Proposed rules have been released in advance of recent amendments to the NYC Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (“ESSTA”) taking effect on February 22, 2026.
As we previously reported, the amendments implemented several key changes to the law, including:
- Requiring employers of all sizes to provide employees with an additional 32 hours of unpaid sick and safe time beyond leave already required to be provided to them under ESSTA; and
- Expanding the covered reasons for leave under ESSTA to include things like responding to workplace violence or public disasters and providing care for a minor child or care recipient.
In lead up to the upcoming effective date of these changes, the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which is the agency tasked with enforcing ESSTA, issued proposed rules for implementing the amendments. Among the notable parts of the proposed rules:
- Existing references to “safe/sick time” throughout the rules are renamed to “protected time off,” though employers may still elect to use the terms “safe/sick time” or “safe and sick time” to refer to ESSTA leave in their written policies.
- An employer’s written sick/safe time policy must include language about the amount of unpaid protected time off provided to employees and indicate that such time is immediately available for use on the first day of employment and the first day of each new calendar year.
- An employer that provides additional paid protected time off beyond the employer’s statutory ESSTA obligation can use such additional paid time to fulfill its obligation to provide 32 hours of unpaid time off, so long as the additional paid protected time is immediately available on an employee’s first day of employment and on the first day of each calendar year thereafter.
- Employee pay statements (or electronic systems used to issue pay statements or related documentation) must inform employees of the amount of protected time off accrued and used during the relevant pay period by differentiating between paid and unpaid time. The information must include both the total balances of paid and unpaid protected time off available for use.
- The penalty provisions of the law are updated to incorporate failure to provide unpaid protected time off and paid prenatal leave (which requirement took effect in January 2025), in accordance with the law.
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The proposed rules are open to public comment through March 2, 2026. We will continue to monitor and report developments in this area.
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