Not every worker who needs medical or family leave qualifies for FMLA protection. The law establishes specific eligibility requirements that employees must meet and applies only to certain employers. Before relying on FMLA protections, understanding whether you qualify is essential for planning your leave request and knowing what rights you can enforce if your employer fails to comply.
Covered Employers
The FMLA applies to private sector employers with fifty or more employees working within a 75-mile radius for at least twenty workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. All public agencies, including federal, state, and local government employers, are covered regardless of the number of employees. Public and private elementary and secondary schools are also covered regardless of the number of employees they have.
Determining whether your employer meets the fifty-employee threshold requires counting all employees on the payroll, including part-time and temporary workers. The 75-mile radius is measured using the shortest route on public roads, not as the crow flies. If your employer falls below fifty employees during your employment, coverage depends on whether they employed fifty or more at the time you requested leave.
Employee Eligibility Requirements
Even if your employer is covered, you must meet three requirements to be an eligible employee under the FMLA. First, you must have worked for your current employer for at least twelve months, though these months do not need to be consecutive. Second, you must have worked at least 1,250 hours during the twelve months immediately preceding your leave request. Third, you must work at a location where your employer has fifty or more employees within 75 miles.
The twelve-month employment requirement counts any previous period of employment with the same employer, even if separated by breaks in service. However, breaks of seven years or more generally do not count unless they were due to military service or a written agreement promising reemployment. The 1,250-hour requirement averages to about 24 hours per week, meaning many part-time workers do not qualify.
Calculating Hours Worked
Only actual hours worked count toward the 1,250-hour requirement. Paid leave, unpaid leave, holidays, and other time away from work do not count even if you were compensated. Overtime hours do count, so employees who regularly work overtime may reach the threshold more quickly. Employers bear the burden of proving that an employee has not worked the required hours if that issue is disputed.
If you are a salaried employee exempt from overtime requirements, your employer may presume you worked at least forty hours per week unless they can demonstrate otherwise. This presumption typically works in favor of salaried employees seeking to establish FMLA eligibility. For hourly employees, time records provide definitive proof of hours worked.
Qualifying Reasons for Leave
Meeting the eligibility requirements allows you to take leave for specific qualifying reasons. Leave is available for your own serious health condition that makes you unable to perform your job functions. This includes both physical and mental health conditions requiring inpatient care or continuing treatment by a healthcare provider.
You can also take leave to care for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition. The FMLA does not cover leave to care for siblings, grandparents, or in-laws unless they stood in loco parentis to you. Leave for the birth of a child and to bond with the newborn, or for the placement of a child for adoption or foster care, also qualifies.
Serious Health Condition Defined
A serious health condition means an illness, injury, impairment, or physical or mental condition that involves inpatient care or continuing treatment by a healthcare provider. Continuing treatment includes conditions requiring absence of more than three consecutive calendar days combined with two or more treatments by a healthcare provider or one treatment followed by a regimen of continuing treatment.
Chronic conditions that require periodic visits for treatment and may cause episodic incapacity also qualify, even if individual episodes last less than three days. Pregnancy and prenatal care are always considered serious health conditions. Conditions requiring multiple treatments for restorative surgery or conditions that would likely result in absence of more than three days if left untreated also meet the definition.
Military Family Leave
Special provisions extend FMLA protections to military families. Qualifying exigency leave provides up to twelve weeks of leave when a family member who is a member of the Armed Forces, National Guard, or Reserves is on active duty or called to active duty status. Qualifying exigencies include short-notice deployment, military events, childcare and school activities, financial and legal arrangements, counseling, rest and recuperation, and post-deployment activities.
Military caregiver leave provides up to twenty-six weeks of leave in a single twelve-month period to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness. This extended leave applies to spouses, children, parents, and next of kin of the service member. The injury or illness must have been incurred or aggravated in the line of duty on active duty.
When You Don't Qualify
If you do not meet FMLA eligibility requirements, other protections may still apply. Many states have their own family and medical leave laws with different eligibility requirements that may cover workers excluded from federal FMLA. Some state laws cover smaller employers, require shorter employment periods, or expand the types of family relationships eligible for caregiving leave.
The Americans with Disabilities Act may require reasonable accommodations including leave for employees with disabilities even if they do not qualify for FMLA. Employer policies may also provide leave benefits beyond what the law requires. Understanding all available options helps you access the protection you need even if you fall outside FMLA coverage.