New York Paid Family Leave, explained
Paid Family Leave is for caring for someone else, not for your own illness. Here is who can use it, what it pays in 2026, and which form the family member's health care provider completes.
What is New York Paid Family Leave?
New York Paid Family Leave (PFL) is a state benefit. It pays part of your wages while you take time off to bond with a new child, to care for a family member with a serious health condition, or for family matters tied to a spouse's, domestic partner's, child's or parent's active military service abroad.
A deduction from your own paycheck funds it. The insurance carrier, or a self-insured employer, pays the benefit.
It does not cover your own illness or injury. That is New York's short-term disability program. The New York leave hub puts PFL, disability, and FMLA side by side.
Who qualifies for NYS PFL?
PFL covers private-sector employees in New York. Public employees are covered only if their employer has voluntarily opted in to provide the benefit. Union-represented public employees may be covered if the benefit has been negotiated through collective bargaining.
The test is time on the job, not full-time status. For a regular schedule of 20 or more hours a week, eligibility starts after 26 consecutive weeks of employment. For a regular schedule of less than 20 hours a week, it starts after working 175 days. Part-time employees may be eligible.
Private-sector employees; public employees where the employer opted in or a union negotiated it.
Citizenship and immigration status are not a factor.
What can you use Paid Family Leave for? (And the one thing you cannot: your own illness.)
Five reasons, in the state's words: bonding leave for the birth of a child, for the adoption of a child, for fostering a child, Paid Family Leave for family care, and Paid Family Leave for military families. Bonding leave covers the first 12 months after the birth, adoption, or foster placement, and it needs no medical certification.
- Bonding leave for the birth of a child
- Bonding leave for the adoption of a child
- Bonding leave for fostering a child
- Paid Family Leave for family care
- Spouse
- Domestic partner
- Child or stepchild
- Parent or stepparent
- Parent-in-law
- Grandparent
- Grandchild
- Sibling
- Paid Family Leave for military families
Family care means caring for a family member with a serious health condition, and the state lists who counts.
A serious health condition is an illness, injury, impairment, or physical or mental condition that involves inpatient care, or continuing treatment or supervision by a health care provider.
The one thing PFL cannot be used for is your own serious health condition. Your own illness or injury belongs to New York's short-term disability program.
How much does NY Paid Family Leave pay in 2026?
In 2026, PFL pays 67% of your average weekly wage, up to a maximum weekly benefit of $1,228.53. That cap is 67% of the New York State Average Weekly Wage, which is $1,833.63 for 2026.
Pay estimator
PFL pays about $670.00 a week
67% of your average weekly wage, capped at $1,228.53 in 2026, never less than $100 unless you earn less. An estimate from the state's published figures, not a benefit decision. Nothing you enter is stored or sent.
Your average weekly wage is generally the average of your last eight weeks of wages before the leave, including bonuses and commissions. If it is $100 or less, PFL pays your full wage; above that, the weekly benefit is never less than $100.
Eligible employees can take up to 12 weeks of Paid Family Leave.
You pay for it through a payroll deduction of 0.432% of your gross wages per pay period, with a maximum annual contribution of $411.91 for 2026.
The state updates these figures each January.
How do you apply, and where do the forms go?
- 1
Tell your employer
Tell your employer at least 30 days before the leave starts if it is foreseeable, or as soon as possible if it is not.
- 2
Build the package
Then build the request package. For bonding, that is the PFL-1 (Request for Paid Family Leave) and the PFL-2. For family care, it is the PFL-1 and the PFL-4 (Health Care Provider Certification for Care of Family Member with Serious Health Condition). Military leave uses the PFL-1 and the PFL-5. The PFL-1 has sections for you and for your employer. The PFL-4 has sections for you and for the family member's health care provider.
There is also the PFL-3 (Release of Personal Health Information). The family member completes it and gives it to their health care provider to keep on file. It is not sent to the carrier.
The PFL-3 stays with the provider; it is not sent to the carrier.
Your employer has three business days to return its part of the PFL-1. If it does not, send the package with your part filled in.
- 3
Send it to the insurance carrier within 30 days after the leave starts
The finished package goes to your employer's insurance carrier, and you must submit it within 30 days after the leave starts. Ask your employer for the carrier's name. If your employer is uninsured, it goes to the NYS Workers' Compensation Board instead. In most cases the carrier must pay or deny within 18 calendar days of receiving your completed request. The forms live on the state site.
Can you take Paid Family Leave a day at a time?
Yes. Leave can be taken either all at once or intermittently, but it must be taken in full-day increments.
Is your job protected while you are on PFL?
Yes. Employees have a right to return to their same or comparable job upon return from Paid Family Leave. Employers cannot discriminate against employees for taking it.
Your health insurance continues while you are on leave, on the same terms as if you had continued to work. You keep paying your usual share.
Three limits on the benefit itself.
- 1PFL and short-term disability cannot be taken at the same time, and the two combined cannot exceed 26 weeks in a 52-week period.
- 2If you are collecting workers' compensation for a total disability, you cannot take PFL.
- 3And you are not entitled to unemployment insurance benefits while on PFL, because you are still employed.
FMLA is the federal, unpaid, job-protected leave. Where the leave qualifies under both, your employer can require FMLA and PFL to run at the same time. The New York leave hub covers how the two fit together.
Who completes the PFL-4 for family care?
The PFL-4 has two sections. You complete yours. The family member's health care provider completes and signs the other.
If that provider will not complete it, Certicare can review the case: a state-licensed provider evaluates your family member, who is the patient, and, where the evaluation supports it, completes and signs the PFL-4 provider section. You, the caregiver, complete the intake and pay. Your family member must be located in New York State at the time of the evaluation. A minor patient needs a parent or legal guardian's authorization.
We need the signed PFL-3 before completing the PFL-4. It stays on file and is never sent to the carrier.
If you are not sure whether you need the PFL-4, the WH-380-F, or both, the family care leave forms page sorts that out.
One flat fee
$49
$49 covers one leave case: the clinical review, the forms that case needs, and any follow-up your employer or leave administrator asks for afterward.
Completing our intake form starts the review; it does not guarantee a signature, and if the review does not support your request you are refunded in full.
The intake is a short online questionnaire, usually with no appointment, and the completed form comes back by email, usually within 24 hours after we have everything needed. A provider may follow up for more detail before deciding.
Start My IntakeQuestions? hello@certicare.org
