Sick time is now a benefit you administer, not a policy you write.
Michigan’s Earned Sick Time Act reached small employers on 1 October 2025, and it does not care how many people you have in Michigan. The headcount that sets your cap counts everyone you employ anywhere, including part-timers and people supplied by a staffing agency. Here is what the rules actually say. The other state rules that touch benefits are on our Michigan benefits compliance page. Related reading: domestic violence leave and plan protections.
Accrual, caps, and who counts as small.
Three figures decide almost everything else.
One Hour Per Thirty Worked
That is the accrual rate, and it reaches every employee including part-time and temporary staff. You may frontload the year’s entitlement instead, which removes the tracking entirely. Whichever method you use, write it into the policy so payroll and HR apply the same one.
Forty Hours, or Seventy-Two
A small business caps use at 40 hours a year. Everyone else caps at 72. Under the accrual method those same figures set your carryover ceiling. Define your benefit year first, since the caps and the carryover both run on it.
Ten or Fewer Is Small
And you lose that status once you have 11 or more employees for 20 or more workweeks in a calendar year, until the following year. The count includes everyone you employ nationwide, not only your Michigan staff. Track the count through the year.
Where employers get caught.
Each of these is survivable if you see it coming.
Your PTO Policy Probably Does Not Cover It
A combined PTO bank can satisfy the act, but only if it accrues at least as fast, may be used for every purpose the act allows, and carries the same notice limits and anti-retaliation protections. Most policies written before 2025 fail at least one of those tests.
You Cannot Discipline For Using It
Time taken under the act may not count toward a no-fault attendance system. This is the provision that catches employers running an otherwise lawful points-based policy, because the policy does the counting automatically. Carve sick time out of the points count explicitly, in writing.
Documentation Has a Floor and a Cost
You may only ask for documentation when an absence runs more than three consecutive days, and you have to cover what the employee pays out of pocket to obtain it. Asking on day one is not permitted. Put the rule in the policy so managers do not improvise it.
Frontloading Buys Simplicity, Not Savings
Give the full year at the start and you stop tracking accrual, stop carrying hours over and stop owing a payout. You also give hours to people who would never have accrued them. On a high-turnover workforce the arithmetic is not obvious in either direction.
Notice Runs Both Ways
For foreseeable use you may require up to seven days notice. For unforeseeable use you may only require notice as soon as practicable under your own policy, which means you need a written policy for that phrase to mean anything.
A Poster and Three Years of Records
Both are required, both are cheap, and both are the first thing an investigator asks to see. The poster goes where employees can see it, and the records show, for each employee, the hours worked and the sick time used.
Because it lands in the benefits program, not the handbook.
It Changes What Your System Has to Track
Accrual at one hour per thirty, separate carryover ceilings, and a use category that cannot feed attendance discipline. That is a configuration problem in your benefits administration platform before it is a policy problem, and it is the part employers discover last.
And It Adds a Threshold You Did Not Have
Our compliance calendar ladders at 20 for COBRA, 50 for the ACA employer mandate and FMLA, and 100 participants for the Form 5500. Michigan has now put a real line at 11. An employer can sit below every federal threshold and still owe the full 72 hours. Run the deadline checker to see the rest of yours.
General information about Michigan’s Earned Sick Time Act, not legal advice. Employment-law questions belong with employment counsel, and we will bring them in.
What employers ask about the Michigan Earned Sick Time Act.
The five that come up first.
Does the Michigan Earned Sick Time Act apply to small businesses?
Yes. Small employers came into scope on 1 October 2025. A small business is one with 10 or fewer employees, and it caps paid sick time use at 40 hours a year rather than the 72 hours that applies to everyone else. An employer that hired its first employee after 21 February 2022 has a three-year grace period running from that first hire.
How much sick time do Michigan employees earn?
One hour for every 30 hours worked. Use is capped at 40 hours a year for a small business and 72 hours a year for a larger employer. An employer may instead frontload the entitlement at the start of the year, which removes the obligation to track accrual, carry hours over or pay out unused time.
How many employees makes you a small business under the Michigan sick time law?
Ten or fewer. You lose small business status once you have 11 or more employees for 20 or more workweeks in a calendar year, and you keep the larger obligation until the following year. The count includes everyone you employ nationwide, full-time, part-time, temporary and staffing-agency workers, not only the people working in Michigan.
Can an employer require a doctor note for Michigan earned sick time?
Only when the absence runs more than three consecutive days, and the employer has to cover the employee out-of-pocket cost of obtaining the documentation. You may require up to seven days advance notice for foreseeable use, and for unforeseeable use only notice as soon as practicable under your own written policy.
Does our existing PTO policy satisfy the Michigan Earned Sick Time Act?
It can, but only if it accrues at least as generously, may be used for every purpose the act permits, and carries the same notice limits and anti-retaliation protections. Time taken under the act cannot count toward a no-fault attendance system, so a points-based attendance policy usually fails automatically.
Leave and absence management → · HR consulting and advisory →
Related Guides
Paid Leave for Multistate Employers
Which state program applies to remote employees.
State Paid Family and Medical Leave Laws
Every state program with its own employer guide.
Related reading: Wages and fringe benefits act · Minimum wage and benefits
The rules in one place.
Michigan Employer Benefit Laws
Wages, sick time, civil rights and coverage mandates, in one place.
Send us your renewal.
We’ll tell you whether it looks competitive, where we see opportunity, and the five questions we’d put to your carrier. No cost, and no obligation to move anything.
The renewal letter
Your current plan summary
Contribution split by tier
Enrolled counts by tier
Four documents — two more if your group is 50 or more. Nothing else; every extra one is a reason to postpone.
An independent employee benefits consulting firm. We look at the entire benefits program — cost, plan performance, risk and administration.
Switch to CFH. Unhappy with your broker? Your employees won’t notice. You will. →