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FMLA Eligibility: Do You Qualify?

The Family and Medical Leave Act gives many U.S. employees up to 12 weeks of job-protected time off. Whether you qualify comes down to three things: how long you've worked there, how many hours you've put in, and how big your employer is.

The three rules for qualifying

To be eligible for FMLA, all three of these must be true on the day your leave starts:

1. You've worked there about a year. At least 12 months with the employer. They don't have to be back-to-back — earlier stints usually count.

2. You've worked enough hours. At least 1,250 hours in the 12 months before your leave. That's roughly 24 hours a week over the year, so most full-time employees clear it easily. Paid time off and holidays don't count toward the 1,250; only hours actually worked do.

3. Your employer is big enough near you. The employer must have at least 50 employees within 75 miles of where you work. Smaller employer? You may still be covered by a state leave law instead.

How much leave, and is it paid?

FMLA gives you up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period. It rises to 26 weeks to care for a family member who is a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness. Your health insurance continues during leave, and you're entitled to return to the same or an equivalent job.

FMLA itself doesn't pay you — it protects your job. But you may get income for that same stretch from a state paid family and medical leave program, short-term disability, or your employer's own paid leave. Those run at the same time as FMLA rather than adding extra weeks.

What FMLA covers

You can use FMLA for the birth and bonding of a new child, an adoption or foster placement, your own serious health condition, or to care for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition. Military families also get qualifying-exigency leave and the extended caregiver leave above.

The rules are national, but the answer is personal: your tenure, hours, employer size, reason for leave, and your state all move it. Leavely's free assessment walks through it in a couple of minutes and tells you both whether your job is protected under FMLA and whether a state program will pay you.