Delaware Paid Leave

Overview

Delaware Paid Leave provides eligible employees with paid leave for qualifying parental, family caregiving, medical, and qualifying exigency reasons.

For detailed legislative requirements, see our Legislative Guidance.

Policy Status Decisions

This policy is administered by the employer with the state using the employer’s decision to pay the employee benefits through the state fund. Employers can also apply to pay benefits on their own through an approved plan.

💡 Best Practice: Track the state's payment decision under DE-PL so the policy status matches the state's determination for benefits.

How to Use

Throughout this guidance, look for these labels to quickly identify what actions may be needed:

✅ Automatic: System handles this automatically, no action needed.

📝 Configuration Note: How the policy is set up in the platform.

💡 Best Practice: AbsenceSoft recommendation for optimal management.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: User must complete this action or track elsewhere.

How AbsenceSoft Manages the Law

AbsenceSoft manages this law through 2 policies.

• Policy Name - Delaware Paid Leave

• Policy Code - DE-PL

• Benefit Type - Paid

• Policy Name - Delaware Paid Leave - Job Protection

• Policy Code - DE-PL-JP

• Benefit Type - Job Protection

Administration Options

Delaware Paid Leave can be administered through:

• State Plan (default) - Administered through the Delaware Department of Labor, Division of Paid Leave state program.

• Private Plans (fully or self-insured) - Requires custom policies.

💡 Best Practice: Employers with a private plan should customize the existing policy to meet their state approved requirements and change the policy type to Company to show the policy is owned by the employer.

Employer Coverage Requirements

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Employee Count Thresholds

📝 Configuration Note: DE-PL and DE-PL-JP are configured with a minimum of 10 active employees in the work state for the Adoption/Foster Care and Bonding absence reasons, and a minimum of 25 active employees in the work state for the Employee Health Condition, Family Health Condition, Pregnancy/Maternity, and Qualifying Exigency absence reasons.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility for employees where coverage thresholds may not align with information sent on the employee demographic file.

Excluded Employers

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Excluded employers are not covered under the law and may need to disable the policy in the platform to keep it from rendering. Discuss decisions with legal counsel for best approach.

Employee Eligibility

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Work State Requirements

📝 Configuration Note: Policy is configured with a work state of Delaware - meaning all employees with that work state will be reviewed for eligibility.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Eligibility may need to be overridden if the work state for the employee is different from the policy configured work state, based on the employer's review of the employee's work locations.

Eligibility Exceptions

Excluded Employees.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility from pass to fail for excluded employees.

Waivers

Ineligible employees (e.g., short-term, seasonal, or those who will not meet the service length or hours worked requirements) may waive participation and contribution requirements.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility for employees who have waived participation.

Reclassification

Excluded employees may join the program under certain circumstances when at least 60% of their time is not worked in Delaware.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: For reclassified employees: update the employee's work state to Delaware, then manually add policies to qualifying cases.

Qualifying Family Members

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Special Family Relationship Requirements

📝 Configuration Note: The "Child Over 18 with Impairment" relationship must be selected at intake for the Adoption/Foster Care, Family Health Condition, and Qualifying Exigency absence reasons when the child is age 18 or older with an impairment.

Leave Entitlements and Duration

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Entitlement Overview

DE-PL and DE-PL-JP entitlements vary by absence reason, with a combined maximum of 12 work weeks in a rolling forward 12-month period across all absence reasons.

• Adoption/Foster Care

  • Entitlement - Up to 12 work weeks in a 12-month rolling forward period

  • Shares with: Bonding

• Bonding

  • Entitlement - Up to 12 work weeks in a 12-month rolling forward period

  • Shares with: Adoption/Foster Care

• Employee Health Condition

  • Entitlement - Up to 6 work weeks in a 24-month rolling forward period

  • Shares with: Pregnancy/Maternity

• Pregnancy/Maternity

  • Entitlement - Up to 6 work weeks in a 24-month rolling forward period

  • Shares with: Pregnancy/Maternity

• Family Health Condition

  • Entitlement - Up to 6 work weeks in a 24-month rolling forward period

  • Shares with: None

• Qualifying Exigency

  • Entitlement - Up to 6 work weeks in a 24-month rolling forward period

  • Shares with: None

• Combined maximum - Up to 12 work weeks in a 12-month rolling forward period across all absence reasons

Entitlement Rules

✅ Automatic: AbsenceSoft automatically tracks the shared entitlement and the combined 12-week/12-month maximum across all absence reasons.

📝 Configuration Note: The Adoption/Foster Care absence reason is configured to end the policy 12 months after the Adoption Date. The Bonding absence reason is configured to end the policy 12 months after the Delivery Date.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Case managers will need to update case information to reflect the accurate Adoption Date or Delivery Date to ensure the policy end date calculates correctly.

Family Caregiver Leave/Bereavement

Family Health Condition cases where the family member passes away are limited to 7 days after the date of death or the previously approved end date of leave, whichever is earlier.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Track the bereavement limitation and end or manually deny the case after 7 days for both DE-PL and DE-PL-JP.

Qualifying Exigency Stipulations

• Short Notice Deployments - Limited to 7 calendar days beginning on the date the military member is notified

• Rest and Recuperation - Limited to 15 calendar days beginning on the date each instance of rest and recuperation commences

• Post-Deployment Activities - Must be taken within 90 days of the end of active duty status

📝 Configuration Note: Qualifying Exigency is configured as one absence reason and does not enforce different entitlement amounts depending on the qualifying exigency event.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Employers will need to manually limit durations to match the law for proper benefit administration.

Pregnancy and Bonding Cases

Pregnancy/Maternity and Bonding do not share the same entitlement pool under this policy.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: If Bonding is requested in connection with a Pregnancy/Maternity case, submit Bonding as a separate case so entitlement is calculated properly. Opening a new case may trigger additional communication workflows; employers will need to decide whether to suppress or send these communications to their employees.

📝 Configuration Note: Policies that require a separation of cases will have a to-do item appear to instruct that a new case should be opened.

How Leave Can Be Taken

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Intermittent Leave Requirements

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft does not enforce the state's 1 workday minimum claim increment for intermittent leave or reduced schedule leave payments.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Track intermittent leave increments based on the state's decision and deny if minimum thresholds are not met.

Pay and Benefits

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Benefit Coordination

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: No agreement tracking is available in the platform. Employers wishing to enforce a PTO supplementation or benefit-offset agreement will need to track the agreement outside of the platform.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Case managers should review any workers' compensation situations individually and determine how to proceed based on the state's recommendation.

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy is not configured to exclude work-related disabilities, as this exclusion is not always automatic and instead situational. Configuring an exclusion on this policy would prevent proper handling of these cases until the workers' compensation claim is resolved.

Required Paperwork/Communication

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft provides core paperwork for DE-PL through the DE Paid Leave Notice of Employee Rights (DEPLEMPLOYEENOTICE) paperwork/attachment. Paperwork is configured to be sent as part of the Employee Eligibility packet. Employers with private plans may have different requirements causing the need for a custom paperwork attachment be created with employer specific details.

DE-PL certification forms are not available in the platform and are made available to the employee through the Delaware’s Division of Paid Leave program’s online portal.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Updates to existing paperwork items can occur. When updates happen, they are automatically applied to paperwork unless the client has customized. Clients with customizations on the relevant paperwork will need to review to determine how to adopt the new paperwork and apply any new customizations to the updated paperwork manually.

Payroll Calculations

This policy uses a Base Wage Calculation Method developed from information published by the state of Delaware. It aims to closely replicate the calculations performed by the Delaware Department of Labor.

Pay History

Uses the 4 most-recent quarterly totals of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date.

📝 Configuration Note: Gross quarterly totals include all wages reported to the Delaware Department of Labor, including base wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, and tips. Annual bonuses are included in the gross total for the quarter in which they were paid.

Policy Configuration

A State Weekly Max is configured in the policy's Benefit Settings.

📝 Configuration Note: The DE-PL State Weekly Max is configured at $900, effective 01/01/2026.

Delaware Base Wage Calculation Method Logic

1. Retrieve Pay History:

   1. Retrieve the last 4 full quarters of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date.

2. Calculate the employee's Average Weekly Wage (AWW):

   1. Sum the 4 quarters and divide by 52 to determine the Average Weekly Wage (AWW).

3. Calculate the Base Weekly Wage:

   1. Multiply the AWW by 0.8 and round up to the next higher dollar to determine the estimated weekly benefit.

   2. Retrieve the State Weekly Maximum from the Benefit Settings within the Policy Configuration.

   3. If the calculated benefit is less than $100, use $100 as the Base Weekly Wage.

   4. If the calculated benefit exceeds the State Weekly Maximum, cap the result at the maximum.

   5. Return this as the Base Weekly Wage.

📝 Configuration Note: The value returned is an AbsenceSoft estimate based on the state's published formula. This estimate should be used for planning purposes only and confirmed against the official state determination before being treated as final.

Need Help?

For questions about policy configuration or case management, contact your AbsenceSoft support team or consult the Legislative Guidance for compliance details.