PunchThe FMLA 1,250-Hour Rule: How to Count Hours for Family Leave Eligibility (2026)
The FMLA 1,250-Hour Rule: How to Count Hours for Family Leave Eligibility (2026)
The short answer: A worker is eligible for federal FMLA leave after 12 months with you and at least 1,250 hours worked in the 12 months immediately before the leave starts, at a worksite with 50 or more of your employees within 75 miles. The hours are counted the same way overtime is counted: real hours worked, not hours paid. If your time records cannot prove someone fell short, the regulation puts the burden on you, not on them. Punch keeps punched hours and approved time off as separate records, so the number that decides eligibility is already sitting in a report.
Most small field crews assume family leave is a big-company problem. Federal FMLA starts at 50 employees. But several states now reach much smaller employers, and at least one of them uses the same 1,250-hour test. Either way, the question an owner ends up answering is the same: how many hours did this person work in the last twelve months? Answering it from a paper timesheet and memory is how a leave request turns into a claim.
The Three Tests for Federal FMLA
Under 29 CFR § 825.110, an employee is eligible when all three are true:
- 12 months of employment. The months do not have to be consecutive. Employment before a break in service of seven years or more generally does not have to be counted, but time away for military service covered by USERRA does count.
- 1,250 hours of service during the 12-month period immediately preceding the start of the leave.
- 50 employees within 75 miles of the worksite where the employee works.
The first two tests are measured as of the date the leave is to start. The 50-employee test is measured when the employee gives notice of the need for leave. That gap matters for a crew that is growing or shrinking through a season.
The employer side has its own threshold. A private employer is covered when it has 50 or more employees for each working day in 20 or more workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. A covered employer still has employees who are not eligible, usually because of the hours test.
1,250 hours over a year works out to just over 24 hours a week. A full-time crew member clears it easily. A part-timer, a seasonal hand coming back for a second year, or someone who missed a stretch of weeks may not. Those are the cases where the count gets argued.
What Counts Toward 1,250 Hours, and What Does Not
The regulation says hours of service are determined under the principles of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 29 CFR part 785. In plain terms: an hour counts if it is an hour worked, the same hour that would count toward overtime. It is "not limited by methods of recordkeeping, or by compensation agreements." A salary, a day rate, or a flat job price does not change the count.
Counts:
- Every punched hour on the job, including overtime hours.
- Off-the-clock work you knew or should have known about: loading the truck before the official start, finishing a punch list after the crew left, answering the dispatcher at night.
- Compensable travel between job sites during the workday, and required meetings and training.
Does not count:
- Paid time off, vacation, sick days, and paid holidays. They are hours paid, not hours worked.
- Unpaid leave and days the crew was sent home for weather.
- A normal commute from home to the first site.
This is where most owners get it wrong in both directions. Adding PTO into the total makes someone look eligible who is not. Leaving out the hour of pre-shift yard work every morning makes someone look ineligible who is. A timesheet that blends worked hours and paid leave into one "hours" column makes both mistakes easy.
The Burden Sits With You
One sentence in § 825.110 should shape how every owner keeps time: if an employer does not maintain accurate records of hours worked, "the employer has the burden of showing that the employee has not worked the requisite hours."
Read it slowly. The employee does not have to prove 1,250 hours. If your records are incomplete, you have to prove they did not reach it. Owners who track time on a whiteboard, a group text, or a weekly guess are making that proof impossible before anyone has asked for leave.
The fix is not complicated. It is a record of every punch in and punch out, kept for the life of the job and then some, with time off stored separately so the two never blend.
How to Run the Count When a Request Comes In
When a crew member tells you they need leave for a birth, a serious health condition, or to care for a family member, work through it in this order.
- Fix the start date. The 12-month lookback runs from the day the leave will begin, not the day they asked.
- Pull worked hours for exactly that window. Twelve months back from the start date, punched hours only. Exclude PTO, holidays, and other paid time off.
- Add any work you know happened off the clock. If the record is missing hours you know were worked, they still count.
- Check the headcount test separately. Count employees within 75 miles of their worksite as of the day they gave notice.
- Answer in writing, on time. Federal rules require you to notify the employee whether they are eligible within five business days of the request or of learning the leave may qualify, absent extenuating circumstances. If they are not eligible, say which test they missed.
Intermittent leave adds a second job: tracking the leave itself. FMLA leave taken in pieces has to be counted in the shortest increment your payroll system uses for other leave, and no larger than one hour. A crew member out every other Thursday afternoon for treatment needs those hours tracked cleanly against the 12-week entitlement.
Under 50 Employees? State Law May Still Apply
Federal FMLA is the floor. A growing list of states covers employers far smaller than 50, and some have their own hours tests.
- California (CFRA). Applies to employers with five or more employees. Eligibility mirrors the federal test: 12 months of employment and at least 1,250 hours in the preceding 12 months, for up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave. There is no 50-within-75-miles requirement, so a six-person landscaping crew is counting hours exactly like a large company.
- New Jersey (Family Leave Act). As of July 17, 2026, the law covers employers with 15 or more employees, dropping to 10 in July 2027 and 5 in July 2028. Eligibility fell to three months of employment and 250 hours in the preceding 12 months.
- Connecticut (CT FMLA). Applies to employers with one or more employees. An employee is eligible after three consecutive months of employment, with no minimum-hours test.
- Minnesota (Paid Leave). Launched January 1, 2026, for employers of every size. Employees get job protection once they have worked for you more than 90 days.
Several other states run paid family leave insurance programs with their own rules. Check your state before you answer a request, and when state and federal law both apply, the employee gets the more generous terms.
The pattern across all of them is the same. Eligibility turns on a number of hours or a length of employment, and the employer is the one holding the records.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does PTO count toward the FMLA 1,250 hours?
No. Hours of service are counted under FLSA principles, which means hours worked. Paid vacation, sick days, and holidays are paid but not worked, so they are left out of the count.
Does overtime count toward 1,250 hours?
Yes. Every hour worked counts, including overtime hours.
What if I do not have good time records?
Then the burden shifts to you. Under 29 CFR § 825.110, an employer without accurate records of hours worked has to show the employee did not work 1,250 hours. Without records, that is very hard to do.
Do the 12 months have to be in a row?
No. The 12 months of employment do not have to be consecutive. Employment before a break in service of seven years or more generally does not have to be counted. The 1,250 hours, however, must fall within the 12 months immediately before the leave starts.
My business has 12 employees. Do I need to worry about this?
Not under federal FMLA. But California covers employers with five or more, New Jersey covers 15 or more as of July 2026, and Connecticut and Minnesota cover employers of any size. Check your state.
Keep the Hours That Decide Eligibility
Family leave eligibility is a question about one number. Hours worked, in a specific twelve-month window, with paid time off left out. The owners who answer it in five minutes are the ones whose records already separate the two.
Punch is built that way. Worked hours come from crews punching in and punching out on their phones, with lunch tracked as its own punch so a meal break never pads the total. Time off is requested by the employee and approved by an owner or manager as a separate record, so PTO never lands in the worked-hours column. Reports show hours by employee across any date range, so the twelve months before a leave start date is one filter, then one export to CSV or Excel.
Owners and managers approve each pay period, weekly or bi-weekly, with bulk approve for a clean week, then send hours to QuickBooks Online or export them. Overtime is calculated from those same punched hours, with presets for over 50 countries. Punch-in can be geofenced to the job site, a privacy-first boundary around the work rather than a camera in your crew's face. Punches work offline and sync when signal returns, so a dead zone never leaves a gap in the record. A shared iPad in kiosk mode with a PIN covers the shop or the yard.
Pricing is flat per workspace, not per employee. Owners are always free, and every plan includes every feature. The 14-day free trial starts on signup, no credit card required.
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