Up to 12 paid weeks off to care for a new baby or a sick relative

If you work for a private employer in New York, you’re generally eligible after 26 consecutive weeks if you work 20 or more hours a week, or after 175 workdays if you work fewer. You can take up to 12 weeks of paid leave a year to bond with a new, adopted, or foster child; care for a seriously ill family member; or handle needs when a family member is deployed abroad on active military duty. You get 67% of your average weekly pay, up to a cap of $1,228.53 a week in 2026, and your job is protected while you’re out. To claim it, tell your employer and file forms with its Paid Family Leave insurance carrier.

The program is designed to be funded through payroll deductions: employers may collect 0.432% of wages in 2026, up to $411.91 a year. They can choose to cover the premium instead because employee deductions are allowed but not required.

Paid family leave sat stuck in Albany for more than a decade. Assemblymember Catherine Nolan carried the bill, and the Assembly passed it repeatedly. Sen. Joseph Addabbo sponsored it in the Senate for four years, and Republican Sen. Roy McDonald introduced a version in 2012, but the Republican-led Senate didn’t pass one. In 2016, Gov. Andrew Cuomo made a 12-week plan a priority, and the budget that carried it passed the Senate 61–1. The final program pays 67% of wages, as the Nolan-Addabbo bill proposed, rather than the 50% Cuomo had sought. Cuomo signed it on April 4, 2016, and benefits began January 1, 2018.