Written by a parent, not a doctor. Nothing here is medical advice.

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Hawaii program

Four weeks of protected family leave (Hawaii Family Leave Law)

Hawaii’s family-leave law can protect time away from work to care for your seriously ill child.

What it is

Hawaii’s family-leave law can protect time away from work to care for your seriously ill child.

You may have a Hawaii leave right as well as the federal FMLA right. Hawaii’s law has its own employer-size and service tests. It can cover shorter blocks of time needed for your child’s care.

Eligibility rules
  • The employer must have at least 100 employees each working day in at least 20 calendar weeks of the current or preceding year. Public employers are included.
  • You need six consecutive months with the employer. Your answers’ 50-employee question does not establish the Hawaii test.
What you get
  • Up to four weeks of job-protected family leave a year.
  • Use of up to 10 days of accrued sick leave within that family leave.
  • Leave can be unpaid, paid or a combination.
What the help covers
  • The entitlement is four weeks per calendar year, also capped within any 12-month period. A new calendar year alone does not create another four weeks.
  • You can use up to 10 days of sick leave you have already earned inside the four weeks; a union contract can allow more. The employer may keep back a small reserve of sick days that the disability law requires.
If you decide to apply
  1. Ask the benefits office whether the employer meets Hawaii’s 100-employee test and whether you meet the six-month service test.
  2. Describe the time needed for your child’s care in writing. Ask how accrued sick leave and any FMLA leave would fit together.

Your employer’s benefits office; Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations family-leave information. · Official page ↗

What happens next
  • The benefits office checks coverage, service and available paid leave. A written response helps clarify the dates and job protections.
  • Tell the employer as soon as you can, and expect to be asked for a clinic letter saying how long the care is needed. The four weeks can be taken in separate blocks. Unlike FMLA, this law does not make the employer keep paying its share of the health premium; ask HR.
Good to know

This law does not create a paid family-leave benefit. Pay depends on available accrued leave and the employer’s arrangements.

Other details
  • The same qualifying absence can use HFLL and FMLA together; their weeks are not simply added.
  • HFLL is limited to four weeks in a calendar year and in any twelve-month period, while FMLA uses the employer’s permitted leave-year method.
  • HR can explain both balances and how up to ten days of available accrued sick leave, or other employer-paid leave, would be used.
  • The protected TDI reserve and any collective-bargaining provision allowing more sick leave also need checking.
Official sources
Ask your social worker

“Would Hawaii family leave protect the time I need for my child? How would it interact with paid leave and FMLA, and could you help me request the right arrangement?”

Why I’m asking: I want to understand the pay and job protection before changing my work schedule.

More background and detailed requirements
Additional program information and published rules

Who does what

The three parts, side by side. The agency decides; nobody on this page does.

You

Ask in writing, and ask for the headcount so you know which law applies.

Your social worker

The benefits office confirms the size, the six months and whether paid leave will be substituted.

The care team

Records and letters when the application asks for them.

Who decides
The employer, under the state law.
Ask HR
“Does this employer have a hundred or more employees? If so I am asking for Hawaii family leave for my child’s treatment, and I want to use my accrued sick leave inside it.”

How to apply

First step: Ask the employer in writing for Hawaii family leave and ask how many people it employs.

  1. Ask the employer how many people it employs, because the floor is a hundred.
  2. Put the leave request in writing and ask for the ten days of accrued sick leave to run inside it.
  3. Ask whether the employer will run this at the same time as federal leave.

Where it starts: Ask the employer in writing for Hawaii family leave and say whether you want to use accrued sick leave for part of it.

What to gather

  • Your start date
  • the employer headcount
  • the doctor’s letter

How long: No notice or waiting rule was published.

What a yes looks like

Written leave with your job and terms held, and your sick leave counted inside it.

What a no looks like, and the next move

Ask whether the refusal is about size or service, and ask about federal leave in the same letter.

Watch out

  • The floor is a hundred, and the form only asks about fifty, so check the headcount.
  • The four weeks is also capped across any twelve-month period, so a new year does not reset it by itself.
  • Whether it runs alongside federal leave was never settled, so do not plan on eight weeks.

The numbers and the rules

The arcane layer, kept on purpose. Checked September 11, 2026.

What it is worth

Four weeks of job-protected family leave a year at a hundred-plus employer, with up to ten days of accrued sick leave usable for it.

  • $4/year — Family leave entitlement
  • $100 — Employer size floor
  • $10/year — Accrued sick leave a covered employer must allow for family leave
  • $6 — Service needed before the leave right applies

Legal protection: Restoration to an equivalent position with equivalent pay, benefits and terms · Leave may be taken intermittently

What it costs the family: The leave itself is unpaid unless paid leave is substituted.

The eligibility facts, as published

Employer size
At least 100 employees in Hawaii for each working day in at least 20 calendar weeks in the current or preceding year
Public employers
included
Tenure
six consecutive months
Entitlement
four weeks per calendar year, also capped in any twelve-month period
Pay
unpaid, paid or a combination; up to ten days of accrued sick leave a year may be substituted

The trap: The size floor is a hundred, not fifty. The questionnaire’s largest bucket starts at fifty, so a parent at an employer of sixty is inside the federal leave law but outside this one. Ask the employer for the headcount.

Where I read this

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