Paid Sick Leave Coming to Alaska in 2025: What Employers Need to Know

AK PSL Paid Sick Requirement

Key Details

Effective Date

July 1, 2025

Covered Employers

All employers with employees working in Alaska.

Eligible Employees

All employees working in Alaska are eligible for AK PSL except for the following employees:

• Apprentices,
• Employees in work therapy programs,
• Prisoners,
• Agricultural and fishing industry workers,
• Domestic workers, and babysitters working in a private home,
• Volunteers of nonprofit organizations, including religious, charitable, cemetery or educational organizations,
• Newspaper deliverers,
• Individuals under 18 years of age employed on a part-time basis not more than 30 hours in a week,
• Railroad workers, and
• Other narrow worker exemptions.

Qualifying Reasons

AK PSL may be taken for the following qualifying reasons:

• Absences due to an employee’s or their family member’s mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition, including diagnosis, care, and treatment, including preventative care, and
• Absences necessary due to domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking to allow the employee to obtain for themselves or their family member:
  • medical or psychological attention,
  • services from a victim’s aid organization,
  • relocation or steps to secure an existing home, or
  • legal services, including participation in any investigation or civil/criminal proceeding.

Definition of Family Member

Family member is defined broadly under AK PSL to include an employee’s:

• Spouse, domestic partner, and a person cohabiting with the employee in a conjugal relationship that is not a legal marriage,
• Child, including a stepchild, foster child, adoptive child, or person to whom an employee stands in loco parentis,
• Parent, including a foster parent, adoptive parent, legal guardian, or a person who stood in loco parentis when the employee was a minor child
• Sibling, grandparent, aunt or uncle,
• Parent or sibling of the employee’s spouse, or
• Any other individual related by blood or whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship.

Accrual & Use Limits

Employers with 15 or more employees: One hour of AK PSL for every 30 hours worked up to 56 hours.

Employers with 15 or more employees: One hour of AK PSL for every 30 hours worked up to 40 hours.

NOTE: Overtime-exempt employees (under the Fair Labor Standards Act) are assumed to work 40 hours per work week for AK PSL accrual purposes, unless their normal workweek is less than 40 hours. In that case, AK PSL accrues based upon an employee’s normal workweek schedule.

Increments of Use

AK PSL may be used hourly increments or in the smallest increment that an employer’s payroll system uses to account for other absences.

Waiting Period

None – employees may use AK PSL as it is accrued.

Carryover/Frontloading

Unused, accrued AK PSL is carried over to the following year, with no specific carryover limit.

The AK PSL ballot measure does not contain any language permitting frontloading in lieu of accrual and carryover.

Payout Upon Termination

Employers are not required to pay out accrued, unused AK PSL to employees upon termination of employment.

Rehires

If a terminated employee is rehired within six months by the same employer, then previously accrued, unused AK PSL must be reinstated and available for use at the time of rehire.

Notice

Employees must make a good faith effort to provide advance notice of foreseeable leave under AK PSL.

Employees must also make a reasonable effort to schedule use of AK PSL in a manner that does not unduly disrupt the employer’s operations.

Documentation

Employers may require employees to provide reasonable documentation to support an employee’s use of AK PSL of three or more consecutive days.

Reasonable documentation may include, as applicable:

• health care provider notes,
• police reports,
• victim’s aid organization witness advocate written statements,
• court records, or
• an employee’s written, non-notarized statement affirming that their use of AK PSL was for a qualifying reason for domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking purposes.

Employer may not require the documentation to explain the nature of the illness, underlying health needs, or the details of the domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

Additionally, documentation received from employees requesting and using AK PSL must be maintained as confidential medical records.

Current Employer Leave Policies

Employers with existing policies that provide an amount of paid time off that meets or exceeds the AK PSL requirements and covered reasons under the same terms and conditions are not required to provide additional paid time off.

Employers may adopt paid time off policies that are more generous than the AK PSL requirements.

Successor Employers/Transfers

Employees of successor employers must retain and be able to use their AK PSL accrued while employed by the original employer.

Employers who are transferred to a separate division, entity, or location, but remain employed by the same employer, must retain and be able to use their AK PSL accrued at the prior division, entity, or location.

Prohibitions

Employers are prohibited from:

• retaliating against employees for exercising their rights under AK PSL, including requesting or using AK PSL time.
• requiring an employee to search for or find a replacement worker to cover their hours while using AK PSL.
• counting AK PSL absences against employees that may result in retaliation, or any other adverse employment action.

Employers who violate AK PSL requirements may be liable for an employee’s lost wages or damages.

Collective Bargaining Agreements

AK PSL requirements will not apply to employees covered by a bona fide collective bargaining agreement (CBA) if the requirements are expressly waived in the CBA in clear and unambiguous terms.

An employer signatory to a multiemployer CBA may comply with AK PSL requirements by making contributions to a multiemployer paid sick leave fund based on the hours each employee accrues under AK PSL while working under the multiemployer CBA, if the fund enables employees to collect paid sick leave from the fund based on hours they have worked under the multiemployer CBA and for qualifying reasons.

Required Notice

Employers must provide a written notice to employees detailing their rights and protections under AK PSL law upon hire or within 30 days of July 1, 2025, whichever is later.