Do You Accrue PTO While on a Leave of Absence in the US?

Usually not, if the leave is unpaid — and the answer comes from your employer’s policy rather than from federal law. FMLA specifically does not require you to keep accruing PTO while you are out on unpaid leave, and no other federal statute fills that gap.

Paid leaves of absence are the opposite: if you are being paid through the employer’s payroll, most policies keep accruing PTO as normal. The confusing cases sit in between — state paid family leave, short-term disability, and leaves where paid PTO runs concurrently with unpaid FMLA.

Key Takeaways

• Under 29 CFR 825.215(d)(2), an employee is not entitled to accrue additional benefits or seniority during unpaid FMLA leave.
• Everything you had before the leave is protected. Your existing PTO balance does not disappear while you are out.
• Group health coverage is a different rule — it must continue during FMLA leave on the same terms (29 CFR 825.209).
• If your employer lets people accrue during other unpaid leaves, it cannot single out FMLA leave for worse treatment.

What Federal Law Actually Requires

FMLA is a job-protection statute, not a benefits-accrual statute. The regulation is explicit that employees are not required to accrue additional benefits or seniority during a period of unpaid FMLA leave. It equally protects what you had: benefits earned before the leave began — including accrued PTO you have not used — remain available when you return.

The practical translation: your balance freezes, it does not reset.

There is one important asymmetry. Group health coverage does not freeze. Under 29 CFR 825.209, an employer “must maintain the employee’s coverage under any group health plan… on the same conditions as coverage would have been provided if the employee had been continuously employed during the entire leave period.” PTO accrual can pause. Your health insurance cannot.

There is also a fairness rule that catches employers out. Because FMLA leave cannot be used as a negative factor in employment actions (29 CFR 825.220), an employer that permits PTO accrual during other unpaid leaves — a personal sabbatical, an unpaid educational leave — cannot deny it during FMLA leave. The comparison is against how the employer treats comparable non-FMLA leaves, not against zero.

Accrual by Leave Type

Type of leave	Do you normally accrue PTO?	Governed by
Paid vacation or PTO	Yes	Policy; you are on paid status
Paid sick leave (state-mandated)	Usually yes	Policy, plus state statute
Unpaid FMLA leave	Usually no	Policy; FMLA does not require it
FMLA with paid PTO substituted	Usually yes for the paid portion	Policy; you are on paid status
State paid family and medical leave	Often no	Policy; benefits paid by a state fund, not payroll
Short-term disability	Varies widely	Policy and the disability plan
Workers’ compensation	Varies widely	Policy and state workers’ comp law
Unpaid personal leave of absence	Usually no	Policy
Military leave (USERRA)	Special rules apply	USERRA’s escalator principle

Two rows deserve unpacking.

FMLA with paid leave substituted

Under 29 CFR 825.207, if you do not choose to use your accrued paid leave during FMLA leave, “the employer may require the employee to substitute accrued paid leave for unpaid FMLA leave.” Your PTO bank is drawn down and you keep getting a paycheck.

That usually means you keep accruing during those weeks, because most policies tie accrual to paid hours. It also means your balance is being spent, not banked. Employees often discover they returned from twelve weeks of leave with an empty PTO account and no vacation left for the rest of the year.

The same regulation limits substitution: while you are receiving disability plan benefits or workers’ compensation, “neither the employee nor the employer may require the substitution of paid leave,” because you are already receiving wage replacement.

State paid family and medical leave

State PFML programs generally pay a wage-replacement benefit from a state insurance fund rather than through your employer’s payroll. If your accrual formula is “X hours per pay period worked” or “per paid hour,” a state benefit week typically generates no accrual — even though the leave is “paid.” This surprises people constantly. Check the wording of your accrual rule, not the word “paid.” Our state-by-state guide to US paid leave laws covers which states run these programs.

A Worked Example

Marcus accrues 6.67 hours of PTO per semi-monthly pay period — 160 hours a year. He starts a 12-week FMLA leave on March 1 with 72 hours in his balance.

Scenario A — fully unpaid FMLA. No accrual for roughly 6 pay periods. He loses about 40 hours of accrual he would otherwise have earned. He returns with his 72 hours intact, and finishes the year with about 120 hours accrued instead of 160.

Scenario B — employer requires PTO substitution. His 72 hours are applied to the first nine days of leave. He is paid for those days and accrues normally on them, but from mid-March his balance is zero, and he returns in June with almost nothing banked for the rest of the year.

Scenario C — state PFML plus employer top-up. He receives a state benefit and continues on partial employer payroll. Whether he accrues depends entirely on whether his employer’s rule counts top-up hours as paid hours. This is the single most common thing HR gets asked and the one most policies fail to address in writing.

Same statute, same employer, three very different balances in June.

Five Questions to Ask HR Before Your Leave Starts

Ask these in writing, and ask before the leave begins — the answers are much harder to change afterwards.

1. Does PTO accrual continue during this leave, and if not, from which date does it stop? Get the exact date, not “during your leave.”
2. Will I be required to use my accrued PTO concurrently, and can I choose to keep some in reserve? Some employers require full substitution, some allow you to preserve a set number of hours.
3. If PTO is substituted, do I accrue on those paid weeks? This is the answer that changes the numbers most.
4. What happens to my carryover deadline and any use-it-or-lose-it cutoff while I am out? If your policy has a December 31 forfeiture date and you are on leave in December, you need this resolved in advance. See our post on whether use-it-or-lose-it PTO policies are legal.
5. What is my health premium contribution during the leave, and how do I pay it? Coverage continues under FMLA, but your share of the premium usually still has to reach payroll somehow.

What This Means for You

Employees: assume accrual pauses on unpaid leave, and plan around the balance you will actually have when you return rather than the one your projection screen showed in January. If you have a choice about substituting PTO, weigh income now against having any vacation left later.

HR and operations teams: this is a policy-drafting problem more than a compliance problem. Most handbooks say what leave is available and go silent on what happens to accrual during it. Write the rule for each leave type explicitly — unpaid FMLA, paid substitution, state PFML, disability, personal leave — and make sure your leave system actually implements it, because manual balance adjustments during long leaves are where errors compound quietly.

Leave Balance lets you configure whether each leave type pauses or continues accrual, so a twelve-week absence produces the right balance automatically instead of a spreadsheet correction six months later. Flat $10/month, unlimited employees, 14-day free trial.

This article is general information, not legal advice. State paid leave programs, workers’ compensation rules, and city or county ordinances may add requirements. Check your plan documents and your state labor department, or speak to an employment attorney.