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This guide provides essential information about Missouri’s Earned Paid Sick Time (EPST) and how it applies to your business beginning May 1, 2025. The law applies to any employer with at least one employee in Missouri, including full-time, part-time, and temporary workers, with some limitations.
Please be aware that while there are ongoing legislative efforts to repeal the law, any repeal would not be effective until August 28, 2025, at the earliest. Therefore, employers should comply with the current law until further notice.
Sick Time Requirements Based on Employer Size:
- Employers with 15 or more employees: 56 hours of paid sick leave per year and a maximum usage cap of 56 hours.
- Employers with 14 or fewer employees: 40 hours of paid sick leave per year and a maximum usage cap of 40 hours.
There are certain employers exempt from this law, such as public employers and retail or service businesses whose annual gross sales are less than $500,000.
Employers have the following options for setting up their sick leave:
- Accrual method: employees accrue sick time at a minimum rate of 1 hour for every 30 hours worked.
- Front load method: employers can provide employees with the total amount of paid sick leave they would earn in a year at the start of the year, rather than having employees accrue it over time based on hours worked.
Regardless of whether employers use the accrual or front-load method, they must allow employees to carry over unused sick time to the next year.
Payout and Carryover: employees can carryover unused sick time into the next year, subject to an 80-hour cap, regardless of the employer size or the method used for granting sick leave. An employer may avoid carryover by paying out unused earned paid sick time at the end of the year. However, the employer must then frontload the employee’s paid sick time at the beginning of the next year, making the full amount available for immediate use.
There are other requirements under the state sick leave law, which you may read more about here. Some of these requirements are also detailed further below. Employers can also read up on general sick leave best practices here.
Employee Eligibility & Use
All employees, with a few exceptions, are entitled to paid sick leave. Employees may use earned sick time for themselves or a family member for any of the following reasons:
- mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition;
- medical care, a medical diagnosis, or treatment, as well as receiving preventative medical care services;
- place of employment has been ordered closed by a public official due to a public health emergency;
- need to care for a child whose school district has been ordered closed by a public official due to a public health emergency; and
- to attend to matters relating to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
You should review the law and resources at the bottom of this page to understand additional requirements under the Missouri law, such as increments of use, how hours are determined for exempt and salaried employees, how pay is calculated, who is a “family member,” what type of notice and documentation an employer may require, pay statement requirements, and how sick time is handled upon termination of employment.
Interaction with an Employer’s Existing Policies
An employer’s paid time off (PTO) plan or other type of paid leave (including sick or vacation time) can satisfy this law if, at a minimum, the plan meets the law’s requirements (e.g., accrual, carryover, and use requirements of the sick leave, etc.). Additionally, nothing prohibits an employer from providing more generous leave policies than the minimum required by the law.
Notice Requirements
Employers must provide written notice to each employee at the time of hiring or by April 15, 2025, whichever is later, that includes, but is not limited to:
- employees are entitled to accrue EPST at the rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked and may use EPST subject to the limits and terms of the law;
- employers cannot take retaliatory action against employees who request or use EPST;
- employees have the right to bring a civil action in certain circumstances; and
- contact information for the Department of Labor & Industrial Relations.
Additionally, employers are required to conspicuously display a poster at their place of business, in a place that is accessible to employees, that contains the information listed above.
If you set up a separate sick leave policy in Justworks as a PEO customer, we will automatically add this balance information to employees' paystubs, and it is available to your employees at any time when they log into the Justworks platform.
Limitations on Paid Sick Leave
Employees in Missouri begin accruing sick leave on May 1, 2025, or on their first day of work, and may be allowed to use earned sick time as it is accrued.
An employer is not required to pay out accrued, unused paid sick time when an employee separates from employment with the employer.
Keep in mind that if a separated employee is rehired within nine months of separation, the employer must reinstate any previously unused earned sick time for immediate use and accrue additional earned sick time at the rehire.
Resources & Notes
- Help Center: Sick and Safe Leave
- Missouri Dept. of Labor and Industrial Relations: Earned Paid Sick Time
- Mineral: Missouri Sick Leave*
*Be sure you’re logged into your Justworks account with administrative permissions to access Mineral.
Disclaimer
This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, legal or tax advice. If you have any legal or tax questions regarding this content or related issues, then you should consult with your professional legal or tax advisor.