District of Columbia Paid Family and Medical Leave Act

Overview

Starting July 1, 2020, the District of Columbia's Universal Paid Leave Amendment Act (UPLA) provides eligible private-sector employees with paid wage replacement benefits for qualifying parental, family, medical, and prenatal leave events. DC Paid Family Leave does not provide job protection on its own; job protection may be available separately under the DC Family and Medical Leave Act (DC-FML) or the federal FMLA.

For detailed legislative requirements, see our Legislative Guidance.

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

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

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

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Best Practice: AbsenceSoft recommendation for optimal management

How AbsenceSoft Manages DC Paid Family and Medical Leave

AbsenceSoft uses a single core policy to manage DC PFMLA benefits:

Policy Name	Policy Code	Benefit Type	Purpose
District of Columbia Paid Family and Medical Leave Act	DC-PFMLA	Paid Leave	Provides wage replacement during qualifying leave

Administration Options

DC Paid Family and Medical Leave is administered exclusively through the state plan. All private-sector employers in the District of Columbia are required to participate:

State Plan (required for all covered private-sector employers) — administered by the DC Department of Employment Services (DOES), Office of Paid Family Leave (OPFL)
Self-Employed Individuals — may opt into the program voluntarily

Configuration Note: Unlike some other state programs, DC-PFMLA does not offer a private plan option for employers. All covered private-sector employers must use the state-administered program. No custom policy is needed for standard administration.

Employer Coverage Requirements

Excluded Employers

The majority of DC employers are covered except:

Federal government or DC government employees
Employers who are tax exempt or do not contribute to unemployment tax.

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy applies to all DC employees by default.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility for employees of excluded employers.

Employee Eligibility

Work State Requirements

Employees must perform 50% of more of their work time for a covered employer within the District of Columbia.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy is configured to apply to employees with Work State = DC.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility for:

Employees without DC work state but work there 50%
Employees with work state of DC but do not work there 50% of the time

Earnings Requirements

Employees do not have to meet earning threshold requirements, instead the state relies on whether wages were reported by an employer for the employee claiming benefits.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Override eligibility to ineligible for employees who have not met this earnings requirement based on the state’s determination for ineligibility.

Eligibility Exceptions

Excluded Employees

Self-employed individuals may opt-in.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility for excluded employees.

Leave Entitlements and Duration

Entitlement Overview

Absence Reason	Entitlement	Period
Parental Leave (Adoption/Foster Care, Bonding) Medical Leave (Employee Health Condition, Pregnancy/Maternity) Family Leave (Family Health Condition)	Up to 12 weeks (shared across all absence reasons) Exception: If prenatal time is taken prior to delivery, up to 12 weeks can be applied to the Pregnancy leave. In these cases only, up to an additional 2 weeks of bonding may be taken (in a separate case), totaling 14 weeks of available time in a benefit year.	52 weeks (Sunday forward)

Absence Reason

Entitlement

Period

Parental Leave (Adoption/Foster Care, Bonding)

Medical Leave (Employee Health Condition, Pregnancy/Maternity)

Family Leave (Family Health Condition)

Up to 12 weeks (shared across all absence reasons)

Exception:

If prenatal time is taken prior to delivery, up to 12 weeks can be applied to the Pregnancy leave. In these cases only, up to an additional 2 weeks of bonding may be taken (in a separate case), totaling 14 weeks of available time in a benefit year.

52 weeks (Sunday forward)

Automatic: AbsenceSoft automatically calculates entitlement based on the above overview when using core policies.

Entitlement Rules

Pregnancy and Bonding Cases

When Pregnancy/Maternity includes time for prenatal leave, then the employee may take up to an additional 2 weeks for bonding within the same 52-week benefit year. The additional 2 weeks for bonding must be created in a separate case.

This reflects the law's intent to allow up to 2 weeks of prenatal leave plus up to 12 weeks of parental bonding leave. When only one of the two reasons is used, or when either is combined with Adoption, EHC, or FHC, the standard 12-week maximum applies.

Configuration Note: The additional 2-week bonding entitlement only applies to the birthing parent.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: When a pregnant employee takes leave for prenatal care, a separate bonding case must be opened to support the additional 2 week entitlement that applies only to the bonding cases.

If an employee is not taking prenatal care, pregnancy and bonding can be tracked within a single case.

When the Bonding case is created, eligibility may need to be overridden to match the eligibility status as of the start of the pregnancy case. This is only needed if the bonding case immediately follows the pregnancy case.

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Best Practice:

Create the bonding case without delay if needed to ensure it does not get missed.
Communicate this requirement clearly to employees requesting both pregnancy and bonding leave.
Employers using the state administered program should follow the decision of the state.

Interaction with Other Laws

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

DC-PFMLA (paid benefits) and DC-FML (job protection) are separate laws that may run concurrently for qualifying leaves. DC-FML applies to private employers with 20 or more employees in the DC metro area; federal FMLA applies to private employers with 50 or more employees. When an employee's leave qualifies under DC-PFMLA and DC-FML or federal FMLA, the leaves generally run at the same time.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft manages paid benefits through the DC-PFMLA policy. Job protection under DC-FML or federal FMLA must be managed through separate policies or tracked outside the platform.

How Leave Can Be Taken

DC PFML may be taken in full day increments. Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Manual Action Required: Track intermittent leave based on the state’s decision and deny if minimum thresholds are not met.

Required Paperwork

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft provides core paperwork to advise employees of their benefits. This is not required by law. AbsenceSoft provides the paperwork as a courtesy to help employees learn where to file and the benefits available under the law. Paperwork is configured to be sent with the Employee Eligibility packet.

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Best Practice: Certification forms are made available to the employee through the state portal when a claim is filed and are not available in AbsenceSoft. Direct employees to file claims and obtain certification forms through the state website.

Payroll Calculations

This policy uses a Base Wage Calculation Method developed from information published by the District of Columbia. It aims to closely replicate the calculations performed by the DOES Office of Paid Family Leave.

Method Name

DC Paid Family Leave

Pay History

Uses the 5 most-recent Quarterly Totals.

Configuration Note: Gross quarterly totals should include all wages reported to the DC Department of Employment Services (DOES), including base wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, and tips. Annual bonuses are reported in the quarter paid. DC uses the highest four of five quarters.

Policy Configuration

State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) and a State Weekly Max

Configuration Note: The current State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) is $1104 and the State Weekly Maximum is $1190.

Base Wage Calculation Method Logic

Retrieve Pay History:
1. Retrieve the last five full quarters of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date.
Calculate the employee Average Weekly Wage (AWW):
1. Identify the four quarters with the highest total earnings among the five.
2. Sum the four highest quarters and divide by 52 to determine the employee's AWW.
Calculate the Base Weekly Wage:
1. Retrieve the State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) and state max from Benefit Settings within the Policy Configuration.
2. For the portion of AWW up to 100% of SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (90%):
  1. If AWW is at least 100% of SAWW: SAWW × 0.90.
  2. If AWW is less than 100% of SAWW: AWW × 0.90.
3. For the portion of AWW above the SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (50%): (AWW – SAWW) × 0.50.
4. Add the two values together to determine the estimated weekly benefit.
5. If the calculated benefit exceeds the state max, cap the result at the state max.
6. 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.