Minnesota Adopts Paid Sick and Safe Time Rules

On June 29, 2026, the Department of Labor & Industry (DLI) finalized rules implementing the Minnesota Earned Sick and Safe Time Law, effective July 6, 2026 (shortly afterwards, DLI published FAQs specific to the rules). From an employer’s perspective, the rules are a mixed bag. Below we discuss the more notable rules that will impact policies, practices, and procedures of employers covered by Minnesota’s law.

No “Forced” Use: Under the rules, employers cannot require employees to use leave. However, the rules also provide that if an employee requests not to use leave but will be absent for a covered reason under the law, their absence is not protected by the law (though another law might protect the absence).

Leave Use Can Be a Factor in Incentive Programs: Under Minnesota’s statute, “[i]t shall be unlawful for an employer’s absence control policy or attendance point system to count earned sick and safe time taken [] as an absence that may lead to or result in retaliation or any other adverse action.” However, the rules distinguish “negative” from “positive” programs by stating, “[i]f a bonus, reward, or other incentive is based on the achievement of a specified goal such as hours worked, products sold, or perfect attendance and the employee has not met that goal to use of earned sick and safe time, then the incentive may be denied, unless otherwise paid to employees on any other leave status.”

Documentation Requests & Responses: Under the statute, employers can require employees to supply reasonable documentation to support an absence of three or more consecutive scheduled workdays. Without establishing a hard deadline by when employees must provide such documentation, the rules require that employees be given a “reasonable” amount of time. Additionally, they require that any documentation requirement be clearly communicated to employees. Notably, the rules create an exception that allows employers to seek documentation earlier if there is a pattern or clear instance of suspected misuse. Examples include, but are not limited to: 1) an employee repeatedly using leave before or after a scheduled day off, vacation, or holiday; 2) an employee repeatedly using less than 30 minutes of leave at the beginning or end of a shift; 3) an employee using leave on a day when a previous request to take other leave on that day was denied; and 4) documentation or other evidence that conflicts with an employee’s claimed use of leave. The rules also provide that, if an employee fails to provide the (validly) requested documentation, the absence is not protected. 

Employers with More Generous Policies: Employers that offer more paid sick and safe time than the law requires, or different types of paid leave, were taken aback when the statute was amended to extend some of its statutory requirements and protections to these “other” voluntary paid leave benefits, even if they were not used to comply with the law. Although employers were hoping that the state labor department might, via regulation, reconcile this requirement with a statement in the law (in the same section) that says the law does not discourage employers from adopting or retaining paid leave policies that exceed the law’s minimum standards, that relief did not materialize. The state labor department clarified only that statutory paid family-medical leave benefits under a separate Minnesota law qualify as a “salary continuation benefit” that is not subject to the “more generous policy” requirement.

Determining Who Is a Covered Employee: To be covered under the law, an employee must be anticipated to work at least 80 hours in Minnesota in a year. The rules clarify that employers must make a good faith determination whether an individual will work that many hours, which requires, at a minimum, evaluating an employee’s work schedule and location of hours worked “in a manner that is not knowingly false or in reckless disregard of the truth.” 

Designating & Changing a Year: The statute defines a “year” as a regular and consecutive 12-month period determined by an employer that is clearly communicated to each employee. Under the rules, if an employer does not designate and communicate its year, the year will be a calendar year. To change a year’s start and end dates, the rules require notice before the change occurs and require that a change not negatively impact an employee’s ability to accrue leave.

When Accrual Is Calculated, How Leave Accrues & Advances on Accrual: All similar sick leave laws in the United States talk about the rate of accrual, but few discuss when the accrual calculation must occur, which determines when leave is “accrued” and therefore available to use. Minnesota’s rules address this issue and require that leave accrued based on hours worked during a pay period must be credited (considered “accrued”) no later than the payday for that pay period. Additionally, the rules clarify that leave accrues in whole-hour units rather than fractionally. If, for example, an employee works 80 hours in a bi-weekly pay period, the rules allow for accrual of two hours, rather than 2.67 hours, of leave. For employers complying with the law using an accrual, rather than frontloading, system, the statute allows employers to advance leave hours based on an employee’s projected hours worked for the remainder of the year, but if an employer undercalculates how much the employee would work, it must provide additional leave to make up the difference. The rules establish a timeframe for this “top up” of 15 calendar days of the employee’s actual work hours exceeding their anticipated work hours in the year.

Switching from Accrual to Frontloading: Some employers might find compliance via frontloading administratively easier than accrual. If they want to switch from an accrual to frontloading setup, the rules require that written notice be given to employees and that the transition cannot take effect until the beginning of the next benefit year. Additionally, the rules provide that, if timely notice is not given, the accrual method remains in effect unless the employee agrees to frontloading.

Using Leave During Indeterminate-Length Shifts: Some employees work shifts without defined start and stop times. If an employee is scheduled, but needs to use leave, for such a shift, the rules give employers three different options for how to determine how many leave hours the employee will use: 1) hours worked by a replacement worker; 2) hours worked by the employee in the most recent similar shift; or 3) the most hours a similarly situated employee was scheduled to work for such a shift. If the employee works only part of an indeterminate-length shift, then needs to use leave, employers must use one of these options then subtract the number of hours worked by the employee during the shift to determine how much leave to debit from an employee’s leave bank.

A Rule that Did NOT Make the Cut: Originally, DLI proposed a rule concerning how employees who work inside and outside Minnesota would accrue leave, with different standards applying depending on where they performed the majority of their work in a year. However, it was determined that the proposal exceeded the agency’s authority, so it was removed from the final rules.

Next Steps: Employers should determine whether the rules affect their paid sick and safe time (or other paid leave) policies, procedures, and practices, and respond accordingly. Because it is possible more information about the new rules might appear online via FAQs, employers should monitor Minnesota DLI’s earned sick and safe time webpage. Given the rules contain some employer-friendly interpretations of the law, now might be an appropriate time to revisit any previous decisions to not roll out, pause, or revise certain incentive programs. While some of the rules, like those about misuse, might be encouraging to employers, it would still be prudent to consult with knowledgeable counsel to ensure that any new practices remain “in bounds” and applied in both a legal and practical manner.