What Hours Count Toward FMLA Eligibility: The 1,250-Hour Rule

Only hours you actually spent working count toward FMLA eligibility. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act requires 1,250 hours of service in the 12 months before your leave begins, and the regulation measures those hours using Fair Labor Standards Act principles: time your employer required, allowed, or knew you were performing work. Paid vacation, holidays, sick days, and any form of leave do not count, even though you were paid for them.¹

Where the 1,250-Hour Rule Fits

The hours question is one of three eligibility tests, and all three have to be met. Your employer must have at least 50 employees within 75 miles of your worksite. You must have worked for that employer for at least 12 months. And you must have logged at least 1,250 hours of actual work during the 12 months immediately before your leave starts.² Roughly 24 hours a week on average clears the third bar. Missing any of the three disqualifies you from federal FMLA protection.

What “Hours of Service” Means

The regulation defines the 1,250 as “the number of hours an employee has worked for the employer within the meaning of the FLSA.”² That FLSA definition sweeps in every hour your employer requires, permits, or has reason to know you were working, regardless of where you were or whether it aligned with your official schedule.

The regulation also blocks a common workaround. Compensation agreements or timekeeping practices that don’t reflect the hours you actually worked cannot be used to shrink the count. If you worked the time, it counts, however your employer chose to log or pay it.

Hours That Count

The following count toward the 1,250:

Regular scheduled work performing your job duties.
Overtime of any kind, whether voluntary, mandatory, paid at a premium, or even uncompensated.
Remote work. Hours from home count the same as hours at the worksite.
Off-schedule work your employer knows about, such as evening emails or weekend calls.
Mandatory training, orientation, and meetings, which qualify as compensable time under FLSA principles.
Travel time that counts as work under FLSA rules, for example travel between job sites during the workday.

The through-line is simple: if the FLSA treats the time as work, it counts.²

Hours That Don’t Count

The Department of Labor is explicit: “The 1,250 hours include only those hours actually worked for the employer. Paid leave and unpaid leave, including FMLA leave, are not included.”¹

Excluded from the 1,250:

Paid vacation, paid sick days, and paid personal leave. You got a paycheck, but you weren’t working.
Paid holidays you didn’t work.
Any other paid time off where you were not performing work.
Unpaid leave of any kind, including unpaid FMLA leave, unpaid personal leave, and unpaid suspensions.
Jury duty.
Your normal commute to and from work.

The paid-leave exclusion is the detail that trips people up. Three weeks of vacation over the past year removes roughly 120 hours from your countable total, even though your pay never dipped.³ If you’re near the 1,250 line, work backward from your paid time off before assuming you qualify.

On-Call and Waiting Time

On-call time is one of the murkier categories, and it turns on how restricted you are during the call window. The FLSA distinguishes between being “engaged to wait” (work) and “waiting to be engaged” (not work).⁴

If your employer requires you to remain on the premises while on call, all of that time is work. A firefighter at the station between alarms is working. A nurse required to stay in the break room between patients is working. Every one of those hours counts.

On-call from home, where you simply need to be reachable by phone, generally does not count. The more constraints your employer imposes, the closer the time comes to counting. Requirements like staying within 15 minutes of the workplace or not drinking alcohol during the on-call window can be enough to convert the whole period into compensable time.⁴

Salaried and Exempt Employees

Most salaried exempt employees don’t have their hours tracked on a time clock. That works in your favor. When an employer keeps no accurate record of hours worked, the burden flips: the employer has to prove you didn’t work 1,250 hours, not the other way around.²

A standard 40-hour week produces about 2,080 hours a year, well above the threshold, so most full-time salaried employees clear it comfortably. The regulation flags full-time teachers as a specific example: because they routinely work outside the classroom and at home, an employer would struggle to prove they came in under 1,250.

When Records Are Missing

Employers are required to keep records of hours worked for non-exempt employees under the FLSA.⁵ Where records don’t exist or are inaccurate, the burden of proof shifts to the employer to show you fell short of 1,250 hours.²

If you know you’re close to the line, keep your own records anyway. Save pay stubs, note your start and end times, and document off-schedule work like after-hours emails or weekend calls. Personal records become useful evidence if a dispute arises.

Military Service Credits

If you left your job for military service covered by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, your employer must credit you with the hours you would have worked during your absence, estimated from your pre-service schedule.² A 40-hour-per-week employee returning from a six-month deployment picks up roughly 1,040 credited hours on top of whatever else they worked during the 12-month lookback. The credit applies to both the 1,250-hour requirement and the 12-month employment requirement.⁶

Airline Flight Crew Have Different Numbers

If you’re a member of an airline flight crew, the 1,250-hour rule doesn’t apply to you. Flight crew employees have their own threshold. In the 12 months before leave, you need to have worked or been paid for at least 60% of your applicable monthly guarantee and at least 504 hours total.⁷ The 504 hours include duty and paid hours but exclude personal commute time, vacation, and sick leave.⁸ If the airline doesn’t keep accurate records, the same burden-shift rule applies.

If Your Employer Disputes Your Hours

Employers are prohibited from manipulating your hours to sidestep FMLA obligations. If your employer denies leave based on a disagreement over hours worked, you can file a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, which investigates FMLA violations and can bring court action for compliance. You can also file a private lawsuit.⁹

One boundary worth knowing: more than a dozen states run their own paid family and medical leave programs with different eligibility rules, some based on earnings rather than hours. If you fall short of 1,250 federal hours, your state program may still cover you, so check with your state labor department.

1
U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Frequently Asked Questions
2
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.110 – Eligible Employee
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Employer’s Guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #21: Recordkeeping Requirements Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
6
U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Special Rules for Returning Military Members (USERRA)
7
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 825 Subpart H – Special Rules Applicable to Airline Flight Crew Employees
8
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.801 – Special Rules for Airline Flight Crew Employees, Hours of Service Requirement
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #77B: Protection for Individuals Under the FMLA