Earned paid leave — employer coverage threshold
An employer that employs more than 10 employees in the usual and regular course of business for more than 120 days in any calendar year must permit each employee to earn paid leave under Maine law. Employment in a seasonal industry as defined in 26 M.R.S. § 1251 is excluded from the statute's definition of employment.
Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637
Earned paid leave — accrual rate and annual cap
An employee is entitled to earn one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked, up to 40 hours in one year of employment. Accrual begins at the start of employment, but the employer is not required to permit use of the leave before the employee has been employed by that employer for 120 days during a one-year period.
Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637(3)
Earned paid leave — permissible uses
Maine law imposes no restriction on the purposes for which an employee may use accrued earned paid leave. The statute, 26 M.R.S. § 637, contains no requirement that leave be used only for illness, family care, or other specified reasons. An employee may use earned leave for any purpose, distinguishing Maine's regime from the narrower "earned sick time" mandates adopted in other states.
The only mention of specific reasons in the statute appears in the notice provision, 26 M.R.S. § 637(5). That subsection states: "Absent an emergency, illness or other sudden necessity for taking earned leave, an employee shall give reasonable notice to the employee's supervisor of the employee's intent to use earned leave." The terms "emergency, illness or other sudden necessity" function solely as exceptions to the advance-notice requirement — not as a catalog of permissible uses. When such circumstances are absent, the employee must give reasonable notice, and use of leave must be scheduled to prevent undue hardship on the employer as reasonably determined by the employer. The statute does not authorize an employer to deny leave based on the employee's stated reason for using it.
Because the law does not condition the right to use earned paid leave on the employee's purpose, employers may not require employees to disclose the reason for taking leave as a condition of approval. An employee may use accrued hours for vacation, personal errands, rest, or any other purpose without justification. This unrestricted-use model aligns earned paid leave more closely with traditional paid time off (PTO) than with health- and family-focused paid sick leave mandates in jurisdictions such as California, New York, or Massachusetts.
The law became effective January 1, 2021 under P.L. 2019, c. 156, § 4.
Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637