Minnesota paid leave is not a new-parent program — bonding is one of six qualifying reasons, and the benefit is money, not job-protected weeks

What started on January 1, 2026

Minnesota created a state-run wage-replacement program, not a new leave entitlement layered on top of chapter 181. Minn. Stat. § 268B.02, subd. 1: “A family and medical benefit insurance program is created to be administered by the commissioner according to the terms of this chapter.” “Commissioner” means the commissioner of employment and economic development, and “department” means the Department of Employment and Economic Development. § 268B.01, subds. 13, 16. Subdivision 2 of § 268B.02 creates a Family and Medical Benefit Insurance Division inside that department to run it.

The benefits come from the state, not from your employer. Section 268B.03, subd. 2: “Benefits are paid from state funds and are not considered paid from any special insurance plan, nor as paid by an employer. An application for family or medical leave benefits is not considered a claim against an employer but is considered a request for benefits from the family and medical benefit insurance account.” The same subdivision adds that entitlement “must be determined based upon that information available without regard to a burden of proof” and that “[t]here is no presumption of entitlement or nonentitlement to benefits.”

That structure has a consequence worth stating plainly at the start: this chapter answers the question of who pays you while you are out. Whether your job is protected while you are out is answered partly here, in § 268B.09, and partly by a different statute — see pregnancy and parenting leave.

Six qualifying reasons, of which bonding is one

Minn. Stat. § 268B.06, subd. 1(a):

An applicant may be eligible to receive family or medical leave benefits for any week if:

(1) the week for which benefits are requested is in the applicant’s benefit year;

(2) the applicant was unable to perform regular work due to a serious health condition, a qualifying exigency, safety leave, family care, bonding, or medical care related to pregnancy. For bonding leave, eligibility ends 12 months after birth or placement;

(3) the applicant has sufficient wage credits from an employer or employers as defined in section 268B.01, subdivision 45, to establish a benefit account under section 268B.04; and

(4) an applicant requesting benefits under this chapter must fulfill certification requirements under subdivision 3.

Each of the six named reasons has a definition in § 268B.01, and the definitions are where the program’s reach actually sits.

Serious health condition (subd. 39) covers a physical or mental illness, injury, impairment, condition, or substance use disorder involving either inpatient care or “continuing treatment or supervision by a health care provider” in one of five described forms — including “a period of incapacity of seven or more days” with follow-up treatment, “a period of incapacity due to medical care related to pregnancy,” a chronic condition requiring periodic visits “at least twice a year” that “may cause episodic rather than continuing periods of incapacity,” a permanent or long-term incapacity “due to a condition for which treatment may not be effective,” and a period of absence for multiple treatments. Paragraph (d) adds that absences attributable to pregnancy-related or chronic-condition incapacity “qualify for leave under this chapter even if the applicant or the family member does not receive treatment from a health care provider during the absence, and even if the absence does not last more than seven consecutive, full calendar days.”

Family care (subd. 22) is “an applicant caring for a family member with a serious health condition or caring for a family member who is a military member.”

Bonding (subd. 9) is “time spent by an applicant who is a biological, adoptive, or foster parent with a biological, adopted, or foster child in conjunction with the child’s birth, adoption, or placement.”

Safety leave (subd. 34) is “leave from work because of domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking of the applicant or applicant’s family member,” for one of five purposes: seeking medical attention, obtaining services from a victim services organization, obtaining psychological or other counseling, seeking relocation, or seeking legal advice or taking legal action.

Qualifying exigency (subd. 33) is “a need arising out of a military member’s active duty service or notice of an impending call or order to active duty,” and the subdivision then lists examples — care for the family member’s child or other dependent, financial or legal arrangements, counseling, military events and ceremonies, rest and recuperation leave, and arrangements after the military member’s death.

Medical care related to pregnancy (subd. 31) “includes prenatal care or incapacity due to pregnancy or recovery from childbirth, stillbirth, miscarriage, or related health conditions.”

“Family member” is defined at § 268B.01, subd. 23, and it is broader than a household. It reaches a spouse or domestic partner; a child, including a biological, adopted, foster, or stepchild, a child of a domestic partner, or a child to whom the applicant “stands in loco parentis, is a legal guardian, or is a de facto custodian”; a parent or legal guardian; a sibling; a grandchild; “a grandparent or spouse’s grandparent”; a son-in-law or daughter-in-law; and “an individual who has a personal relationship with the applicant that creates an expectation and reliance that the applicant care for the individual without compensation, whether or not the applicant and the individual reside together.” Paragraph (d) defines “parent” to include the parent of the applicant’s spouse.

Who is covered, and who is left out

Coverage runs through “covered employment,” defined at § 268B.01, subd. 15(a), as “performing services of whatever nature, unlimited by the relationship of master and servant as known to the common law, or any other legal relationship performed for wages or under any contract calling for the performance of services, written or oral, express or implied.” Paragraph (b) supplies a geography test: employment is covered for the whole calendar year if “50 percent or more of the employment during the calendar year is performed in Minnesota,” or if the employment is spread across jurisdictions with some in Minnesota and the employee resides in Minnesota for at least half the year.

Paragraph (c) is the exclusion list, and it is short: a self-employed individual, an independent contractor, and “employment by a seasonal employee, as defined in subdivision 35.” Paragraph (d) permits excluded entities to opt in. Section 268B.11 permits a self-employed individual or independent contractor to elect coverage.

“Employee” at subd. 17 excludes employees of the United States, the self-employed, independent contractors, and seasonal employees. “Employer” at subd. 18 is broad — any person, organization, or entity “having any individual in covered employment,” plus the state, its agencies, the state colleges and universities, the University of Minnesota, and essentially every unit of local government and charter schools. There is no employee-count threshold in the definition.

“Seasonal employee” at subd. 35 is narrow and requires the employer to apply for the classification: an individual employed for no more than 150 days in any consecutive 52-week period “in hospitality” by an employer whose average receipts in any six months of the preceding calendar year “were not more than 33 percent of its average receipts for the other six months of such year,” and the employer must apply to the department and certify four things, one of which is that it gave the notice required by § 268B.26. If benefits are denied on that basis to an applicant “who remains employed more than 150 days,” § 268B.06, subd. 9(b), entitles the applicant to benefits “beginning the Sunday following the completion of the 150-day period.”

The financial gate is in § 268B.04, subd. 2, and it is the only tenure-like requirement in the eligibility scheme: “To establish a benefit account, an applicant must have wage credits of at least 5.3 percent of the state’s average annual wage rounded down to the next lower $100.” Wage credits, under § 268B.01, subd. 45, are wages paid in the base period for covered employment. The test is about earnings across covered employers, not about how long you have worked for your current one.

What it pays

Minn. Stat. § 268B.04, subd. 3(a):

Subject to the maximum weekly benefit amount, an applicant’s weekly benefit is calculated by adding the amounts obtained by applying the following percentage to an applicant’s average weekly wage during the high quarter of the base period:

(1) 90 percent of wages that do not exceed 50 percent of the state’s average weekly wage; plus

(2) 66 percent of wages that exceed 50 percent of the state’s average weekly wage but not 100 percent; plus

(3) 55 percent of wages that exceed 100 percent of the state’s average weekly wage.

It is a replacement rate that falls as wages rise, and it is capped: paragraph (d) provides that “[t]he maximum weekly benefit amount is the state’s average weekly wage as calculated under section 268.035, subdivision 23.”

This page does not work a dollar example, and the reason is in the statute. The state’s average weekly wage is not a figure the legislature wrote down. Under § 268.035, subd. 23(a), “[o]n or before June 30 of each year, the commissioner must calculate, from wage detail reports under section 268.044, the state’s average annual wage and the state’s average weekly wage,” by dividing total reported wages by average monthly covered employment and then dividing by 52. Every number in the benefit formula except the three percentages depends on that annual computation, so a worked example built from anything other than the current published figure would be an invented number.

Paragraph (b) uses the highest quarter of base-period wages for an applicant who changed employers within the base period. Paragraph (e) fixes the maximum for leaves established “on or after the last Sunday in October” and then pegs the protection to that same event rather than to a calendar year: “Once established, an applicant’s weekly benefit amount is not affected by the last Sunday in October change in the state’s maximum weekly benefit amount.” Paragraph (f) prorates the weekly benefit when the applicant works hours for wages, uses paid time off that is not a supplemental benefit payment, or takes leave intermittently. Under subd. 4, “[e]xcept as otherwise provided for in this chapter, benefits must be paid weekly.”

The two caps, and where 20 weeks comes from

Section 268B.04, subd. 5:

(a) The total number of weeks that an applicant may take benefits in a single benefit year for a serious health condition is the lesser of 12 weeks, or 12 weeks minus the number of weeks within the same benefit year that the applicant received benefits for bonding, safety leave, family care, and qualifying exigency plus eight weeks.

(b) The total number of weeks that an applicant may take benefits in a single benefit year for bonding, safety leave, family care, and qualifying exigency is the lesser of 12 weeks, or 12 weeks minus the number of weeks within the same benefit year that the applicant received benefits for a serious health condition plus eight weeks.

Read paragraph (a) as it is written. The second term is twelve weeks, minus the weeks already taken on the other track, plus eight. An applicant who has taken nothing on the family track compares 12 against 20 and gets 12. An applicant who has already taken 12 weeks on the family track compares 12 against 8 and gets 8. Paragraph (b) does the same in the other direction. Neither track alone exceeds 12 weeks, and the two together cannot exceed 20 in a benefit year.

The figure 20 does not appear in the subdivision. It is what the two formulas produce, and anyone quoting it should be able to show that arithmetic rather than citing the number as statutory text.

Two more limits sit alongside. Under subd. 6, “[e]xcept for a claim for benefits for bonding leave, any claim for benefits must be based on a single qualifying event of at least seven calendar days” — and § 268B.06, subd. 2(a), adds that “[t]he seven-day qualifying event under this paragraph is a retroactively payable period, not an unpaid waiting period.” Under § 268B.085, subd. 3(d), an employer “shall not be required under this chapter to provide, but may elect to provide, more than 480 hours of intermittent leave in any 12-month period,” and if the employer imposes that limit “an employee is entitled to take their remaining leave continuously.”

Applying, and the clock on an appeal

An application “may be filed up to 60 days before leave taken under chapter 268B in person, by mail, or by electronic transmission as the commissioner may require,” and must include certification supporting the request. § 268B.04, subd. 1(a). The department must notify every employer from which the applicant is taking leave “not more than five business days after a claim for benefits has been filed.” § 268B.04, subd. 1(b).

Timing is measured in whole weeks. Under subd. 8(a), an application “is effective the Sunday of the calendar week that the application was filed” and may be backdated one calendar week if the applicant asks within seven calendar days of the effective date. Paragraph (b) allows the commissioner to backdate further “[i]f the applicant was unable to apply in a timely manner due to incapacitation or due to no fault of their own.”

The certification requirements are itemized by leave type in § 268B.06, subd. 3, and the paragraph on safety leave is the one to know: certification “is sufficient if the certification includes a court record or documentation signed by a qualified person acting in the qualified person’s professional capacity to declare a need for safety leave,” and “[t]he commissioner must not require disclosure of details relating to an applicant’s or applicant’s family member’s domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking.”

The department must issue a determination of eligibility or ineligibility “within two weeks,” subject to outstanding information requests and extenuating circumstances. § 268B.07, subd. 2(a).

And then the deadline that ends most disputes before they start. Under § 268B.081, subd. 2(a), an applicant may appeal “within 30 calendar days” after a financial eligibility determination, after a seasonal-employment determination, after an eligibility determination under § 268B.07, after the denial of a good cause demonstration, after a private-plan administrative review decision, or after an overpayment penalty determination. Subdivision 1(e) is the consequence: “If no appeal is filed by the deadlines listed in subdivision 2, the determination or decision is conclusive and final, unless the appealing party can demonstrate good cause for failing to file in a timely manner” — good cause being “a reason that would have prevented a reasonable person acting with due diligence from filing in a timely manner.” Note the exception inside the exception: for the appeal of a denial of a good cause demonstration, subd. 2(a)(4) says the deadline “may not be extended.”

Telling your employer

Section 268B.085, subd. 1(a), sets the notice you owe: “If the need for leave is foreseeable, an employee must provide the employer at least 30 days’ advance notice before leave under this chapter is to begin.” If 30 days is not practicable because of lack of knowledge, changed circumstances, or a medical emergency, “notice must be given as soon as practicable,” and paragraph (b) defines that phrase — “as soon as both possible and practical, taking into account all of the facts and circumstances in the individual case” — with the observation that where the need arises less than 30 days ahead, “it should be practicable for the employee to provide notice of the need for leave either the same day or the next day, unless the need for leave is based on a medical emergency.”

The form of notice is deliberately low: paragraph (c) requires “at least oral, telephone, or text message notice sufficient to make the employer aware that the employee needs leave allowed under this chapter and the anticipated timing and duration of the leave.”

An employer may apply its usual call-out and notice procedures, but paragraph (e) closes the obvious loophole: “Leave under this chapter must not be delayed or denied where an employer’s usual and customary notice or procedural requirements require notice to be given sooner than set forth in this subdivision.”

Paragraph (g) is the provision most employees never hear about: “If an employer has failed to provide notice to the employee as required under section 268B.26, paragraph (a), (b), or (e), the employee is not required to comply with the notice requirements of this subdivision.” An employer that never gave you the required notice cannot then hold your notice against you.

Paragraph (h) bars requiring the employee “to seek or find a replacement worker to cover the hours the employee uses under this chapter.”

Job protection

Section 268B.09, subd. 1(a):

An employer must not discharge, discipline, penalize, interfere with, threaten, restrain, coerce, or otherwise retaliate or discriminate against an employee for requesting or obtaining benefits or leave, or for exercising any other right under this chapter.

Paragraph (b) extends “leave” for that purpose to any day for which the commissioner found the employee eligible, and to any day for which the employee meets the eligibility criteria in § 268B.06, subd. 1(a)(2) and (3), “or the employee has applied for benefits in good faith” — with good faith defined as “anything that is not knowingly false or in reckless disregard of the truth.” Protection therefore does not wait for the department to rule. Subdivision 2 separately prohibits obstructing or impeding an application. For each, the commissioner of labor and industry may impose a penalty “of not less than $1,000 and not more than $10,000 per violation, payable to the employee aggrieved.”

Subdivision 5(a) requires the employer to maintain group insurance coverage during the leave “as if the employee was not on leave,” with the employee still paying the employee share.

Reinstatement is in subd. 6(a): “On return from leave under this chapter, an employee is entitled to be returned to the same position the employee held when leave commenced or to an equivalent position with equivalent benefits, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment. Except as provided under subdivision 7, an employee is entitled to reinstatement even if the employee has been replaced or the employee’s position has been restructured to accommodate the employee’s absence.” An “equivalent position” is then defined at length — “virtually identical to the employee’s former position in terms of pay, benefits, and working conditions,” involving “the same or substantially similar duties and responsibilities,” at “the same or a geographically proximate worksite,” ordinarily on “the same shift or the same or an equivalent work schedule.”

Two conditions bracket that right.

Subdivision 3 voids waivers. Paragraph (a): “Any agreement to waive, release, or commute rights to benefits or any other right under this chapter is void, except for a voluntary settlement agreement resolving disputed claims or a valid separation agreement releasing putative claims.” Paragraph (b) voids any lease, contract, or other instrument purporting to waive a right under the chapter “if the waiver or release purports to waive claims arising out of acts or practices that occur after the execution of the waiver or release.” Paragraph (c) gives a 15-calendar-day right to rescind a release of prior or concurrent claims, requires that the releasing party “be informed in writing of the right to rescind,” and sets the mechanics of delivery. That paragraph belongs in any severance review — see the severance release: what it buys.

The remedy is in subd. 8. An employer that violates the section is liable for “any and all damages recoverable by law,” reasonable interest, and “an additional amount as liquidated damages equal to the sum of” the damages and the interest — reducible in the court’s discretion only if the employer proves the act or omission “was in good faith and that the employer had reasonable grounds for believing” it was lawful. The court “must, in addition to any judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow reasonable attorney fees, reasonable expert witness fees, and other costs of the action to be paid by the defendant.” Paragraph (f) is unusual and worth quoting: “An employee bringing a civil action under this section is entitled to a jury trial. An employee cannot waive their right to a jury trial under this section including, but not limited to, by signing an agreement to submit claims to arbitration.”

Paragraph (e) sets the boundary: nothing in the section allows an employee “to recover damages from an employer for the denial of benefits under this chapter by the department, unless the employer unlawfully interfered with the application for benefits under subdivision 2.” A denied claim is an appeal to the department, not a lawsuit against the employer.

Enforcement is split between two agencies, which surprises people. Minn. Stat. § 177.27, subd. 4, lists “268B.09, subdivisions 1 to 6, and 268B.14, subdivision 3” among the sections for which the commissioner of labor and industry may issue a compliance order, and subd. 7 directs that commissioner, on a finding of violation, to order back pay and compensatory damages “and for an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.” Benefits themselves are the business of the Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The notice you were supposed to get, and the deduction on your pay stub

Section 268B.26 puts two obligations on the employer. Paragraph (a) requires a posted workplace notice “in English and each language other than English which is the primary language of five or more employees or independent contractors of that workplace, if such notice is available from the department.” Paragraph (b) requires individual written information “not more than 30 days from the beginning date of the employee’s employment, or 30 days before premium collection begins, whichever is later,” in the employee’s primary language, covering eight items — including “an explanation of the availability of family and medical leave benefits provided under this chapter, including rights to reinstatement and continuation of health insurance,” the amount of the employer’s premium deductions, and “instructions on how to file a claim.” Delivery “is made when an employee provides written or electronic acknowledgment of receipt,” and where the employee refuses to acknowledge, “an employer must be able to demonstrate the way the employee had been notified.”

Paragraph (c) attaches a civil penalty of $50 per employee for a first violation and $300 per employee thereafter, and puts the burden of proving compliance on the employer.

The program is funded by premiums. Section 268B.14, subd. 3, fixes the split: “employers must pay a minimum of 50 percent of the annual premiums paid under this section. Employees, through a deduction in their wages to the employer, must pay the remaining portion, if any, of the premium not paid by the employer.” The same subdivision forbids a deduction that would drop the wage below any applicable statutory or local minimum.

Subdivision 6 states the rate: “The employer premium rates beginning January 1, 2026, shall be as follows: (1) for an employer participating in both family and medical benefit programs, 0.7 percent,” with lower rates for employers running an approved private plan on one side or the other. Subdivision 7 then makes that a starting point rather than a fixed figure — it permitted the commissioner to adjust the rates before January 1, 2026, requires an adjustment “[b]y July 31, 2026, and then by July 31 of each year thereafter” for the following calendar year, and caps the result: “In no year shall the annual premium rate exceed 1.1 percent of taxable wages paid to each employee.”

The commissioner used that authority before the program began, so the rate you are paying is not the one in the statute. Minnesota Paid Leave, the division of the Department of Employment and Economic Development that administers this chapter, publishes the operative rate: “For 2026 and 2027, the Paid Leave premium rate is 0.88%. This rate covers Family Leave (0.27%) and Medical Leave (0.61%).” The same page gives the small employer rate as 0.66 percent and states that employers “can collect up to 0.44%” of wages from employees. Each of those figures is what the statute predicts from 0.88 percent: subdivision 5a, paragraph (b), sets the small employer rate at “75 percent of the annual premium rate calculated in subdivisions 6 and 7,” and subdivision 3 requires employers to “pay a minimum of 50 percent of the annual premiums.” Subdivision 6 is the number the legislature wrote. The number on your pay stub is the one the commissioner published under subdivision 7.

Whatever the rate, the deduction has to be itemized where you can see it. Minn. Stat. § 181.032(b)(7) requires the earnings statement to show “any amount deducted by the employer under section 268B.14, subdivision 3, and the amount paid by the employer based on the employee’s wages under section 268B.14, subdivision 1.” What else has to appear on that statement, and what the notice at hire has to say, is set out in the wage theft notice and your pay stub.

How it fits with the leave you already had

Section 268B.27, subd. 1: “An employer may require leave taken under this chapter to run concurrently with leave taken for the same purpose under section 181.941 or the Family and Medical Leave Act, United States Code, title 29, sections 2601 to 2654, as amended.” Benefits under this chapter and job-protected weeks under § 181.941 are therefore not additive at the employer’s election.

Subdivision 2 lists what the chapter may not be read to do, and the first item is the one employees ask about: nothing in the chapter shall be construed to “allow an employer to compel an employee to exhaust accumulated sick, vacation, or personal time before or while taking leave under this chapter.”

The choice runs the other way, though. Under § 268B.06, subd. 5(a), “[a]n employee may use vacation pay, sick pay, or paid time off pay in lieu of family or medical leave program benefits under this chapter, provided the employee is concurrently eligible and subject to the total amount of leave available under section 268B.04, subdivision 5.” That option carries the job protections with it, but not without limit: “[s]ubject to the limitations of section 268B.09, subdivisions 6 and 7, an employee is entitled to the employment protections under section 268B.09 for those workdays during which this option is exercised.” Subdivisions 6 and 7 are the reinstatement right and its limits, set out above. Paragraph (b) permits an employer to offer supplemental benefit payments, states that “[t]he choice to receive supplemental benefits lies with the employee,” and caps the combination: benefits plus supplemental payments “must not exceed the employee’s usual salary.”

Two offsets are worth knowing. Under subd. 6, an applicant is ineligible for a week in which the applicant received workers’ compensation wage-loss compensation “equal to or in excess of” the weekly benefit, and a smaller payment reduces the benefit rather than eliminating it. Under subd. 7a, disability insurance payments may be received in addition to these benefits where the employee is concurrently eligible for both, though the disability policy may itself offset.

Earned sick and safe time is a separate accrual with its own use rules — see earned sick and safe time.

Currency: which version this page quotes

Chapter 268B was enacted by Laws 2023, chapter 59, article 1, and rewritten substantially by Laws 2024, chapter 127, article 73. The enacting act staggered its own effective dates: the definitions in § 268B.01 took effect July 1, 2023, and the program-creation section, § 268B.02, the day following final enactment, while the benefit and job-protection provisions were held to later dates. The 2024 rewrite therefore reached some sections that were already in force and others before they took effect. The revisor’s History lines for the sections quoted here read: § 268B.01, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 9; 2024 c 127 art 73 s 2-13”; § 268B.02, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 10”; § 268B.03, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 11”; § 268B.04, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 12; 2024 c 127 art 73 s 14”; § 268B.06, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 14; 2024 c 127 art 73 s 15-19”; § 268B.07, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 15; 2024 c 127 art 73 s 20-22”; § 268B.081, “2024 c 127 art 73 s 23”; § 268B.085, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 17; 2024 c 127 art 73 s 24”; § 268B.09, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 18; 2024 c 127 art 73 s 25-27”; § 268B.14, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 23; 2024 c 127 art 73 s 38-42; 1Sp2025 c 6 art 4 s 27”; § 268B.26, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 37; 2024 c 127 art 73 s 47”; § 268B.27, “2023 c 59 art 1 s 38; 2024 c 127 art 73 s 48.”

Only one section quoted here carries a 2025 amendment: § 268B.14, subdivision 7, the premium-rate adjustment provision, amended by Laws 2025, 1st Special Session, chapter 6, article 4, section 27, which lowered the ceiling in that subdivision from 1.2 percent to 1.1 percent of taxable wages. The 1.1 percent figure quoted above is the amended one.

Several of these sections carry revisor notes recording that they, or particular subdivisions, took effect January 1, 2026 — among them § 268B.03, § 268B.085, subds. 2 and 3, § 268B.09, subds. 5 to 8, § 268B.14, and § 268B.27. That date has passed; the text quoted above is the operative text.

Checked against the revisor’s table of Minnesota Statutes affected by the 2026 Regular Session, queried one exact section at a time, none of §§ 268B.01, 268B.02, 268B.03, 268B.04, 268B.06, 268B.07, 268B.081, 268B.085, 268B.09, 268B.10, 268B.14, 268B.26, 268B.27, 268.035, 181.032, or 177.27 was amended, new, or repealed in 2026.

This page describes the machinery. Whether a particular condition is a serious health condition, whether a particular relative is a family member, whether a given week counts against the medical track or the family track, and what a benefit would actually pay are questions about facts and current published figures, and applying this chapter to them is not what this page does.