Paid Sick Leave: Alaska

Paid Sick Leave requirements for other states

Federal law and guidance on this subject should be reviewed together with this section.

Author: Michelle Barrett Falconer and Susie Wine, Littler

Summary

  • An eligible employee is entitled to paid sick and safe leave for certain qualifying reasons, beginning July 1, 2025. See Paid Sick Leave.
  • Ensure that practices and policies comply with applicable paid sick leave requirements. See Key Compliance Steps.

Beginning July 1, 2025, a covered employer must provide paid sick and safe leave to eligible employees. An employer must comply with notice requirements beginning June 1, 2025. See Future Developments.

Key Compliance Steps

Ensure that practices and policies comply with applicable paid sick leave requirements:

  • Review and revise, if necessary, the employer's paid sick leave or paid time off (PTO) policy to ensure it meets the law's requirements and the employer's needs (e.g., choosing an accrual policy versus a frontloading policy);
  • Review crime victim leave, domestic violence leave and accommodation, and other related policies and revise if there is a conflict with the paid sick leave law;
  • If there is a posting requirement, check that the poster is displayed in a conspicuous location(s) that is accessible to all employees, is up-to-date and has not been covered up, damaged or defaced;
  • If there is a written notice requirement, check that the notice is being distributed to new and current employees in the required time frame;
  • Check that employees are receiving timely notice of any changes to the required poster/notice;
  • Audit timekeeping, payroll and benefits systems to ensure they properly calculate, track and detail accrued and used paid sick leave. If a third-party payroll processor is used, ensure it is complying with the law's requirements;
  • Train (or retrain) supervisory and managerial employees, as well as HR and payroll, on the law's requirements;
  • Provide other information to employees to show the employer's support, such as local community resources for domestic violence victims;
  • Remain alert to the various types of leave available and always provide the employee with the greatest benefit required; and
  • Track employees' leaves of absence, including:
    • The date the leave begins;
    • The type of leave; and
    • The expected return date.

Future Developments

Voters Approve Paid Sick Leave

Beginning July 1, 2025, Alaska employers must provide paid sick and safe leave to eligible employees. The amount of leave varies according to the employer's size. Alaska Ballot Measure 1.

Employer Coverage

All employers in Alaska must provide paid sick leave. An employer with 15 or more employees must provide up to 56 hours of paid sick leave per year, while an employer with fewer than 15 employees must provide up to 40 hours per year. +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.066(1-2).

Employee Eligibility

The following employees are not entitled to paid sick leave:

  • Employees who are covered by a bona fide collective bargaining agreement that expressly waives the law's requirements in clear and unambiguous terms;
  • Employees who are exempt from the state minimum wage (except executive, administrative and professional employees; outside or commissioned salespersons; and computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers and other similarly skilled workers are entitled to paid sick leave);
  • Employees who receive subminimum wages under state law (e.g., student learners, apprentices, residential summer camp employees and residential substance abuse treatment participants in work therapy);
  • Prison inmates; and
  • Employees who are subject to the federal Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act.

+Alaska Stat. § 23.10.068(d); +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.069.

Qualifying Reasons for Leave

An employee may use paid sick leave for any of the following reasons:

  • The employee's or a family member's mental or physical illness, injury or health condition; need for medical diagnosis, care or treatment; or need for preventative medical care; and
  • The employee or a family member is a victim or domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking, and needs to:
    • Obtain medical or psychological attention;
    • Obtain services from a victim's aid organization;
    • Relocate or take steps to secure an existing home; or
    • Obtain legal services, including participating in any investigation or civil or criminal proceeding.

A family member means:

  • A spouse, a domestic partner or another person cohabiting with the employee in a conjugal relationship that is not a legal marriage;
  • A child (including an adopted, foster or stepchild; a legal ward; and a person to whom the employee stands in loco parentis);
  • A parent (including an adoptive or foster parent; a legal guardian; a person who stood in loco parentis when the employee was a minor; and a spouse's parent);
  • A grandparent;
  • A sibling (including a spouse's sibling);
  • A parent's sibling; and
  • Any other individual related by blood or whose close association is the equivalent of a family relationship.

+Alaska Stat. § 23.10.067(1).

Accrual, Use and Carryover of Leave

Accrual

Employees accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked beginning July 1, 2025, or when employment begins, whichever is later. The maximum amount of sick leave that an employee may accrue in a year depends on the employer's size (although an employer may select a higher limit):

  • Fewer than 15 employees: 40 hours; and
  • 15 or more employees: 56 hours.

Overtime-exempt employees are presumed to work 40 hours in each workweek for accrual purposes. If an employee's normal workweek is fewer than 40 hours, then accrual is based on that normal workweek.

+Alaska Stat. § 23.10.066(1, 2, 3, 5).

Use

Employees may use paid sick leave as it is accrued. The maximum amount of sick leave that an employee may use in a year is capped at 40 or 56 hours, depending on the employer's size (although an employer may select a higher limit). +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.066(1, 2, 5).

Sick leave may be used in the smaller of hourly increments or the smallest increment that the employer's payroll system uses to account for absences or use of other time. +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.067(4).

An employer may not condition the use of paid sick leave on an employee searching for or finding a replacement worker to cover the hours during which the employee uses paid sick leave. +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.067(5).

Carryover

An employee may carry over unused accrued paid sick leave to the following year, but an employer may limit use to 40 or 56 hours per year (depending on the employer's size). +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.066(4).

Changes in Employment

An employer is not required to pay out unused paid sick leave upon an employee's termination, resignation, retirement or other separation from employment, unless otherwise required by law. +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.068(a).

If an employee is rehired within six months of the separation, previously accrued but unused sick leave must be immediately reinstated.

An employee who is transferred to a separate entity or location, but remains employed by the same employer, is entitled to all paid sick leave accrued at the prior entity or location.

When one employer succeeds or takes the place of another, the employees of the original employer who remain employed by the successor employer are entitled to all accrued and unused paid sick leave.

+Alaska Stat. § 23.10.066(7).

Employee Notice Requirements

If the need to use paid sick leave is foreseeable (e.g., scheduled doctor's visit or regularly occurring medical treatment), the employee must make a good-faith effort to provide advance notice to the employer and make a reasonable effort to schedule the leave in a manner that does not unduly disrupt the employer's operations. +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.067(2).

Employee Documentation Requirements

For absences of more than three consecutive workdays, an employer may require reasonable documentation that sick leave was used for a qualifying reason.

Documentation signed by a health care professional indicating that paid sick leave is or was necessary is considered reasonable. However, an employer may not require that the documentation explain the nature or details of the illness or underlying health needs.

For absences due to domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking, reasonable documentation includes:

  • A police report;
  • A written statement from a witness advocate affirming services from a victim's aid organization;
  • A court document indicating relevant legal action; or
  • An employee's written, non-notarized statement affirming that paid sick leave was taken for a qualifying reason related to domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.

+Alaska Stat. § 23.10.067(3).

Employer Notice and Posting Requirements

Employers must give written notice to employees by June 1, 2025, or when employment begins, whichever is later. The notice must include the following information:

  • Beginning July 1, 2025, employees are entitled to paid sick leave;
  • The amount of paid sick leave;
  • The terms of use guaranteed by law; and
  • Retaliation against employees who request or use paid sick leave is prohibited.

+Alaska Stat. § 23.10.068(c).

Confidentiality

Unless otherwise required by law, an employer may not require disclosure of the details of an employee's or their family member's health or safety information as a condition of providing paid sick leave, and must treat any health or safety information as confidential medical records. +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.067(3).

Prohibited Actions

The law prohibits an employer from:

  • Interfering with, restraining or denying the exercise of, or attempt to exercise, the right to paid sick leave;
  • Retaliating, discriminating or taking any other adverse action against an employee who utilizes or attempts to utilize their paid sick leave; and
  • Using an absence control policy that counts paid sick leave as an absence that may lead to or result in retaliation or any other adverse action.

+Alaska Stat. § 23.10.067(5).

Enforcement and Penalties

An employer that violates the law may be liable for an employee's lost wages or damages. +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.068(b).

Interaction With Other Laws and Policies

An employer with a paid leave or paid time off policy that makes available a sufficient amount of paid leave to meet the law's requirements, which may be used for the same reasons and under the same conditions as paid sick leave under the law, is not required to provide additional paid sick leave. +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.066(6).

The rights and remedies under the law may not be waived by any agreement, policy, form or condition of employment, except a bona fide collective bargaining agreement that expressly waives the law's requirements in clear and unambiguous terms.  +Alaska Stat. § 23.10.068(d).

There are no other developments to report at this time. Continue to check HR & Compliance Center regularly for the latest information on this and other topics.

Additional Resources

Paid Sick Leave by State and Municipality

Leave Laws by State and Municipality