Maine has enacted legislation that clarifies the rules for carrying over unused leave under the state’s paid leave law. Legislative Document 55 takes effect on Sept. 24, 2025.
The details
Background
By way of background, existing Maine law requires employers with 10 or more employees to provide paid leave that employees can use for any reason.
Under the law, an employee is entitled to earn one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked, up to 40 hours in one year of employment.
As enacted, the original law didn’t address carryover of unused leave. However, the Maine Department of Labor subsequently issued a final rule that indicated that employees with accrued and unused paid leave at the end of the year are entitled to carry it over to the next year, up to a maximum of 40 hours.
The guidance further stated that for employees with hours of carried-over paid leave, the hours are only required to continue to accrue up to 40 hours in the current year of employment.
For example, if the employee carried over eight hours of this leave from 2023, the employee would have been only entitled to accrue 32 hours of this leave in 2024, according to the MDOL guidance. Consequently, an employee’s paid leave balance would never exceed 40 hours in a single year.
Legislative Document 55
Legislative Document 55 increases the number of hours of leave an employee must be able to accumulate year-over-year. Specifically, the employee retains the right to carry over unused paid leave into the next year. However, carryover from the previous year will not reduce the total amount of hours of paid leave an employee is entitled to accrue in the following year (40 hours).
For example, if the employee carries over eight hours of paid leave from 2025, the employee would still be entitled to accrue up to 40 hours of paid leave in 2026.
Consequently, an employee’s paid leave balance may reach 80 hours. Keep in mind that employers may still limit use of paid leave to 40 hours in a year.
Next steps
Maine employers should:
- Review policies and procedures to determine if changes should be made.
- Train supervisors on the amended law.
- Comply with the law by the applicable date.