Connecticut: New Year Brings New Changes to the CT Paid Sick Leave Law

By John S. Gannon - Skoler Abbott P.C.

December 31, 2025

The beginning of 2025 brought major changes to the CT Paid Sick Leave Law (we recapped those changes here).  The biggest change was that almost all employers with 25 or more employees were required to provide paid sick leave to their workers.  Effective January 1, 2026, that employee threshold drops from 25 to 11 employees.  This means just about all employers with 11 or more employees will need to comply with the CT Paid Sick Leave Law (there are a few limited exceptions, which are described here at the CT Department of Labor’s FAQ No.2).  The number of employees is based on employer’s payroll for the week containing January 1st, annually. 

As a reminder, the CT Paid Sick Leave Law requires covered employers to provide 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hours per year.  But, providing enough paid sick leave is only one aspect of the law.  Covered employers must also post a notice in English and Spanish in a conspicuous place accessible to employees.  The notices can be found here.  Newly covered employers (or those who have not already done so) must separately provide written notice to employees by January 1, 2026, or at the time or hire — whichever is later — detailing their rights to paid sick time.  The state’s sample written notice can be found here.  Employers with remote employees must either send the posters via e-mail to each remote employee or publish the posters on a digital platform that is known by and accessible to all employees.  In addition, unlike in paid sick leave programs in many other states, covered employers in Connecticut are never allowed to require employees to provide any documentation to confirm that their leave is being taken for a permitted purpose.

Finally, employers with less than 11 employees need to prepare for January 1, 2027, at which point the CT Paid Sick Leave Law will apply to all employers with 1 or more employees.   If you have any questions about complying with the new CT Paid Sick Leave Law, or your organization’s sick time practices in general, consider contacting experienced labor and employment counsel for guidance.

www.skoler-abbott.com