Under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, family medical leave lasts up to 12 workweeks in a 12-month period for most qualifying reasons, and up to 26 workweeks in a single 12-month period if you are caring for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness.1U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act The leave is unpaid, but your job and group health insurance are protected while you are out.
The Standard 12 Weeks
Twelve workweeks is the ceiling for the reasons most people take FMLA leave. Those reasons are the birth of your child and bonding within the first year, placement of a child with you for adoption or foster care and bonding within the first year, caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition, your own serious health condition that keeps you from doing your job, and qualifying exigencies that come up when a spouse, child, or parent is on covered active duty or called to it.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2612 – Leave Requirement
The 12 weeks are cumulative across every reason. Six weeks recovering from surgery and later four weeks caring for a parent leaves you with two weeks for the rest of the 12-month period. Qualifying exigency leave draws from the same 12-week bank as everything else in this list.3eCFR. 29 CFR 825.126 – Leave Because of a Qualifying Exigency
A “serious health condition” is narrower than being sick. It means an illness, injury, or physical or mental condition that involves either inpatient care (an overnight stay at a hospital or medical facility) or continuing treatment by a health care provider. Continuing treatment generally covers conditions that leave you unable to work or handle daily activities for more than three consecutive days and require ongoing medical visits, chronic conditions with periodic episodes of incapacity such as asthma or diabetes, pregnancy and prenatal care, and permanent or long-term conditions requiring supervision even when treatment is not effective. The common cold, flu, earaches, upset stomachs, minor headaches, and routine dental problems typically do not qualify, and neither do cosmetic procedures unless complications develop.4eCFR. 29 CFR 825.113 – Serious Health Condition
The 26-Week Military Caregiver Leave
A separate, longer entitlement kicks in when you care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness. If you are the servicemember’s spouse, child, parent, or next of kin, you can take up to 26 workweeks during a single 12-month period.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2612 – Leave Requirement
The 26 weeks work on a per-servicemember, per-injury basis. A new 26-week entitlement can open up later if you need to care for a different covered servicemember, or if the same servicemember develops a new serious injury or illness. In no case, though, can you take more than 26 workweeks in any single 12-month period.5eCFR. 29 CFR 825.127 – Leave to Care for a Covered Servicemember With a Serious Injury or Illness
Two other rules matter for planning. The single 12-month period for military caregiver leave starts on the first day you take that leave and ends exactly 12 months later, no matter how your employer tracks standard FMLA leave, and any unused portion of the 26 weeks is forfeited when that window closes.5eCFR. 29 CFR 825.127 – Leave to Care for a Covered Servicemember With a Serious Injury or Illness Inside that same 12-month period, the 26-week cap also absorbs any standard FMLA leave you take. It is a combined ceiling of 26 weeks, not 12 plus 26.
How the 12-Month Period Is Measured
How long you actually get, in practice, depends on which 12-month window your employer uses to count leave. Employers pick one of four methods and must apply it uniformly:6eCFR. 29 CFR 825.200 – Amount of Leave
- The calendar year, January 1 through December 31, with a fresh 12 weeks each January.
- Any fixed 12-month period, such as a fiscal year or a year running from your hire anniversary.
- A forward-looking period that begins the first day you take FMLA leave and ends 12 months later, with a new period starting the next time you take leave after the previous one ends.
- A rolling method that looks backward 12 months from each new leave request; your remaining balance is 12 weeks minus what you used in the prior 12 months.
Under the calendar-year or fixed-year methods, it is possible to use 12 weeks at the end of one period and another 12 at the start of the next, taking up to 24 weeks back-to-back. The rolling method prevents that by recalculating each time you ask for leave. An employer that wants to switch methods must give at least 60 days’ notice and cannot reduce anyone’s leave below what either method would provide.6eCFR. 29 CFR 825.200 – Amount of Leave The 26-week military caregiver clock is separate and always runs forward from your first day of that leave.
Taking the Weeks in Smaller Pieces
The 12 or 26 weeks do not have to be used in one continuous block. Intermittent leave lets you take time off in separate stretches for a single qualifying reason, and a reduced-schedule arrangement lets you cut back your usual hours on an ongoing basis. For a serious health condition (your own or a family member’s) and for military caregiver leave, you have a right to intermittent or reduced-schedule leave whenever it is medically necessary. For bonding with a new child after birth, adoption, or foster placement, you need your employer’s agreement to take that leave intermittently.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2612 – Leave Requirement
Only the time you actually miss counts against your balance. Leaving two hours early for treatment costs two hours, not a full day. The smallest increment your employer can charge is the shortest period it uses to track any other form of leave, and it can never exceed one hour.7eCFR. 29 CFR 825.205 – Increments of FMLA Leave for Intermittent or Reduced Schedule Leave
Who Actually Gets These Weeks
The 12- and 26-week entitlements only apply if both your employer and you meet FMLA’s coverage rules. The law covers public agencies, schools, and private-sector employers with 50 or more employees.1U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act To be an eligible employee, you must have worked for that employer for at least 12 months (not necessarily consecutive, though a break of seven years or more generally wipes out earlier service), you must have worked at least 1,250 hours in the 12 months immediately before your leave starts, and your employer must have at least 50 employees within 75 miles of your worksite.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2611 – Definitions
The 75-mile rule can catch people off guard. A small branch office of a large national company may not qualify if fewer than 50 employees work within that radius of where you report.9eCFR. 29 CFR 825.111 – Determining Whether 50 Employees Are Employed Within 75 Miles
Paid Leave and State Programs Alongside the Federal Weeks
Federal FMLA leave itself is unpaid. You can choose to substitute accrued vacation, sick, or personal leave so you keep receiving income, and your employer can require that substitution; either way the paid time runs concurrently with FMLA, not on top of it. Substitution rules do not apply while you are collecting workers’ compensation or disability benefits, then resume once those end.10eCFR. 29 CFR 825.207 – Substitution of Paid Leave
Roughly a dozen states and the District of Columbia have enacted mandatory paid family and medical leave programs as of 2026. These typically replace a portion of your wages, often between 60 and 90 percent up to a weekly cap, for qualifying reasons such as bonding with a new child or recovering from a serious health condition. Where a state program overlaps FMLA, the two generally run at the same time: the state pays part of your wages while federal law protects your job. State programs set their own duration limits, which may be shorter or longer than the federal 12 or 26 weeks, so the total time you can be out often comes down to whichever entitlement runs longest for your situation.