The State of Paid Family Leave in Wisconsin: What Employers Should Know

Wisconsin is no stranger to the concept of paid family leave. Elected officials have proposed paid leave legislation in the past, but it hasn’t received enough support to become law. 

As of 2026, Wisconsin has no statewide mandate requiring employers to provide paid family and medical leave (PFML). However, the state follows two critical federal and state laws regarding unpaid leave. 

If you’re an employer of Wisconsin-based workers—whether or not your business is actually located in the state—you need to understand who’s subject to state and federal leave laws, how to stay compliant, and what you can do to better support employees on leave. 

What is the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Law?

In lieu of a statewide paid leave program, or even a basic sick leave law, Wisconsin enacted the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Law. Under the law, certain employers are required to give eligible employees unpaid family and medical leave. 

Employees can take:

• Up to six weeks of family leave to bond with a child after birth, adoption, or foster care placement

• Up to two weeks of family leave to care for a child, spouse, domestic partner, or parent with a serious health condition

• Up to two weeks of medical leave to manage a serious personal health condition

Employers have to maintain their employees’ health insurance while they’re on unpaid leave, and reinstate them to their same position (or a comparable one) when they’re back from leave. 

Who’s a covered employer? 

Any Wisconsin employer with 50 or more permanent employees (during six of the last 12 months) is considered a covered employer and has to give eligible employees their rightful leave. 

Employers with 25 or more employees don’t have to provide leave, but they do have to post a notice in the workplace describing their company's leave policy. 

Who’s eligible to take leave?

To be eligible for unpaid leave, employees have to work for the same covered employer for at least 52 consecutive weeks and 1,000 hours (about 20 hours a week) in the 52 weeks before taking leave. 

What is the federal Family and Medical Leave Act?

Under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), all employers in the United States with at least 50 employees are required to give them 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for a handful of qualifying life events:

1. Bonding with a newborn, adopted, or fostered child

2. Caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition

3. Managing a serious personal health condition

4. Managing affairs when a spouse, child, or parent is on or called to active duty

Similar to Wisconsin state law, employers are obligated to restore employees to their jobs and continue paying their health insurance during leave. 

Who’s a covered FMLA employer?

If your business is based in Wisconsin and you have 50 or more employees working within a 75-mile radius, you’re a covered FMLA employer. 

If your business isn’t headquartered in Wisconsin, but you have Wisconsin-based employees working at a job site with at least 50 workers, you’re also a covered employer.  

And keep in mind: the 50 number applies to businesses that have employed 50 workers in at least 20 of the workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year.  

Who’s eligible to take leave?

To qualify for FMLA leave, employees have to:

• Work for their employer for at least 12 months, consecutively or non-consecutively

• Work at least 1,250 hours in the 12 months before leave begins

• Work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles

How do FMLA leave and Wisconsin unpaid leave work together? 

If your employees qualify for both federal and state leave, the leaves run at the same time—and employees receive whichever protections are strongest. Let’s say one of your employees needs to take parental leave, and they meet eligibility requirements for both the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Law and FMLA. 

In that case, your employee can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid time (courtesy of FMLA), as opposed to just the six weeks that Wisconsin offers. They’ll receive job protection and continued health insurance throughout leave, courtesy of both laws.  

To recap, here’s the difference between the two laws:

What are my leave responsibilities as an employer?

If you’re a covered employer under FMLA or the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Law, you’re legally required to give your employees information and time to take unpaid leave. Here are your main responsibilities: 

1. Educate employees about their leave rights

Your most important—and ongoing—duty is to tell employees about state and federal leave laws. They should understand when the laws apply to them, how they can qualify, and what their rights are under the laws. 

For FMLA, you need to:

• Hang an official poster in your workplace that explains what FMLA is and how employees become eligible. 

• Give written notice to new hires explaining their rights under FMLA. 

• Give written notice anytime an employee becomes eligible for FMLA (in other words, once they hit the 12 months and 1,250 hours thresholds working for you).

For the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Law, you have to: 

• Hang a poster in your workplace that explains what the law is and which types of leave it offers. 

• Post a notice in your workplace (or send it digitally) that clearly states your company’s policies for family and medical leave. 

If you don’t follow state and federal posting and notification requirements, you can get hit with penalties from the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD). 

2. Distribute official FMLA notices

When one of your employees requests FMLA leave, you have to follow up with paperwork. There are two forms you need to fill out and pass along: 

1. The Rights and Responsibilities Notice: due to your employee within five business days of their leave request. You’ll fill out the top portion, then hand it over to them. The form reviews: 

   1. The employee’s leave eligibility

   2. The 12-month period in which the leave can take place

   3. The tentative start and end dates of the leave

   4. The employee’s right to job protection and continued health insurance

   5. The employee’s right to use sick/vacation time during FMLA leave

   6. Any leave certification documents required

2. The Designation Notice: due to your employee within five business days after they give you their leave certification papers. This form covers:

   1. Whether or not an employee’s requested leave counts as FMLA leave

   2. Exact leave dates

   3. An employee’s right to job restoration and ongoing health insurance 

If your employee is taking leave under Wisconsin’s state law, you don’t have to file any official papers, though you can use the DWD’s official employee leave request template to document it. 

3. Maintain employee leave protections 

When your employee is on state or federal leave, you have to maintain two key employee protections:

1. Ongoing health insurance: Continue paying your portion of your employee’s health insurance premium, assuming you offered one.

2. Job restoration: Return your employee to their previous position when possible, or give them a comparable one (that means equivalent pay, title, job duties, schedule, and benefits). 

4. Save your leave-related records

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recommends keeping all payroll and personnel records for at least four years, including: 

• Employment contracts 

• Employee contact information

• Employee job classification

• Job start date

• Timesheets 

• Payroll receipts

• Documentation of employees requesting leave

• Copies of all FMLA notices

• Copies of leave certification paperwork

What happens if you’re not a covered employer? 

If you’re not a covered employer, meaning you don’t have to comply with FMLA leave or the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Law, your employees’ ability to take a leave of absence hinges on one factor: your generosity as an employer. 

Employees can use whatever paid vacation or sick days they’ve earned working at your business to take leave. If they don’t have any, they’ll be forced into a pretty impossible choice: 

1. Quit their job to take leave, losing out on financial security during one of the most challenging times of their lives, or

2. Take no time off work, putting their personal health or family’s well-being on the line in order to hold onto their position and paycheck. 

Both choices are bad, for the people forced to make them and for the businesses. Until Wisconsin adopts a statewide paid leave program, employees who don’t have sufficient leave support from their employers will suffer. 

And when employees struggle to perform, or quit the workforce altogether, businesses pay a price—in lost revenue, lower productivity, and high turnover costs. 

How to improve your paid leave offerings

If you don’t offer any kind of paid leave, or if your paid leave only meets the bare minimum, consider making a change. Investing in your employees’ personal well-being and financial security pays dividends for your business.

Here are some options: 

1. Purchase paid family leave insurance through a private insurer, and split premiums with employees.

2. Sign up for a paid disability insurance plan for your employees, and split premiums.

3. Double or triple the amount of paid time off you currently offer, and let employees use it for a variety of reasons.

4. Match the state’s unpaid leave allotments: give employees up to six weeks of paid parental leave, two weeks of paid caregiving leave, and two weeks of paid personal medical leave.

5. Give employees at least 10 paid sick days a year, to be used for multiple purposes.

6. Offer part-time work, reduced-hour workweeks (e.g., 32 hours), more scheduling flexibility, and more shift control for people who need to take intermittent leave. 

Wisconsin employer resources

Bookmark these helpful Gusto guides:

• Hiring in Wisconsin

• Business tax incentives in Wisconsin

• Starting a business in Wisconsin

• Business grants and loans in Wisconsin