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

MO PSL Paid Sick Requirement

Key Details

Effective Date

May 1, 2025

Covered Employers

All private-sector employers with at least one employee working in Missouri.

Public sector employees at the federal, state, county or local level (including school districts and public higher education institutions) are exempt from MO PSL.

Eligible Employees

All employees, including part-time and temporary employees, working in Missouri except for the following employees:

• Nonemployees or volunteers for an educational, charitable, religious or nonprofit organization;
• Foster parents;
• Employees of youth resident or day camps who work less than four months per year;
• Employees of educational conference centers operated by an educational, charitable, or not-for-profit organization;
• Employees who work for educational organizations in exchange for tuition, housing, or fees;
• Occasional workers in a private residence who work for no more than six hours on each occasion;
• Casual babysitters;
• Casual or intermittent employment as a golf caddy, newsboy, or in a similar occupation;
• Railroad workers;
• Retail service employees of a business whose annual gross sales is less than $500,000;
• Incarcerated criminal offenders; and
• Employees of newspapers with a circulation of less than 4,000.

Qualifying Reasons

MO 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 preventive care)
• Absences due to domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking of the employee or the employee's family member.
• Absence due to a public health emergency closure of an employee’s place of business or school/daycare of employee’s child, or exposure to a communicable disease.

Definition of Family Member

Family member is defined broadly under MO PSL to include a spouse, domestic partner, children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, siblings, as well as legal guardians and children for whom the employee stands (or stood) in loco parentis.

Additionally, family member also includes:

• a person with whom the employee is in a continuing social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature, and
• a person for whom the employee is responsible for providing or arranging health or safety-related care.

Accrual & Use Limits

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

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

NOTE: An employers, at its discretion, may loan MO PSL time to an employee in advance of accrual.

Increments of Use

MO 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 MO PSL as it is accrued.

Carryover/Frontloading

Up to 80 hours of unused, accrued MO PSL may be carried over to the following year.

As an alternative to carryover amounts, employers may pay out unused, accrued MO PSL at the end of the year as long as they provide employees with the full amount of required MO PSL for immediate use at the beginning of the following year.

Payout Upon Termination

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

Rehires

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

Notice

An employer may require employees to provide notice of their need to use MO PSL when the need is not foreseeable. In this instance, employers must provide a written policy detailing procedures for employees to provide notice.

Employers are prohibited from requiring an employee to search for or find a replacement worker as a condition of an employee using MO PSL.

Documentation

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

Reasonable documentation may include, as applicable:

• health care provider notes,
• police reports,
• victim service provider written statement,
• court records, or
• an employee’s written statement confirming that their use of MO PSL is for a qualifying reason.

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 MO PSL must be maintained confidentially by employers and placed in a separate file from an employee’s personnel file.

Records Retention

Employers must retain records documenting hours worked and MO PSL time taken by employees for three years.

Current Employer Leave Policies

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

NOTE: Employers are free to adopt paid time off policies that are more generous than the MO PSL requirements.

Successor Employers/Transfers

Employees of successor employers must retain and be able to use their MO 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 MO PSL accrued at the prior division, entity, or location.

Collective Bargaining Agreements

Employees covered under a valid collective bargaining agreement in effect on November 5, 2024 are exempt from MO PSL requirements until the agreement’s expiration date. MO PSL requirements will apply once the agreement is renewed, extended, amended, or modified after November 5, 2024.

Retaliation Prohibited

Employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees for exercising their rights under MO PSL, including requesting or using MO PSL time.

Employers are also prohibited from counting MO PSL absences against employees that may result in discipline, discharge, demotion, suspension, or any other adverse employment action.

Enforcement

Employees may file complaints with the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations against their employers for alleged violations of MO PSL.

Employees also may file civil suits against their employers within three years for alleged MO PSL violations.

Employers who fail to comply with MO PSL requirements may be subject to administrative actions, fines, and even potential criminal liability for willful violations.

Required Notice & Posting

Employers must provide a written notice detailing an employee’s rights and protections under MO PSL law by April 15, 2025, or within 14 days of an employee’s date of hire, whichever is later. This written notice must be on a single piece of paper, at least 8.5 X 11, in no less than 14-point font.

Employers must also display a poster containing the same information as the written notice above by April 15, 2025. The poster must be conspicuously posted in a place accessible to employees.

The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations is expected to publish model notices and posters in advance of this April 15, 2025 deadline.