Maine — Leave Laws

An employer that employs more than 10 employees in the usual and regular course of business for more than 120 days in any calendar year must permit each employee to earn paid leave under Maine law. Employment in a seasonal industry as defined in 26 M.R.S. § 1251 is excluded from the statute's definition of employment.

Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637

Current rule (through September 23, 2025): Under Maine law, employees accrue one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hours in a year of employment. Accrual begins at the start of employment, but employers are not required to permit use of accrued leave until the employee has completed 120 days of employment in a one-year period. Employers may limit the annual accrual to 40 hours, and any carryover or year-end treatment was previously subject to employer policy and limited by this cap.

Amendment effective September 24, 2025 (P.L. 2025, c. 438): Effective September 24, 2025, 26 M.R.S. § 637(3) was amended to clarify that employers must allow employees to carry over up to 40 hours of unused earned paid leave from one year of employment to the next. The amendment explicitly states that these carried-over hours do not reduce the amount of paid leave an employee is entitled to earn in the new employment year: employees may still accrue up to 40 new hours per year by working the required hours. This changes the practical maximum balance from 40 hours (prior law) to 80 hours (if an employee both carries forward 40 hours and accrues a fresh 40 hours in the new year).

• Annual accrual entitlement remains: Employees are entitled to accrue up to 40 hours of earned paid leave per year by working 1,600 hours, regardless of whether any leave was carried over from a prior year.
• Carryover does not offset accrual: Up to 40 unused hours may be carried over to the new plan year, and this does not reduce the accrual cap for new hours in that year.
• Effective for all plan years beginning on or after September 24, 2025.

Employers should review leave policies for plan years beginning in late 2025 or 2026 to ensure compliance with the revised accrual and carryover structure, including clear payroll practices allowing for up to 40 carryover hours plus up to 40 new accrued hours.

Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637(3) (as amended by P.L. 2025, c. 438, eff. Sept. 24, 2025) Source: Maine Department of Labor — Earned Paid Leave

Maine law imposes no restriction on the purposes for which an employee may use accrued earned paid leave. The statute, 26 M.R.S. § 637, contains no requirement that leave be used only for illness, family care, or other specified reasons. An employee may use earned leave for any purpose, distinguishing Maine's regime from the narrower "earned sick time" mandates adopted in other states.

The only mention of specific reasons in the statute appears in the notice provision, 26 M.R.S. § 637(5). That subsection states: "Absent an emergency, illness or other sudden necessity for taking earned leave, an employee shall give reasonable notice to the employee's supervisor of the employee's intent to use earned leave." The terms "emergency, illness or other sudden necessity" function solely as exceptions to the advance-notice requirement — not as a catalog of permissible uses. When such circumstances are absent, the employee must give reasonable notice, and use of leave must be scheduled to prevent undue hardship on the employer as reasonably determined by the employer. The statute does not authorize an employer to deny leave based on the employee's stated reason for using it.

Because the law does not condition the right to use earned paid leave on the employee's purpose, employers may not require employees to disclose the reason for taking leave as a condition of approval. An employee may use accrued hours for vacation, personal errands, rest, or any other purpose without justification. This unrestricted-use model aligns earned paid leave more closely with traditional paid time off (PTO) than with health- and family-focused paid sick leave mandates in jurisdictions such as California, New York, or Massachusetts.

The law became effective January 1, 2021 under P.L. 2019, c. 156, § 4.

Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637

Effective September 24, 2025, Maine amended its earned paid leave law to require employers to allow employees to carry over up to 40 hours of unused earned paid leave from one year of employment to the next. Critically, the amendment specifies that the unused hours carried over from the previous year do not reduce the amount of paid leave an employee is entitled to earn in the new year. This creates an effective maximum balance of 80 hours—an employee may begin a new year with up to 40 carried over, and still accrue (by working sufficient hours) a full 40 additional hours in the new employment year.

Amended 26 M.R.S. § 637(3) provides: “Accrued and unused hours of earned paid leave carried forward from the previous year of employment may not reduce the total amount of hours of paid leave an employee is entitled to earn in the year of employment immediately following the previous year. An employer may limit the number of hours of earned paid leave carried forward from the previous year of employment to 40 hours.”

Employers may cap the total annual accrual to 40 hours per year, but may not deny an employee the right to carry over up to 40 hours, and to accrue an additional 40 hours in the new year, so long as the employee works sufficient hours. This structure differs substantially from the law’s original text (which lacked guaranteed carryover and capped annual accrual strictly at 40 hours per year, with any unused leave subject to employer policies on forfeiture at year-end).

Employers should update handbooks and payroll systems for all plan years beginning on or after September 24, 2025, to reflect the statutory requirement for up to 40 hours of carryover, which cannot offset the right to earn up to 40 new hours in the next year.

Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637(3) (as amended by P.L. 2025, c. 438, eff. Sept. 24, 2025)

Effective September 24, 2025, Maine’s earned paid leave (EPL) law as amended clarifies that while employers may limit annual accrual of EPL to 40 hours, and may cap the number of hours carried over from one year to the next at 40, there is no statutory cap on the number of EPL hours an employee may use in a plan year so long as hours have been accrued and carried over in compliance with the law.

Statutory and regulatory framework:

• 26 M.R.S. § 637(3) authorizes a 40-hour annual accrual cap and limits mandatory carryover to 40 hours per year. The statute states that carried-over hours "may not reduce the total amount of hours of paid leave an employee is entitled to earn in the year of employment immediately following the previous year." As a result, an employee may have up to 80 hours available in a year (40 accrued + 40 carried over), depending on usage and carryover.

No statutory usage cap; DOL interpretation prohibits restricting use:

• The amended statute does not set a usage limit on how many hours an employee may use in a year; it is silent on the subject. There is no explicit statutory bar on employing usage caps, but as of mid-2024, the Department of Labor's EPL FAQ interprets the law as prohibiting any employer-imposed cap on annual usage. The FAQ states: "employers cannot restrict the number of accrued and unused hours of Earned Paid Leave that an employee may use in a given year."
• This FAQ is interpretive guidance rather than an adopted regulation, but it reflects the enforcement position of the Department of Labor. The currently published Chapter 18 rules do not yet address the usage cap issue post-2025 amendment.

Practical effect:

• An employee who carries over 40 hours and earns the full 40 newly accrued hours may use up to 80 hours in a plan year, so long as those hours are available. There is no separate statutory maximum on use, and employers must allow use of the full available balance as interpreted by the DOL.

Employers should review and update EPL policies for plan years beginning on or after September 24, 2025, to ensure they do not impose annual usage limits contrary to DOL guidance.

Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637(3) Source: Maine Department of Labor — EPL FAQ Source: Maine DOL EPL rules, Chapter 18 § 6

Yes, Maine employers can satisfy the earned paid leave (EPL) requirement by frontloading a full 40 hours (or more) at the start of each year or on each employee’s anniversary date, rather than calculating leave strictly on an hour-for-hour accrual basis. The Maine Department of Labor’s regulations permit employers to "credit an employee with all leave that the employee is expected to earn in a defined year at the beginning of the year or on the employee’s anniversary date," so long as the frontloaded amount is at least as much as the employee would earn under the default accrual rate (1 hour per 40 worked, up to 40 per year).

Legal authority for frontloading:

• 26 M.R.S. § 637(3) establishes the one-hour-per-40-worked accrual rule, up to 40 hours a year, but does not prohibit alternative approaches.
• Department of Labor Rule Chapter 18, § 4(B) expressly allows frontloading at the start of the year or anniversary date in lieu of tracking accrual, provided the grant equals or exceeds statutory accrual entitlements.

How frontloading interacts with the 2025 carryover rule: Effective September 24, 2025, Maine employers must allow employees to carry over up to 40 hours of unused EPL to the next plan year. Crucially, the amended statute states that carried-over hours "may not reduce the total amount of hours of paid leave an employee is entitled to earn in the year of employment immediately following the previous year." If an employer uses a frontloaded model, the employee must receive the full frontloaded grant for the new year plus any carried-over balance from the prior year; the employer cannot offset or reduce the new-year grant to account for carried-over hours.

Examples:

• If an employee carries over 20 hours, the employer must frontload the entire annual grant (e.g., 40 hours), so the employee starts the year with 60.
• If an employee carries over the maximum 40 hours, and the employer frontloads 40 more, the employee begins with 80—illustrating the maximum possible balance under the law’s accrual and carryover terms.

Employers using frontloading must ensure their leave policies and payroll setup reflect both the carryover guarantee (up to 40 hours, not offset) for plan years beginning on or after September 24, 2025, and the full statutory accrual/grant. This interpretation is confirmed in the Department of Labor’s EPL FAQ (see the section on “frontloading” and “carryover,” which explains that the frontload amount cannot be reduced by carried-over hours and clarifies compliance expectations for policy drafting).

Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637(3) Source: Maine DOL EPL Rules, Chapter 18 § 4(B) Source: Maine Department of Labor EPL FAQ

Maine’s earned paid leave law at 26 M.R.S. § 637(11) exempts employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) “during the period between January 1, 2021 and the expiration of the agreement.” This creates a clear carveout: any employee covered by a CBA that was in effect on January 1, 2021 is not entitled to earned paid leave under § 637 during the term of that agreement. Once the agreement expires, the exception ends, unless a new exemption is enacted.

The statutory language, however, is silent on whether this exception also applies to CBAs executed, renewed, or amended after January 1, 2021. The statute does not state whether entering into a new or renegotiated CBA restarts or extends the eligibility carveout.

As of June 27, 2026, neither the Maine Legislature, the Department of Labor, nor the courts have issued published amendments, regulations, or authoritative agency guidance clarifying the status of post-2021 CBAs under § 637(11). The Maine Department of Labor’s official Earned Paid Leave FAQ restates the statutory carveout, specifying that “employees covered by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) as of 1/1/2021 are excluded until the CBA expires,” and adds: “Contracts negotiated after this date must include this benefit at a minimum.”

No new rules or binding guidance appear in the DOL’s Chapter 18 rules or in published agency interpretations through June 2026. Accordingly, practitioners should continue to rely on the statutory text and existing DOL FAQ for compliance, recognizing that eligibility for the earned paid leave law is determined by whether the employee was covered by a CBA in effect as of January 1, 2021—not by CBAs entered into or amended after that date.

If new clarifying legislation, administrative rule, or court decision is issued on this specific point, this guide will be updated promptly.

Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637(11) Source: Maine Department of Labor EPL FAQ

As of June 27, 2026, the legal framework and agency guidance regarding payout of unused earned paid leave (EPL) at separation in Maine remain unchanged from the prior version of this section.

Statutory framework:

• Maine’s earned paid leave law, 26 M.R.S. § 637, does not include any provision requiring employers to pay out unused accrued earned paid leave (EPL) when an employee separates (by quit, discharge, or layoff).
• Separately, 26 M.R.S. § 626 ("Cessation of employment") requires employers (except public employers and those with 10 or fewer employees) to pay all unused paid vacation accrued on and after January 1, 2023, upon cessation of employment, treating it as wages.

EPL vs. Vacation/Other PTO:

• The Maine Department of Labor (DOL) distinguishes between EPL and vacation. Unused EPL is only required to be paid at separation if the employer’s terms of employment or established practice provides for payout of EPL or treats EPL the same as vacation (such as when vacation and EPL are combined under a single policy without distinction).
• DOL’s final rule (Chapter 18 § 9) provides: “Whenever the terms of employment or the employer’s established practice includes provisions to pay the balance of unused earned paid leave at the time of separation, earned paid leave on cessation of employment has the same status as wages earned in accordance with 26 M.R.S. § 626.”
• If an employer has separate policies under which vacation is paid out but EPL is not, only vacation must be paid out. If the policies are merged or an EPL policy mirrors vacation payout, both must be paid out at separation.

Practical implications:

• Employers should define and maintain clear written distinctions between EPL and vacation policies. If EPL and vacation are combined or not clearly distinguished, both may become subject to mandatory payout at separation under the wage statute.
• If an EPL balance is not paid out, hours must remain available and be reinstated if the employee is rehired within one year (26 M.R.S. § 637(10)).

There have been no amendments to the cited statutes, regulations, or DOL guidance materially affecting this rule since the previous update.

Source: 26 M.R.S. § 637 Source: 26 M.R.S. § 626 Source: 12-170 C.M.R. ch. 18 § 9 Source: Maine DOL EPL FAQ