In Georgia, employers aren’t required to give their employees paid family leave; the state has no mandatory leave program. That said, Georgia-based businesses and employers with remote workers in the Peach State still have to follow federal laws when it comes to employee leaves.
Keep reading for detailed information on federal leave, including compliance responsibilities and tips for offering paid leave to your workforce.
Georgia has paid parental leave, but only for state employees
Georgia doesn’t have a state-mandated program that entitles private-sector workers to paid leave. Paid family leave, also called paid family and medical leave, provides employees with financial support to take time off work for a range of personal or family-related reasons. Think: bonding with a new child, managing a health condition, or caring for an ill loved one.
Instead of a broad-based leave program, Georgia only offers paid parental leave to eligible state employees, including public school teachers and people employed by local boards of education. In 2024, House Bill 1010 doubled Georgia’s paid parental leave from 120 hours to 240 hours in a 12-month period, or roughly six weeks of time off.
State workers can take parental leave following the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child. To be eligible, they must be full-time employees who’ve worked for the state for at least six months.
Does Georgia have paid disability leave?
Unfortunately, Georgia doesn’t have a state-run paid disability program either, which leaves employees who sustain non-work-related illnesses or injuries at the mercy of their employer’s policies for taking time off.
Are Georgia employers subject to federal leave laws?
Certain Georgia employers—those with 50 or more employees working in a 75-mile radius—must comply with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The federal law, first enacted in 1993, requires covered employers to give eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for:
Bonding: To care for and bond with a new child, including newborn, adopted, and fostered children
Caregiving: To care for a family member with a serious health condition, including spouses, children, and parents
Medical recovery: To manage a serious personal health condition
Military exigency: To manage affairs when a family member, including a spouse, child, or parent, is on or called to active duty
How do employees qualify for FMLA leave?
To qualify for federal bonding, caregiving, medical, or military exigency leave, your employees have to:
Have worked for you for at least one year (consecutively or non-consecutively)
Have over 1,250 hours of service (roughly 25 hours a week) in the 12 months immediately before leave begins
What are my FMLA employer obligations?
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. You’re responsible for:
1. Making employees aware of their rights
Your first step is to post a general FMLA notice in a visible spot in your workplace. The poster explains what situations qualify for FMLA leave, who’s eligible to take leave, which protections employees receive during leave, and how employees can file a complaint with the Wage and Hour Division.
Print the poster in English and any other languages your employees regularly speak in the workplace.
The next step is to give written notice to all your FMLA-eligible employees explaining how and when to request a leave. You can print a separate how-to 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. Distributing official FMLA notices
When one of your employees requests leave, you have five business days to give them their Rights and Responsibilities Notice, which outlines:
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
Then, before your employee heads out on leave, you need to hand them a Designation Notice, which confirms that their requested leave counts under FMLA guidelines.
3. Continuing health insurance and reinstating employees
FMLA leave isn’t paid, but it does have two very valuable protections for your employees: the right to continued health insurance and the right to return to their job.
You’re legally required to continue paying your portion of employees’ health insurance premiums (if you currently offer them), and reinstate employees to their jobs as soon as they’re back. If you can’t return them to their exact role, the position you put them in should be comparable in every way: in title, responsibilities, work schedule, work location, pay, and benefits.
4. Maintaining records
It’s critical to save your 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.
The problem with no paid family leave
Three in every four Georgia workers (76%) don’t have access to paid leave through their employers, according to data gathered by the National Partnership of Women and Families. And without paid leave, employees are left with little to no support when they can’t work.
If you’re a covered employer under FMLA, your employees can take unpaid time off, but only if they meet the working duration and hours qualifications—and only if they can afford to go weeks without a paycheck. Two-thirds (66%) of Georgians either don’t qualify or can’t take FMLA leave.
On the other hand, if you’re not a covered FMLA employer, your employees have to resort to using their PTO and sick time in lieu of taking leave, which tends to run out fast. If they need more time than is available through PTO and sick time, there’s a chance that your employee won’t return to work – meaning you’ll lose a valuable member of your workforce and be forced to recruit, hire, and train a replacement.
The positive impact of paid family leave
When employers participate in offering paid leave, everyone benefits. Employees get the vital financial support they deserve during stressful seasons of life, and employers get healthier, more engaged employees as a result.
Paid leave programs have been proven to:
Keep more women and primary caretakers in the workforce
Stimulate local and state economies
Make recruitment and hiring easier
How to offer paid family leave to your employees
If you have the financial flexibility to provide paid family leave—however basic—it can pay dividends.
Whether you plan to introduce a paid family leave policy for the first time or expand on your existing one, here are some steps to take:
1. Research and reflect
Find out what your competitors offer for leave, look up what similar businesses in other states offer, or send out an employee feedback survey to get insights on what your employees value the most.
It’s also helpful to read up on what other states offer for paid family leave, such as California and New York. They can give you an idea of how to structure your programs and how much partial wage replacement to offer.
Oregon, for example, provides up to 12 weeks of paid family leave (birthing parents receive up to 26 weeks) at 89% of their usual wages. In 2028, Maryland will start offering employees up to 12 weeks of paid family leave, with payments of up to $1,000 a week.
2. Review the numbers
Start by talking with your benefits broker about how you can provide paid family leave—and how much time and pay you can offer. If you’ve been wanting to invest more heavily in your employee benefits, it might make sense to offer 12-16 weeks of paid family leave at 80-90% pay. If you only have a little wiggle room, maybe you can offer four weeks at 100% pay.
You can either pay for leave entirely out of your company's pocket, or buy paid family leave or disability insurance through a private insurer. If you take the second path, a more popular option for business owners, you can split your insurance premium with your employees, so they’re contributing to their own paid leave as well.
3. Decide all the details
When you’re creating or updating a company leave policy, you have to hammer out every detail, including:
What exactly constitutes a leave
Which types of leave are available to employees
How many weeks employees can take paid leave, and whether or not they can take unpaid leave afterward
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 on 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. Communicate accordingly
After you’ve updated your employee handbook, hold a meeting with your senior staff and managers so they know the new policy and when it’ll take effect. Then you’ll need to schedule meetings with HR so they can help communicate the new leave policy to employees and sign them up for paid leave insurance.
Extra resources for Georgia business owners
Check out Gusto’s guides to:
