5 USC 6329c: Weather and Safety Leave for Federal Employees

Federal employees covered by Title 5 can receive paid weather and safety leave when a hurricane, blizzard, terrorist attack, hazmat incident, or similar dangerous condition prevents them from safely traveling to work or performing work at an approved location. The authority is 5 U.S.C. § 6329c, and it protects your pay, your accrued leave balances, and your service credit while the hazard lasts.¹ The statute says an agency “may approve” the leave, so the decision is discretionary. The single biggest catch: if you participate in a telework program or work remotely, you generally will not receive this leave during a closure because you are expected to work from home.

What Counts as a Qualifying Hazard

The statute lists three triggers: an act of God, a terrorist attack, or any other condition that prevents an employee or group of employees from safely traveling to or performing work at an approved location.¹

“Act of God” covers hurricanes, blizzards, flooding, wildfires, tornadoes, and ice storms. Agencies typically rely on National Weather Service reports, local emergency management alerts, and transportation advisories to gauge severity. Terrorist attacks and security threats are evaluated through law enforcement intelligence and federal security assessments. The catch-all third category has been applied to hazardous material incidents, civil disturbances, building damage, and law enforcement shelter-in-place orders.

The statutory bar is safety, not convenience. A rough commute does not qualify. The condition must actually prevent safe travel or safe work, and the agency makes that judgment.

Who Is Eligible

Eligibility runs off the standard federal definition of “employee” under 5 U.S.C. § 2105: someone appointed in the civil service, performing a federal function, and subject to federal supervision.² The leave applies to Executive Branch agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Government Accountability Office is specifically excluded.¹

Several groups fall outside coverage. Nonappropriated fund employees, such as those working for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, are generally not treated as employees for purposes of laws administered by OPM. Armed forces reservists who are not on active duty are excluded. Legislative and judicial branch employees, federal contractors, and military personnel are not covered unless a separate authority applies.²

Intermittent employees without an established regular tour of duty during the administrative workweek are explicitly excluded by the statute.¹ Full-time and part-time employees with regularly scheduled tours qualify.

Even eligible employees only get the leave for hours inside their established tour of duty. You cannot claim it for hours you weren’t scheduled to work, and you cannot claim it for hours already covered by preapproved leave or paid time off. Agencies are also directed to deny it to employees who appear to be canceling preapproved leave or swapping a regular day off to grab weather and safety leave instead.³

The Telework Catch

This is the point most federal employees miss until they lose a day’s pay over it. Under OPM’s implementing regulations, telework program participants and remote workers are generally ineligible for weather and safety leave when a closure or dismissal is announced. The logic: if you can work safely from home, you are not “prevented from safely performing work at an approved location.”⁴

When offices close, employees who are not in a telework program typically get weather and safety leave for the full workday. Telework participants and remote workers have to keep working from home, take other leave (annual leave, compensatory time, or leave without pay), or combine the two.

Two narrow exceptions let an agency still grant weather and safety leave to a telework-ready employee:

The severe weather was not reasonably foreseeable, so the employee did not bring home the equipment or materials needed to telework. A forecast that changes dramatically over the weekend is a common example.
The same emergency that closed the office also makes the home or approved alternate work site unsafe. A power outage, flooding, or structural damage at the residence would fit.

Outside those situations, being a telework participant effectively removes you from weather and safety leave eligibility during closures. If you’re weighing whether to sign a telework agreement, that trade-off is worth reading carefully.⁴

How Delays, Early Departures, and Closures Are Handled

In the Washington, D.C., area, OPM issues operating status announcements for Executive Branch offices inside the Capital Beltway. Outside that area, individual agencies or regional offices make their own decisions. The type of announcement drives how the leave is applied.

Delayed Arrival

Non-telework employees receive weather and safety leave for the hours between their normal start time and the announced reporting time. If you show up before the delayed reporting time, the leave covers only the gap between your normal start and your actual arrival. Telework participants and remote workers scheduled to telework that day are expected to begin work on time and do not qualify.

Early Departure

Non-telework employees leave a set number of hours before their normal departure and receive weather and safety leave for the remaining hours. Telework participants already in the office when an early departure is announced generally receive weather and safety leave for the commute home only, then are expected to telework the rest of their tour or use other leave. Remote workers keep working or take leave.⁴

Full-Day Closure

Non-telework employees receive weather and safety leave for the entire workday. Telework participants and remote workers must telework or use other leave, subject to the two narrow exceptions above.

Requesting the Leave and Documenting It

Notify your supervisor or HR as soon as hazardous conditions arise. Most agencies use electronic time and attendance systems for formal requests, though phone or email is common when the emergency itself makes normal channels impractical. During widespread events, agencies frequently issue blanket approvals for all affected employees, which eliminates the need for individual requests.

For localized incidents without a blanket approval, you may need supporting documentation: National Weather Service reports, law enforcement advisories, local emergency management alerts, transportation department road closure notices, or evacuation orders. Internal agency memos confirming a building closure or hazardous condition work too. If no official report covers your specific situation, photographs of impassable roads or property damage may be accepted at your supervisor’s discretion.

Agencies must record weather and safety leave separately from all other leave types, so it should appear as its own line on your time and attendance record rather than lumped in with annual, sick, or administrative leave.¹

Agency Discretion and Emergency-Essential Roles

The statute uses “may approve,” not “shall.” Your agency has real discretion, and operational needs, mission requirements, and the severity of conditions all feed into the call. Supervisors weigh whether you could have teleworked, whether conditions actually prevented safe travel, and whether the request lines up with official reports and agency-wide determinations.

Emergency-essential employees and those designated under continuity-of-operations plans face extra constraints. They may be required to report even during hazardous conditions, and separate protocols for them can override the general weather and safety leave framework.

Agencies are expected to apply their policies consistently. Granting the leave to some employees while denying it to similarly situated coworkers facing the same conditions creates grievance exposure, and OPM’s regulations direct agencies to develop internal guidance aligned with the governmentwide framework.

Pandemics and Public Health Emergencies

Weather and safety leave is not a general-purpose pandemic benefit. OPM guidance during COVID-19 clarified that agencies should not authorize this leave for an employee who stays home to care for an asymptomatic family member exposed to a communicable disease. Annual leave, other paid time off, or telework are the appropriate options in that case.⁵ If the family member becomes symptomatic, sick leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition is the correct category.

Pandemic conditions can fit the statute in a narrower scenario: an employee has had direct contact with an infected individual and the agency determines the employee should not report to the workplace. OPM indicated that weather and safety leave may be authorized there. The “another condition” trigger could also apply when an agency closes a building because of a disease outbreak affecting the worksite. But the existence of a public health emergency in the community, without a specific safety barrier to your travel or work, does not qualify.

How It Interacts With Other Leave

Weather and safety leave is not annual leave or sick leave. You do not accrue it, and using it does not reduce your annual or sick leave balances. The statute explicitly protects employees from any loss of pay, other leave entitlements, or service credit.¹

Administrative leave under 5 U.S.C. § 6329a is a separate category with its own rules, including a 10-workday annual cap for most purposes. Weather and safety leave is not subject to that cap because it runs under its own statutory authority.⁶ Investigative and notice leave under § 6329b serve entirely different functions tied to misconduct investigations. If hazardous conditions persist for an extended period, agencies may eventually move employees to other leave categories, though OPM guidance notes there is no specific time cap on weather and safety leave as long as the underlying conditions continue to prevent safe work.

If Your Request Is Denied

Start with an informal conversation with your supervisor. Updated weather reports, road closure notices, or emergency alerts that weren’t available when you first requested the leave can sometimes change the outcome. Ask which factor drove the denial. Was it telework availability? A judgment that conditions weren’t severe enough? An operational need? The reason shapes your response.

If informal resolution fails and you are in a bargaining unit, the negotiated grievance procedure in your collective bargaining agreement is the primary avenue. Federal labor law requires these procedures to be fair, provide for expeditious processing, and allow for binding arbitration if the grievance remains unresolved.⁷ Your union representative can file on your behalf or support you through the process.

Employees who are not in a bargaining unit can use their agency’s internal administrative grievance procedures. The Merit Systems Protection Board handles appeals of specific adverse actions like removals, suspensions, and reductions in grade, so a standalone weather and safety leave denial does not fit neatly into MSPB jurisdiction.⁸ If the denial is part of a broader pattern or leads to a more serious personnel action, MSPB jurisdiction may come into play, but for an isolated denial, agency-level grievance procedures are the realistic path.

If you believe the denial was motivated by discrimination based on race, sex, disability, age, religion, national origin, or retaliation for protected activity, contact your agency’s EEO office. Federal employees must go through the agency’s internal EEO process, starting with an EEO counselor, before filing a formal complaint.⁹