FMLA - Nebraska

Paid sick leave (Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, effective 10/1/25)

Covered employers

Private employers with one or more employees.

Employee eligibility

Employees must work in Nebraska for at least 80 hours in a calendar year.

Leave entitlement

• Employers with fewer than 20 employees must allow employees to accrue and use up to 40 hours of paid sick time each year.
• Employers with 20 or more employees must allow employees to accrue and use up to 56 hours of paid sick time each year.

The leave year is a regular and consecutive 12-month period determined by the employer.

Employees accrue an hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked and may use the leave as soon as it’s accrued. They begin to accrue the leave when hired or on October 1, 2025, whichever is later.

Employees may take the paid sick time in one-hour increments, or the smallest increment the employer's payroll system uses to account for absences or use of other time.

Unused leave carries over into the next year. Instead of carryover, employers may pay an employee for unused leave at the end of the year. Employers may also frontload the leave at the beginning of the year.

Employers with existing paid leave policies that meet the Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act's requirements would not be required to provide additional paid leave.

Employees with a break in service who are rehired within 12 months have their previously accrued paid sick time that had not been used reinstated and may use it and continue to accrue more upon rehire.

Employers may loan paid sick time to an employee in advance of accrual.

Qualifying reasons

Employees may take the leave:

• For the employee’s own condition or for preventive care;
• To care for a family member or for their preventive care;
• To attend meetings for a child’s condition at school/daycare;
• For the closure of the employee’s business or a child’s school/daycare due to a public health emergency.

Family members include:

• A biological, adopted, or foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward, or a child to whom the employee stands in loco parentis;
• A biological, foster, step, or adoptive parent or a legal guardian of an employee or an employee's spouse;
• A person who stood in loco parentis to the employee or the employee's spouse when the employee or employee's spouse was a minor child;
• A person to whom the employee is legally married under the laws of any state;
• A grandparent, grandchild, or sibling, whether of a biological, foster, adoptive, or step relationship, of the employee or the employee's spouse; or
• Any other individual related by blood to the employee or whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship.

Job restoration

Employers may not threaten, discharge, suspend, demote, reduce hours or pay, or take any other adverse action against an employee for exercising or attempting to exercise any right under the law.

Concurrency

The law does not address this, so it does not specifically prohibit leave under the NE paid sick leave to run concurrently with leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

The NE paid sick leave would not run concurrently with other state leave laws as the reasons would not qualify for both.

Notices/forms

Employers must give employees written notice of the protections of the law upon hire or by September 15, 2025. This information must also be posted at the worksite.

Employers must record in or attach to employee paychecks:

• The amount of paid sick time available to the employee,
• The amount of paid sick time taken by the employee to date in the year, and
• The amount of pay the employee has received as paid sick time.

When employees take paid sick time for more than three consecutive workdays, employers may require reasonable documentation that the paid sick time has been used for a qualifying reason. Reasonable documentation includes:

• Documentation signed by a health care professional indicating that paid sick time is or was necessary; or
• If the employee or a family member did not receive services from a health care professional, or if documentation cannot be obtained from a health care professional in a reasonable time or without added expense, a written statement from the employee indicating that the employee is taking or took paid sick time for a qualifying reason.

Family Military Leave

The NE Family Military Leave Act applies to all employers, including the state and political subdivisions.

Employee eligibility

Employees are eligible for military family leave if they have worked for the employer for at least 12 months and worked for at least 1,250 hours during the 12-month period immediately preceding the beginning of leave.

Leave entitlement

Employers with 15-50 employees must allow for up to 15 days of unpaid family military leave. Employers with more than 50 employees must provide up to 30 days of unpaid family military leave.

Reasons for leave

Because the employee is the spouse or parent of a person called to military service lasting 179 days or longer with the state or the U.S.

Maintenance of health benefits

During family military leave, employers must make it possible for employees to continue their benefits at the employee’s expense. These benefits include group life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, and pensions.

Job restoration

Employees are entitled to be restored to the position held when leave began or to one with equivalent seniority, benefits, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment. Employees need not be restored if the reason is unrelated to the exercise of family military leave rights.

Notice

Employees are to give at least 14 days’ notice of leave if the leave will consist of five or more consecutive work days. Where able, the employee must consult with the employer to schedule the leave so as to not unduly disrupt the company operations.

Employees taking family military leave for less than five consecutive days must give advance notice as is practicable.

Employers may require certification from the proper military authority to verify the employee’s eligibility for the leave.

Pregnancy accommodations

While not a true leave provision, the Nebraska Fair Employment Practice Act requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodation with respect to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. This could include time off to recover from childbirth, modified work schedules, acquisition of equipment for sitting, more frequent or longer breaks, periodic rest, assistance with manual labor, job restructuring, light-duty assignments, temporary transfers to less strenuous or hazardous work, or break time and appropriate facilities for breast-feeding or expressing breast milk.

Employers need not provide an accommodation if they can demonstrate that it would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the business. Employers are prohibited from requiring an employee to take leave under any leave law or company policy if another reasonable accommodation can be provided.

Volunteer emergency responders

Employers may not terminate or take any other disciplinary action against any employee who is a volunteer emergency responder if such employee is absent from or reports late to work in order to respond to an emergency.

An employee acting as volunteer emergency responders must provide the employer with a written statement signed by the individual in charge of the volunteer department or another authorized individual notifying such employer that the employee serves as a volunteer emergency responder.

An employee who is or who has served as a volunteer emergency responder must notify the employer when such employee's status as a volunteer emergency responder changes, including termination of such status.

An employee acting as a volunteer emergency responder must make a reasonable effort to notify the employer that he or she may be absent from or report late to work in order to respond to an emergency.

At an employer's request, an employee who is absent or reports late must provide the employer, within seven days of such request, a written statement signed by the individual in charge of the volunteer department (or another authorized individual) that includes the following:

• The fact that the employee responded to an emergency,
• The date and time of the emergency, and
• The date and time such employee completed his or her volunteer emergency activities.