim portal. The only job-protected floor is federal FMLA, and it reaches only employers with 50 or more employees.
That makes the offer letter the whole story. Below 50 employees the federal floor is PWFA accommodation at 15 employees, USERRA reemployment, and jury-duty protection. Paid parental leave, paid sick days and any wage replacement are yours to design, and that design is what a candidate compares against a coastal offer.
Does Texas require paid family leave?
No. Texas has no state paid family leave law. Around a dozen states plus Washington DC run mandatory paid-family-leave programmes funded by payroll contributions; Texas is not one of them.
There is no state PFL line on a Texas payslip, no contribution rate, and no benefit claim to file. The cost that adds a fraction of a percent of wages in California, New York or Washington simply does not exist here.
Texas runs no state income tax and no state leave programme, so a Texas hire carries fewer statutory deductions than almost anywhere else in the country. See Texas state tax and unemployment insurance for the full payroll picture. The flip side is that none of the protection a coastal candidate takes for granted is provided by the state.
For a hire below the FMLA threshold there is no statutory job hold for a new baby, a serious illness, or a family emergency. Whatever paid parental, paid sick or paid bereavement leave a Texas employee receives is the leave you chose to write into the offer. That is a competitive decision, not a compliance one. Louisiana and Oklahoma are in the same position: compare Louisiana paid family and sick leave to see how a neighbouring no-programme state approaches the same design question.
Does Texas require paid sick leave?
No. Texas has no state paid sick leave law, and no Texas city is allowed to create one either.
Austin, Dallas and San Antonio each passed a local paid-sick-leave ordinance. Texas courts blocked all three under HB 2127 preemption and the Texas Minimum Wage Act, holding that a mandated paid day off raises the effective minimum wage and conflicts with state law.
The result is a settled, statewide answer: paid sick days at a Texas job are whatever the offer letter says. You have no accrual rule to track, no carry-over cap, and no city-by-city map to maintain. A single national sick-leave policy applies cleanly in Austin, Houston, Dallas and every rural county alike. Compare that compliance picture with Texas wage, overtime and meal break law, where the federal FLSA is equally the whole story.
The risk is competitive, not legal. A remote-first employer offering 8 to 10 paid sick days inside a single PTO bank reads very differently to a candidate than a silent offer letter. In a state that mandates nothing, the policy you write is the differentiator.
What does federal FMLA give Texas employees?
Federal FMLA gives eligible Texas employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per 12-month period, with group health coverage continued at the employer's normal contribution.
It applies only to employers with 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius. The employee qualifies after 12 months of tenure and 1,250 hours worked in the prior year.
Cross 50 employees counted across your entire US payroll and FMLA switches on for every Texas hire who has been with you 12 months and logged 1,250 hours. Texas has no competing state floor, so the federal rule is the whole rule. Multi-state employers are the ones caught off guard: the threshold counts every US employee, not just those in Texas.
Source: US Department of Labor, Family and Medical Leave Act
An employer with 30 Texas staff and 25 staff in another state crosses the 50-employee line even though neither state alone reaches it. Once tripped, the obligation runs for the rest of the current calendar year and the full following year, even if headcount later falls back. Use the Employer Cost Calculator to model the full cost of a Texas hire as you grow toward that threshold.
| FMLA element | Federal rule |
|---|---|
| Employer threshold | 50+ employees within 75 miles, 20+ weeks in the current or prior year |
| Employee eligibility | 12 months employed and 1,250 hours worked in the prior 12 months |
| Standard leave | 12 weeks unpaid, job protected, per 12-month period |
| Military caregiver leave | 26 weeks in a single 12-month period |
| Pay during leave | None; FMLA is unpaid by statute |
FMLA gives no wage replacement of its own. Below 50 employees, or for a worker in their first 12 months, there is no FMLA right at all and no Texas mini-FMLA to fall back on. That gap sits alongside the Texas at-will termination rules as a key piece of the federal-only protection picture.
What pregnancy and disability protections apply in Texas?
Federal law applies and Texas adds nothing on top. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires reasonable accommodation for pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions at any employer with 15 or more employees.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act apply at the same 15-employee threshold, and the PUMP Act gives nursing employees break time and a private space at almost every employer.
Between 15 and 50 employees there is a real gap. The PWFA covers accommodation: modified duties, schedule changes, time off for appointments and lactation breaks. But FMLA does not yet apply, so no statute gives a Texas worker a 12-week job hold for the birth itself. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act bars adverse action, and the PUMP Act gives nursing employees break time and a private space at almost every employer regardless of size.
That gap is the decision your offer letter has to make explicit. The most retention-critical voluntary line for a Texas hire is paid parental leave, because federal unpaid FMLA at 50 and PWFA accommodation at 15 leave a wide space that only a written policy fills. The employer of record model lets you offer a competitive parental leave package on day one, without the entity infrastructure to administer it.
Texas employers under 50, military leave and jury duty
Below 50 employees Texas imposes no mandatory leave law, with three narrow exceptions that apply at any size: PWFA accommodation at 15 employees, USERRA reemployment for service members, and jury-duty protection.
USERRA protects a service member's civilian job for up to five years of cumulative service and reinstates them on the escalator principle. Texas law bars firing or threatening an employee for answering a jury summons.
USERRA reinstates a returning service member to the position they would have reached had they not been called up, not simply the job they left. Health-plan continuation runs alongside, and the protection applies regardless of company size.
For most small Texas employers this is the entire mandatory picture: accommodate pregnancy at 15 employees, reinstate service members, and protect jury service. Everything beyond that, including the 26-week military caregiver entitlement that arrives with FMLA at 50 employees, is either a federal trigger you grow into or a voluntary benefit you choose. For the equivalent picture in a neighbouring state, see Oklahoma paid family and sick leave.
How Teamed runs Texas leave end to end
Teamed becomes your legal employer of record in Texas for $599 per employee per month flat, with zero FX mark-up. You design the leave package; we administer it and track every federal trigger for you.
FMLA eligibility, the 50-employee threshold measured across your whole US payroll, PWFA accommodation logging, USERRA reinstatement and jury-duty pay continuation all run on one platform.
Real HR and legal experts with deep employment-law experience handle your Texas hires and know the FMLA, PWFA and USERRA stack by heart. An actual person, not a chatbot or a pooled queue. There is no setup fee and no exit fee, and statutory employer cost (FICA, FUTA, SUTA, workers' compensation) passes through at cost, itemised on every invoice.
Contractor onboarding, EOR payroll and entity graduation all live on one platform. A Texas contractor who converts to W-2 keeps their record, and that same employee can graduate to your own US entity without switching systems. Use the Crossover Calculator to see the month the model flips. EOR is the right model for a first Texas hire, until it isn't. See how we handle the rest of the Texas picture at Texas state tax and UI and Texas wages and overtime.
The Texas leave question is one of the cleanest in the country: no state paid family leave, no state paid sick leave, and federal FMLA only once you cross 50 employees. The work is not compliance, it is policy design. A Texas candidate weighing your offer against a coastal one knows exactly what the state does not give them, so your voluntary parental and sick-leave lines are what close the gap. That is where the real HR and legal expertise earns its fee.
Texas writes no leave law of its own. You get a federal floor that starts at 50 employees and stops at unpaid.
Below that line a new parent on your payroll has no statutory job hold, only PWFA accommodation at 15 employees.
In Texas your offer letter is the leave policy. That is the whole job, and it is worth doing well.
