New York City Amends Sick Time Law to Require New Unpaid Leave and Permit New Covered Uses

On October 25, 2025, New York City amended its Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA), radically expanding the law and the benefits it provides to employees. Importantly, effective February 22, 2026:

• Employers must provide 32 hours of unpaid safe and sick time to covered employees, in addition to the paid sick and safe time that was already provided by the statute; and
• The covered uses of safe and sick time will expand to reach new employee circumstances.

The amended ESSTA requires employers to make available the additional 32 hours of unpaid safe/sick time immediately at hire, as well as to “frontload” it at the start of each new benefit year. The unpaid safe/sick time may be used immediately by employees upon receipt. Further, under the amended ESSTA, if an employee communicates to their employer that they need time off for a purpose covered by safe/sick time, the employer must provide paid safe/sick time unless the employee has no such time available or the employee specifically requests to use other leave in lieu of paid safe/sick time. 

Unlike paid sick time, under the amended ESSTA, unused unpaid safe/sick time need not be carried over from one benefit year to the next. As is the case now with paid safe/sick time, the amended ESSTA requires the unpaid safe/sick time to be reported on pay statements or on another form of written documentation that is provided to the employee each pay period.

The new 32-hour unpaid safe/sick time benefit is designed to align with the City’s Temporary Schedule Change Act (TSCA), which has been simultaneously restructured. Under the amended TSCA, employees no longer have two guaranteed TSCA days each benefit year, but still have the right to request other kinds of temporary schedule changes for personal events. The employer need not agree to a requested schedule change, but must respond to the employee’s request as soon as practicable. The employer may propose an alternative temporary change, but the employee is not required to accept the alternative. 

Beyond the addition of the 32-hours of unpaid safe/sick time, the amended ESSTA expands covered uses of safe and sick time. Specifically, as of February 22, 2026, an employee will be able to use paid and unpaid safe/sick leave for the following reasons (in addition to pre-existing “sick” time reasons like illness, injuries, or health conditions, or “safe” time reasons like obtaining victims’ services):

• When the employee is a caregiver for a minor child or care recipient, in order to provide care to the minor child or care recipient.
• To initiate, attend or prepare for a legal proceeding or hearing related to subsistence benefits or housing to which the employee, a covered relation, or the employee’s care recipient is a party, or to take actions necessary to apply for, maintain, or restore subsistence benefits or shelter for the employee, covered relation, or care recipient.
• When the employee or the employee’s family member has been the victim of workplace violence.
• When the employee’s place of business, or child’s school or childcare provider, has been closed by order of a public official due to a public disaster.
• When a child’s school or childcare provider restricts in-person operations due to a public health emergency or disaster.
• When directed by a public official to remain indoors or avoid travel during a public disaster that prevents the employee from reporting to the work location.

This expansion of the ESSTA itself comes on the heels of the City’s amendment to the ESSTA regulations that requires employers to provide 20 hours of paid prenatal leave to eligible employees. Consequently, the amended ESSTA now formally incorporates employer-paid prenatal leave into City law, whereas before, paid prenatal leave existed only in City regulations and guidance.

New York City employers should review their implementation plans and employee-facing policies regarding both paid prenatal leave and the forthcoming unpaid safe and sick time obligation, and consult with counsel and payroll administrators on how to navigate this growing and complex area of employee leave entitlements.