When we asked HR leaders to tell us their biggest leave management challenge, we weren’t surprised by the top response. Respondents’ No. 1 difficulty was ensuring compliance with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
Most leave managers understand what the FMLA is: a federal law entitling eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. As this definition illustrates, the FMLA is fairly straightforward. But as more employees ask for leave, and as other statutes and benefits come into play, the FMLA becomes more challenging to administer.
This article provides an uncomplicated look at the FMLA. In as simple terms as possible, we will review what the FMLA is, the employers and employees it applies to, the benefits it provides, and the concepts you need to understand to administer FMLA leave.
Which Employers Does The FMLA Cover?
Let’s start our exploration of the FMLA by looking at covered employers.
The FMLA covers private-sector employers that employ 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks in either the current calendar year or the previous calendar year. That’s according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the agency that enforces the FMLA and other employment laws.
The FMLA also covers federal, state, and local government employers regardless of how many people they employ. Local educational agencies like public and private schools fall under the FMLA’s coverage, too, regardless of their size.
For private-sector employers, it’s worth noting that the 50-employee threshold is separate from the “50/75 rule.” We’ll get into that rule in the next section, where we discuss employee eligibility.
Quick tip: If you’re a covered employer, you must display the DOL’s poster informing employees of their rights under the FMLA.
Who Is Eligible For FMLA Leave?
Now that we know which employers the FMLA covers, let’s move onto employee eligibility.
To be eligible for FMLA leave, employees must satisfy three requirements:
- They must work for a covered employer for at least 12 months.
- They must have at least 1,250 hours of service with the employer during the 12 months before their FMLA leave starts.
- They must work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles.
The first two requirements for employee eligibility are absolutely non-negotiable. Employees must put in their time before they can take FMLA leave. The third requirement, however, is less strict. Many employers waive the 50/75 rule, granting leave to employees even if they work alongside fewer than 50 employees in 75 miles.
The 50/75 rule is notoriously confusing. Many employees easily satisfy the first two requirements. But in the age of remote work, otherwise-eligible employees often fail the third requirement. Their workplace may be distributed, and their colleagues could work from anywhere. For more information on this rule, check out our article: An HR Guide to FMLA Eligibility and Remote Employees.
Putting FMLA Eligibility Into Practice
Let’s use a hypothetical example to illustrate these eligibility rules. Imagine your organization is a covered employer that hired a new, full-time employee on April 1, 2024. This employee requested leave on March 15, 2025 and used company-provided leave until April 1, 2025. That’s when FMLA leave kicked in, a full 12 months after the employee’s start date.
This scenario reminds us of a few important factors in FMLA decision-making. First, we knew that the company was a covered employer. We also knew that the employee, who worked full-time, asked for leave before working a full 12 months. While the employee would have accumulated more than 1,250 hours in that time, they hadn’t satisfied the first requirement of FMLA eligibility: to work for a covered employer for at least 12 months.
By taking company leave first, the employee was able to step back from work and begin FMLA leave on their one-year anniversary with the company.
Quick tip: Sometimes, employees aren’t eligible for the FMLA. Here’s a guide on how to support employees who don’t qualify for FMLA leave.
Scenarios That Trigger FMLA Leave
We’ve covered the qualifications employees need before taking FMLA leave. In this section, we’ll examine the leave itself. Let’s start with the basics.
The FMLA provides eligible employees 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period. Employees can take FMLA leave for a few different reasons:
- The birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth.
- The placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement.
- To care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition.
- A serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the functions of their job.
- Any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, child, or parent is a covered military member on covered active duty or call to covered active duty status.
Additionally, employees can take up to 26 workweeks of military caregiver leave under the FMLA. This leave is available when an employee needs to care for a current servicemember or covered veteran with a serious injury or illness. To qualify, the employee must be a child, parent, spouse, or next of kin of the servicemember or veteran. For more information on this aspect of the FMLA, check out our Guide to FMLA For Military Family Members.
Family Relationships Under The FMLA
Here’s a quick rundown of family relationships, as defined by the FMLA.
- Child: A child is a biological, adopted or foster child, stepchild, legal ward, or child of a person standing in loco parentis (in the role of a parent). A child is either under age 18, or age 18 or older and incapable of self-care because of a mental or physical disability. For military family leave, the child of an eligible employee may be of any age.
- Parent: A parent can be a biological, adoptive, step or foster parent, or any other individual who stood in the role of a parent to the employee when the employee was a child. This term does not include parents-in-law.
- Spouse: A spouse is a husband or wife as defined or recognized in the state where the individual was married. It includes a same-sex or common law marriage.
- Next of kin: This relationship applies only to military caregiver leave. It is the nearest blood relative, other than the servicemember’s spouse, parent, or child.
Quick tip: These relationships may be defined differently under state law. Pay attention to how state and local laws define terms like spouse, child, family, and more.
What Is A Serious Health Condition?
Now that you have a solid understanding of the leave the FMLA provides, let’s get a little more detailed. The FMLA provides leave for employees who have a serious health condition or who need to care for someone with a serious health condition. What exactly is a serious health condition under the FMLA?
A serious health condition is an illness, injury, impairment, or physical or mental condition that involves inpatient care or continuing treatment by a health care provider, according to the DOL.
According to this definition, serious health conditions can fall into two basic categories: conditions requiring inpatient care and conditions requiring continuing treatment by a health care provider.
The first category is the simpler of the two. A serious health condition requiring inpatient care will include an overnight stay in some kind of facility: a hospital, hospice, or residential medical care facility. It will also feature any period of incapacity or any subsequent treatment in connection with the overnight stay.
The second category is more complicated. When an employee’s condition falls into one or more of the following sub-categories, it’s considered a serious health condition.
- Incapacity and treatment: Look for a period of incapacity that lasts more than three consecutive, full calendar days and subsequent treatment. That treatment could look like two or more in-person visits to a health care provider or one in-person visit to a health care provider resulting in a regimen of continuing treatment. For more details, look at the DOL’s FMLA Guide for Employers.
- Pregnancy: Any period of incapacity due to pregnancy or for prenatal care.
- Chronic conditions: Any period of incapacity due to treatment for a chronic serious health condition, like diabetes or migraines.
- Permanent or long-term conditions: A period of incapacity that’s permanent or long-term. Examples include Alzheimer’s disease or late-stage cancer.
- Conditions requiring multiple treatments: This includes restorative surgery after an accident or injury. It could also take the form of a condition that would result in a period of incapacity for more than three days if the treatment wasn’t received.
Quick tip: The FMLA’s serious health condition is not the same as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The two standards are closely related, and the FMLA, ADA, and Pregnant Workers Fairness Act can all apply to the same situation. They should be managed in the same system but treated as separate entities.
How FMLA Leave Can Be Used
It’s easy to assume all employees use FMLA the same way, in continuous stretches of time. But seasoned HR professionals know that there’s more than one way to take FMLA leave.
FMLA leave can be taken in three ways: continuous leave, intermittent leave, and reduced schedule leave. We’ll discuss these three modes in more detail below.
- Continuous leave: This is the most common way to take FMLA leave. Employees take leave in a single block, often several weeks at a time.
- Intermittent leave: With intermittent leave, things get a little more complicated. Employees who take FMLA leave intermittently use their leave occasionally. They may take a day here and a day there, for instance, as their appointments occur. They can even use FMLA leave hour by hour, coming into work late or leaving early if their symptoms flare up.
- Reduced schedule leave: While complex, employees’ reduced schedule leave is often more predictable than intermittent leave. Employees work partial hours or days on a set schedule as they manage their symptoms or keep up with their care plan.
Continuous, Intermittent, or Reduced Schedule Leave: Who Chooses?
FMLA leave comes in three forms, but how do employers determine which one applies to an employee’s situation? This decision goes to the employee’s healthcare provider. When employers certify an employee’s need for leave, the healthcare provider should indicate whether the employee’s need for leave is continuous or intermittent.
When it’s the latter, the employer can require additional information that establishes the medical necessity of intermittent or reduced schedule leave. The provider should estimate for how long and how often the employee will need this leave.
Quick tip: Intermittent and reduced schedule leave are the most operationally complex leaves of absence to administer. It’s no surprise that they are one of the top compliance challenges cited by HR leaders in AbsenceSoft’s 2026 survey. For more information on intermittent leave, download Intermittent Leave: A Complete HR Guide to FMLA, ADA, and Compliance.
The FMLA Leave Year and How Time Is Calculated
Employees who are eligible may use 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period, also called a “leave year.” Simple, right? Not so fast.
The FMLA provides four different definitions of the 12-month period:
- The calendar year: This approach uses the traditional understanding of a year, from January 1 to December 31.
- Any fixed 12-month period: Use an employee’s anniversary date, a fiscal year, or a 12-month period required by state law.
- First date of FMLA leave: Define a year by measuring forward from the first date an employee takes FMLA leave.
- Rolling 12-month period: Measure backward from the date an employee takes FMLA leave. This is the most protective approach, as it prevents employees from stacking leave at the year boundary. However, it’s the most complex to track, especially if you’re tracking FMLA leave manually.
Choose the approach that works best for your organization, but choose one and apply it consistently across all employees.
Medical Certification Under The FMLA
When an employee takes FMLA leave because of their own serious health condition or that of a family member, employers can require the employee to turn in a medical certification from a health care provider.
According to the DOL, several types of medical professionals can complete a certification. This list includes doctors of medicine, podiatrists, dentists, clinical psychologists, or nurse-midwifes. Any health care provider from whom the employer or the employer’s group health plan’s benefits manager will accept a medical certification to substantiate a claim for benefits.
Learn more about FMLA certifications in our blog, How to Handle FMLA Certification of Health Care Provider Forms Compliantly.
The FMLA and Fitness-For-Duty Certification
Employers may also require a fitness-for-duty certification before an employee returns to work. If you have a fitness-for-duty policy, it must be applied uniformly across all similarly situated employees taking leave for their serious health condition.
You may delay restoring an employee to their position until they submit their certification, and you may contact their health care provider to authenticate or clarify the information submitted. You may not delay an employee’s return to work while contacting a health care provider, and you may not require second or third opinions.
Why FMLA Administration Is Getting Harder
With its rules on coverage, eligibility, and entitlement, the FMLA is challenging enough on its own. Recent trends make FMLA management even more difficult.
For example, HR teams are managing more cases every year. Leave request volumes have risen for three consecutive years, according to AbsenceSoft data. The consistent uptick in requests means HR teams are managing more cases with the same or fewer resources, creating administrative strain.
With more cases come more opportunities for costly mistakes. Compliance is a consistent pain point for HR. When we asked HR leaders to name the challenges they face, 41% said ensuring compliance with the FMLA, making it the top-cited leave management challenge.
Organizations that rely on manual tools to administer FMLA leave make compliance harder to achieve. Purpose-built platforms like AbsenceSoft can automate eligibility calculation, generate compliant packets, and track intermittent leave. With the right software, you can reduce risk and administrative burden while optimizing the employee experience.
Quick tip: Learn more about how you can improve your organization’s approach to FMLA leave. Download our guide: How to Modernize and Automate FMLA Management.
Ace FMLA Compliance With AbsenceSoft
It’s not easy to comply with the FMLA. HR teams have to file the right paperwork, meet specific deadlines, and make complex calculations. They have to repeat this process for every request they receive. Mistakes can be devastating. Non-compliance can lead to investigations, audits, and costly litigation.
With AbsenceSoft’s Compliance Engine (ACE), your organization can avoid these outcomes and other costly repercussions. ACE tracks more than 200 leave laws, including the FMLA. It auto-calculates eligibility and helps teams stay compliant, even as request rates rise. Our technology minimizes the threat of mistakes, all while reducing HR burnout and improving the employee experience.
If you’d like to learn more about how AbsenceSoft could improve your organization’s approach to FMLA management, schedule a demo today. If you want to consider how technology can transform leave management, download The Expert Guide to Intelligent Leave and Accommodations Management.