What it means for you
Since Jan. 1, 2025, every private employer in New York, whatever its size, must give pregnant employees up to 20 hours of paid leave a year for prenatal appointments, on top of regular sick leave. New York was the first state to require it.
Who benefits: Pregnant private-sector employees in New York, full-time and part-time, at employers of every size.
If you’re pregnant and work for a private employer in New York, you can take up to 20 hours of paid time off a year for prenatal care. It doesn’t matter how big your employer is or whether you work full time or part time. The hours are separate from your regular paid sick leave, so you don’t have to use up sick days for checkups.
You can use the leave in hourly blocks for appointments related to your pregnancy, including fertility treatment such as IVF and end-of-pregnancy care. Postpartum visits aren’t covered, and the leave is only for the person receiving the care, not a spouse or partner. Unused hours don’t roll over to the next year.
Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed the benefit in her 2024 State of the State. It was added to New York’s paid sick leave law in the state budget she signed on April 20, 2024, and took effect on January 1, 2025. Employment lawyers noted it was the first state law in the country to require paid leave for prenatal care. The budget bill that carried it passed the Senate 44–15, with every Democrat present and four Republicans voting yes.
Health careWork and wages
Sources
- S8305C (2024), public protection and general government budget billNew York State Senate
- Ahead of January 1, 2025 start date for first-in-the-nation paid prenatal leave, Governor Hochul reminds New Yorkers of new benefitOffice of the Governor of New York, December 2, 2024
- Paid Prenatal Leave Information for EmployeesNew York State
- New York Department of Labor issues guidance regarding paid prenatal leave taking effect January 1Crowell & Moring
- New York leads the way with new paid prenatal leaveFordHarrison
How we checked this
Drafted by Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic) on November 11, 2026. Checked against its sources by GPT-5.6-sol (OpenAI) on November 11, 2026, which corrected it. Confirmed the current statute, benefit details, governor’s proposal, enactment date, and both official roll calls. The law remains in effect; I updated the status check date to today.
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