Is There a Washington State FMLA?

No. Washington has no state statute equivalent to the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. Three different things get called "Washington FMLA" and they do different jobs: federal FMLA itself, which is unpaid and job-protected; Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave under Title 50A RCW, which pays you and carries its own separate job-protection test; and the Family Care Act, RCW 49.12.265 to .295, which lets you use paid leave you have already earned to care for a family member but creates no new leave at all. Working out which of the three you mean is the first step in almost every Washington leave question.

RCW 50A.15.020(3) sets the maximum duration of paid family leave at 12 times your typical workweek hours in a period of 52 consecutive calendar weeks, and paid medical leave at the same, with an extension of 2 additional times the typical workweek hours for a serious health condition with a pregnancy that results in incapacity. The combined total may not exceed 16 times the typical workweek hours, extending to 18 where that pregnancy-related incapacity applies. For a salaried employee, "typical workweek hours" is defined as 40 regardless of the hours actually worked.

Sometimes — and the rule changed. Job protection is not automatic with a PFML benefit; it comes from a separate provision, RCW 50A.35.010, with its own tests. The employer-size threshold phases down over three years: 25 or more employees in 2026, 15 or more in 2027, and 8 or more from 2028. You must also have begun employment with your current employer at least 180 calendar days before taking the leave. Notably there is no minimum hours requirement for job protection — only the 180-day service test and the employer-size threshold.

Benefits eligibility is separate from job protection and turns on hours rather than on your employer's size. Under RCW 50A.15.010 you are eligible after working at least 820 hours in employment during the qualifying period. RCW 50A.05.010 defines the qualifying period as the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters or, if eligibility is not established that way, the last four completed calendar quarters immediately preceding the application for leave. Meeting that test gets you paid; it does not by itself get your job held.

Washington addressed this directly in 2025 and it is now one of the strongest protections in the country on this specific point. Chapter 49.45 RCW — the state mass layoff and business closing act, effective 27 July 2025 — provides that an employer may not include an employee in an order of a mass layoff if the employee is currently on paid family or medical leave under Title 50A RCW. That sits on top of, not instead of, any discrimination or retaliation claim under the Washington Law Against Discrimination arising from the same decision.

RCW 49.12.270 lets an employee use any or all of their own choice of sick leave or other paid time off to care for a child with a health condition requiring treatment or supervision, or a spouse, parent, parent-in-law or grandparent with a serious or emergency health condition. It is a rule about how you may spend leave you have already earned, not a grant of additional leave — the statute is explicit that an employee may not take advance leave until it has been earned. If your employer has told you your PTO is for your own illness only, this is the statute to point at.

They can, and most employers will run them concurrently where both apply, so the same absence counts against both rather than giving you a sum of the two. They are separate systems with separate tests, though, and it is entirely possible to qualify for one and not the other — for example, at a 30-employee Washington employer, federal FMLA generally does not apply at all, while PFML benefits and, in 2026, PFML job protection both can.

From 2026, yes — if you qualify for job protection. Where the job-protection test in RCW 50A.35.010 is met, ESD's guidance is that the employer must maintain your health-care benefits during Paid Leave at the same level as if you were still working, with you continuing to pay your normal share of the premium. Note what that is tied to: the coverage obligation follows job protection, not the benefit payment, so an employee drawing PFML from an employer below the size threshold does not get it. Separately, where the absence is also FMLA leave, 29 U.S.C. § 2614 has always required group health coverage to be maintained as if you had kept working.

From 2026, yes. An employer may count job-protected leave taken under the federal FMLA against your Paid Leave job protection, so the protected period is generally up to 16 weeks in total rather than 12 under each scheme separately. Your employer must give you written notice explaining how FMLA leave affects the job protection you have remaining. Importantly, this does not reduce your entitlement to PFML benefit payments — the money and the job-protection clock remain separate questions.