Paid family leave gives employees compensated time off to handle a personal health condition, care for a sick family member, or bond with a new child. Only particular employees in Arkansas can qualify for paid family leave through the state. The majority of Arkansas employees depend on federal leave if they need time off work for personal or family-related reasons.
If you own a business in Arkansas or employ people there, you need to know how federal leave works, whether or not you’re considered a covered employer, and what to do to comply with the law.
Our guide breaks it all down below, including the benefits of paid family leave and how you can create a leave policy of your own.
Does Arkansas offer paid family leave?
No, Arkansas doesn’t have a state-run paid family leave program that applies to all employees. The state does, however, offer paid maternity leave to eligible state workers.
Act 770, signed into law in 2023 by Governor Sanders, expanded maternity leave for state employees from four weeks up to 12 consecutive weeks following the birth, adoption, or foster-care placement of an employee’s child. To qualify for maternity leave, employees need to have been employed by the state for at least a year.
The Arkansas Department of Shared Administrative Services says the law has helped thousands of families since its inception in 2017, but it still leaves roughly one million Arkansas employees (72% of the state’s working population) without proper paid leave from their employers.
Arkansas has voluntary paid family leave insurance
In 2023, Arkansas passed a law allowing private insurance carriers to sell employers a paid family leave insurance product.
If you purchase leave insurance through a private insurer, you’ll either charge your employees an insurance premium or split the premium cost with them. Then they’ll receive benefit payments to take parental or caregiving leave.
What about paid disability leave?
Paid disability leave is for employees who need to take time off work temporarily because of a non-work-related illness, injury, or other medical condition. Just as with paid family leave, Arkansas doesn’t have a state-mandated paid disability program—and the state doesn’t require employers to offer disability insurance either.
Do Arkansas employers provide federal family leave?
Certain Arkansas employers are obligated to offer their employees federal leave in accordance with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). FMLA requires employers with at least 50 employees to give eligible workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for one of four reasons:
To care for and bond with a new child (including newborn, adopted, and fostered children)
To care for a family member with a serious health condition (including spouses, children, and parents)
To manage a serious personal health condition
To manage affairs when a family member, including a spouse, child, or parent, is on or called to active duty
Because FMLA leave is job-protected, you’re required to restore employees to their same roles when they return from leave. You also have to continue providing health insurance to employees who take FMLA leave, though you can require your employees to use their paid time off (PTO) or sick days during leave.
FMLA leave eligibility
To meet the eligibility requirements for federal leave, Arkansas employees have to:
Work for an employer that has at least 50 employees who work within a 75-mile radius
Need time off from work for bonding, caregiving, personal medical reasons, or military exigency
Have worked for their employer for at least one year (consecutively or non-consecutively)
Have over 1,250 hours of service in the 12 months immediately before leave begins
How do Arkansas employers comply with FMLA leave?
If you employ 50 or more people who work within a 75-mile radius of your business, you’re considered a covered employer under FMLA. Make sure you’re aware of your responsibilities, which include:
1. Notifying employees about their rights
Start by posting a general notice in your workplace explaining what FMLA leave is, who’s eligible, and how to file a complaint with the Wage and Hour Division. Print the poster in English and any other languages your employees speak.
Next, give written notice to all your FMLA-eligible employees explaining how and when to request a leave (with 30 days of notice). You can print a separate form for employees or include a general FMLA write-up in your employee handbook.
Keep in mind that if you don’t follow the Department of Labor’s (DOL) posting and notification requirements, you could receive a civil money penalty.
2. Giving employees official FMLA notices
After your employees request leave, you have five business days to give them their Rights and Responsibilities Notice, which explains:
The 12-month period in which your employee’s leave can take place, along with their expected leave start and return dates
Your employee’s right to job protection
Your employee’s right to substitute PTO for FMLA leave, and whether or not you’ll require that
Your employee’s right to receive continued health insurance, and whether or not they need to continue paying health insurance premiums while on leave
Whether or not your employee needs to provide certification for the leave
Right before your employee takes leave, you also have to give them a Designation Notice, which confirms that their requested leave counts as FMLA leave.
3. Returning employees to their same role
It’s up to you to give employees their same position when they return from leave. If something happens or you end up needing to restructure the workforce, you’re still legally obligated to give your employees a comparable role to their old one. That means the new position should be on par with their previous one in title, work duties, schedule, and compensation.
4. Maintaining records
Make sure you save payroll receipts, paystubs, official employee requests for leave, documentation of leave start and end dates, and copies of FMLA notices. In general, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recommends holding onto payroll and personnel records for at least three years.
Should you offer paid family leave in your workplace?
The short answer is yes. Paid family leave directly supports the people who help keep your business running. If you can afford to provide paid family leave to your employees—no matter how minimal—you should.
Because without paid family leave or disability insurance, Arkansas employees only have a couple of options. They can take unpaid federal leave if they qualify (and if they can afford the unpaid time off). Unfortunately, 64% of Arkansas workers don’t qualify for FMLA leave, which means their second option is to use their vacation or sick days. But those usually run out quickly.
From there, employees either risk losing essential wages—or potentially getting fired—by taking time off work, or coming back to work early and putting their own health (or their family’s wellbeing) in jeopardy.
4 steps to offering paid family leave in your business
1. Do your due diligence
Think about your employee demographic and their needs, as well as what your competitors currently offer in the way of benefits. It’s also helpful to reflect on your business’s growth goals—and how incorporating or expanding paid leave could help you get there.
Next, check out some of the standout paid family leave programs around the country. As of May 2026, 14 states and the District of Columbia have paid family leave programs, though not all of them have taken effect yet.
Here’s an idea of what some of the states offer:
Starting in 2028, Maryland will give eligible employees up to 12 weeks of paid family leave, with payments of up to $1,000 a week.
Oregon offers eligible employees up to 12 weeks of paid family leave (with birthing parents getting up to 26 weeks) with weekly payments that cover 89% of an employee’s average weekly wages.
Colorado offers up to 12 weeks of paid Neonatal Care Leave to employees whose children have to spend time in the NICU after birth, on top of the 12 paid weeks they receive for bonding leave.
2. Crunch the numbers
In Arkansas, you have two options to pay for your employees’ leave:
Purchase paid family leave insurance through a private insurer, and potentially short-term disability insurance, too
Pay for family and/or medical leave out of your own pocket
Buying insurance tends to work well for most small businesses, since you can share the cost of premiums with your employees. Talk with your benefits broker about your options and what makes sense financially.
3. Write a comprehensive leave policy
The silver lining of not having a state-run leave program is that you have total control over your company’s leave policy. You can decide to offer paid family leave for two weeks or 20. Keep these three adjectives in mind when arranging the details:
Reasonable: Think realistically about the time off and base payments your employees need during major life changes. At the very least, aim to meet their minimum needs.
Equitable: Offer guaranteed job protection, so your workers aren’t stressed about returning to work early before their full leave is up, or being replaced when they come back.
Inclusive: Make sure your policy includes all workers, regardless of their gender, family structure, role, or seniority at your company.
Once you know the broad strokes of your leave policy, write out all the details, including:
What exactly constitutes a leave
Which types of leave are available
How many weeks employees can take leave
The eligibility requirements for leave
How FMLA interacts with your leave policy
How and when to request a leave
Whether or not employees need to provide certification for their leave
Explanation of how leave review and approval works
What protections employees will be afforded during leave (e.g., job protection through FMLA or continued health insurance)
How much employees will be paid during leave, and when they’ll receive payments
Confidentiality during leave, especially with regard to employee medical information
Expectations and reasonable accommodations upon returning from leave
4. Update your team
Start by clueing in your managers and company leaders. They need to understand your new leave policy so they can answer basic questions and take the right step when one of their direct reports requests a leave.
Then, take time to update your employee handbook, craft a company-wide email announcement, and hold HR office hours to answer questions.
Additional info for Arkansas employers
Need more state-specific guidance? Gusto has you covered. Brush up on:
