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

NE PSL Paid Sick Requirement

Key Details

Effective Date

October 1, 2025

Covered Employers

All employers with employees working in Nebraska, except for:

• the federal government, and
• the state government, including state agencies, departments, and political subdivisions.

Eligible Employees

All employees, including full-time, part-time, and temporary employees, working in Nebraska for at least 80 hours in a calendar year are eligible for NE PSL except for railroad workers.

Qualifying Reasons

NE 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 medical diagnosis, care and treatment, and preventive care,
• Absences due to attending a meeting at a child’s school or place of care related to the child’s mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition, and
• Absences 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 NE PSL to include an employee’s:

• A person to whom the employee is legally married under the laws of any state,
• Child, including a stepchild, foster child, adopted child, legal ward, or a child to whom an employee stands in loco parentis,
• Parent, including parent of employee’s spouse, a foster parent, adoptive parent, legal guardian, or a person who stood in loco parentis when the employee or employee’s spouse was a minor child,
• Sibling, grandparent, grandchild of the employee or employee’s spouse,
• Any other individual related by blood to the employee or whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship.

Accrual & Use Limits

Employers with 20 or more employees: One hour of NE PSL for every 30 hours worked up to 56 hours.

Employers with 20 or more employees: One hour of NE PSL for every 30 hours worked up to 40 hours.

For NE PSL purposes, an employer will employ 20 or more employees if the employer maintained 20 or more employees on its payroll in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.

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

An employer, at its discretion, may loan NE PSL time to an employee in advance of accrual.

Increments of Use

NE PSL may be used in 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 NE PSL as it is accrued.

Carryover/Frontloading

Unused, accrued NE PSL must be carried over to the following year with no specific carryover amount limits.

Employers may pay out unused, accrued NE PSL at the end of the year as an alternative to carryover requirements. In this instance, employers must frontload the full amount of annual NE PSL time at the beginning of the following year and it must be available for immediate use.

Frontloading of NE PSL is generally permitted.

Rate of Pay

When using their NE PSL time, employees must be paid their regular hourly rate of pay with the same benefits, including health care benefits, that they receive when working, which cannot be less than the state minimum wage.

Payout Upon Termination

The law is silent with respect to employer requirements to pay out accrued, unused NE PSL to employees upon termination of employment.

Rehires

If a terminated employee is rehired within 12 months by the same employer, then previously accrued, unused NE PSL must be reinstated and available for use at the time of rehire.

Transfers

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 NE PSL accrued at the prior division, entity, or location.

Notice

NE PSL must be provided upon the oral request of an employee and, when possible, include the expected duration of the absence.

Employers that require employees to provide notice of their need to use NE PSL must provide a written policy detailing procedures for employees to provide notice.

Employers may not require an employee to search for or find a replacement worker to cover their hours while using NE PSL.

Documentation

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

Reasonable documentation may include:

• health care provider documentation, or
• an employee’s written statement confirming their use of NE PSL was for a qualifying reason.

Documentation received from employees requesting and using NE PSL must be maintained on a separate form and in a separate file from other personnel information, and treated 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 NE 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 NE PSL requirements.

Multiemployer Collective Bargaining Agreements

An employer signatory to a multiemployer collective bargaining agreement (CBA) may comply with NE PSL requirements by making contributions to a multiemployer paid sick leave fund based on the hours each employee accrues under NE 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 & Posting

Employers must provide a written notice to employees detailing their rights and protections under NE PSL law upon hire or by September 15, 2025, whichever is later.

Employers must also display a poster containing the same information as the written notice above, and must be conspicuously posted in an accessible worksite location. For remote employers, the posting must be provided via electronical communication.

The written notice and poster must be provided in English and in any language that is the first language spoken by at least 5% of the employer’s workforce.

The Nebraska Department of Labor is expected to publish model written notices and posters before September 15, 2025.

Paycheck Requirements

Employee paychecks must reflect the following:

• the amount of NE PSL time available to the employee,
• the amount of NE PSL time taken by the employee to date in the year, and
• the amount of pay the employee has received as NE PSL.

Prohibitions

Employers are prohibited from:

• taking retaliatory personnel action against employees for exercising their rights under NE PSL, including requesting or using NE PSL time.
  • retaliatory personnel action includes any threat, discharge, suspension, demotion, reduction of hours or pay, or other adverse employment action.
• counting NE PSL absences against employees that may lead to or result in retaliatory personnel action.

Enforcement

NE PSL will be implemented and enforced by the Nebraska Department of Labor (NE DOL).

Employees may file a complaint with the NE DOL. alleging NE PSL violations. Employers found to have violated NE PSL requirements may be liable for administrative penalties.

Employees also may file civil lawsuits against their employers within four years of alleged NE PSL violations.