Does Vermont require paid family or sick leave in 2026?
Vermont is a hybrid. There is no mandatory state paid family leave, but the state does require paid Earned Sick Time, accruing 1 hour for every 52 hours worked up to 40 hours a year. Federal FMLA and the state VPFLA hold the job; paid family leave is voluntary.
· Vermont, United States guide
Illustration · Burlington, Vermont
Vermont sits between the no-programme states and the heavy paid-leave states. It mandates no state paid family leave, but it does require paid Earned Sick Time for every employee: 1 hour for every 52 hours worked, up to 40 hours a year. Run an FMLA-only handbook here and you are short the sick-time accrual from the first paycheque.
Two job-protection floors stack on top of the sick-time rule. Federal FMLA gives 12 weeks unpaid at 50+ employees, and Vermont's own VPFLA gives up to 12 weeks unpaid from 10 employees for parental leave. Paid family leave itself is voluntary: the state runs an opt-in insurance plan, not a payroll tax. Vermont's wage and overtime rules sit in a separate guide.
Does Vermont require paid family leave?
No. Vermont has no mandatory state paid family leave programme and no paid-leave payroll tax. About a dozen states plus Washington DC run compulsory paid-family-leave funds; Vermont is not among them. Contrast that with New York, where every employer funds paid family leave through employee payroll deductions.
What Vermont does have is a voluntary Family and Medical Leave Insurance plan and an unpaid job-protection law. The wage replacement is opt-in; the job hold is the statute.
Vermont's Family and Medical Leave Insurance (VT FMLI) is a state-contracted insurance product, not a mandate. It rolled out in phases: state employees from July 2023, private employers with two or more staff from July 2024, and individuals and the self-employed from July 2025. You can buy in to offer paid leave as a benefit, and a worker whose employer does not can enrol individually, but nothing requires either. There is no contribution line on a standard Vermont payslip and no benefit a worker can claim by right.
The job-protection floor is separate and is mandatory. Vermont's Parental and Family Leave Act (VPFLA), expanded by Act 32 of 2025 effective 1 July 2025, gives eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave. Parental, bereavement, safe and qualifying-exigency leave apply at employers with 10 or more employees; family leave for a serious health condition applies at 15 or more, in each case for staff averaging 30 or more hours a week. The right to hold a job is the law; the right to be paid during it is a benefit you choose to fund. Your Vermont payroll tax obligations, including UI rates, are in the state tax guide.
How much paid sick time does Vermont require?
Every Vermont employee earns paid sick time at 1 hour for every 52 hours worked, and you may cap use at 40 hours in a 12-month period. No headcount floor; this applies from your first Vermont hire.
The authority is the Earned Sick Time Act (the Healthy Workplaces Act, 21 V.S.A. 481-486). A full-time employee hits the 40-hour cap over a standard work year.
Accrual is the design that catches out-of-state employers. At 1 hour per 52 worked, a full-time employee on a 2,080-hour year reaches almost exactly the 40-hour cap; part-time staff accrue in proportion. New employers may apply a one-year ramp before earned time becomes usable, and you can frontload the full 40 hours instead of accruing hour by hour, but the floor is the floor. Compare that with Massachusetts, which layers mandatory paid family leave on top of a similar earned-sick-time floor.
Covered uses are broad: the employee's own illness, caring for a family member, and safe time for situations involving domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking. There is no headcount threshold to hide behind and no city overlay to map; one statewide rule under the Vermont Department of Labor applies in Burlington, Montpelier and every rural town alike. A national policy that grants less than 1 hour per 52 worked is non-compliant on every Vermont payroll. You can run the full employer cost through the Employer Cost Calculator to see how leave provisions affect the total package.
What does federal FMLA give Vermont employees?
Federal FMLA gives eligible Vermont employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per 12-month period, with group health coverage continued at your normal contribution rate.
It applies only to employers with 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius. Your employee qualifies after 12 months of tenure and 1,250 hours worked in the prior year.
Count your entire US workforce against the 50-employee threshold, not just Vermont staff. You can have 30 Vermont staff and 25 elsewhere and find yourself FMLA-obligated in Vermont even though neither state alone reached the line. In Vermont, FMLA and the state VPFLA both give up to 12 weeks; where both apply they run concurrently, not end to end.
Source: US Department of Labor, Family and Medical Leave Act
Once tripped, the obligation runs for the rest of the current calendar year and the full following year, even if headcount later falls back. Your Vermont wage and overtime guide covers the minimum-pay floors that run alongside unpaid leave periods.
| 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, though Vermont's VPFLA may still apply from as few as 10 employees.
What pregnancy and disability protections apply in Vermont?
Federal law sets the floor and Vermont's VPFLA adds a job hold on top. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) 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.
Vermont stacks more on a new parent than a no-programme state does. PWFA accommodation begins at 15 employees, and the state VPFLA gives up to 12 weeks of job-protected parental leave from 10 employees, so a Vermont worker can have a state job hold for a new baby before federal FMLA even applies at 50.
What none of these statutes provide is the cheque. The leave is job-protected and may be unpaid; the most retention-critical voluntary line for a Vermont hire is paid parental leave or buy-in to the state FMLI plan, because that is the gap between holding the role and being paid while away from it. Running your first Vermont hire through an employer of record means the PWFA and VPFLA obligations land on us, not your internal HR team.
Vermont employers under 10, military leave and jury duty
Below the VPFLA's 10-employee floor Vermont still requires paid Earned Sick Time at every size, and three further protections apply at any headcount: 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 to the position they would have reached. Vermont law bars firing or penalising 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. Vermont's pay-and-deduction rules that govern final wages during and after leave are set out in the wage and overtime guide.
For the smallest Vermont employers the mandatory picture is still not empty: paid earned sick time at 1 hour per 52 worked, accommodate pregnancy at 15 employees, reinstate service members, and protect jury service. The VPFLA job hold and the 26-week military caregiver entitlement under FMLA arrive as you grow past 10 and 50 employees respectively. Use the Crossover Calculator to see when headcount makes entity formation worth considering.
How Teamed runs Vermont leave end to end
Teamed becomes your legal employer of record in Vermont for from $599 per employee per month flat, with zero FX mark-up. You design the paid-leave package; we administer the statutory floor and track every trigger for you.
Earned Sick Time accrual at 1 hour per 52 worked, the VPFLA job hold from 10 employees, FMLA eligibility and its 50-employee threshold across your whole US payroll, PWFA accommodation, USERRA and jury-duty pay all run on one platform.
Real HR and legal experts handle your Vermont hires and know the Earned Sick Time, VPFLA, FMLA and PWFA stack cold. 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, Vermont UI, the Child Care Contribution, workers' compensation) passes through at cost, itemised on every invoice with no loading added.
The sick-time ledger accrues 1 hour per 52 worked and applies the 40-hour cap automatically; if you choose to offer the state VT FMLI plan, we administer that too. Contractor onboarding, EOR payroll and entity graduation all live on one platform. A Vermont contractor who converts to W-2 keeps their record, and that same employee can graduate to your own US entity without switching systems. Confirm the monthly cost at from $599 per employee, zero FX. Use the Crossover Calculator to see the month the model flips. EOR is the right model for a first Vermont hire, until it isn't. The Vermont state tax and UI guide shows the payroll-tax rates Teamed tracks on your behalf.
Vermont is the hybrid that trips up template handbooks. There is no mandatory paid family leave, so people file it under no-program, then miss the paid Earned Sick Time every employer owes at 1 hour per 52 worked. Stack on the VPFLA job hold from 10 employees and federal FMLA from 50, and the real work is two things at once: administer the sick-time accrual correctly from the first hour, and decide whether to fund paid family leave through the state's voluntary plan, because the statute holds the job but never writes the cheque.
Vermont refuses to be filed under no-program. There is no compulsory paid family leave, but every employer owes paid sick time.
It accrues at 1 hour per 52 worked, capped at 40 a year, and the VPFLA holds the job from 10 employees before FMLA reaches 50.
The sick-time floor is the law. Paid family leave is the choice you make on top.
