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Minnesota Paid Leave

Overview

Minnesota Paid Leave (MN-PL) provides eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of paid time off for medical leave and up to 12 weeks for family leave in a 12-month period. Employees who qualify for both types of leave may take a combined maximum of 20 weeks per year. Job protection is available through a companion policy for employees who have worked for their employer for at least 90 calendar days.

For detailed legislative requirements, see our Legislative Guidance.

Policy Status Decisions

This policy is administered by the state unless the employer has an approved plan to administer on their own.

💡 Best Practice: Follow the state's decision 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 - Minnesota Paid Leave

  • Policy Code - MN-PL

  • Benefit Type - Paid Leave


  • Policy Name - Minnesota Paid Leave - Job Protection

  • Policy Code - MN-PL-JP

  • Benefit Type - Job Protected

Administration Options

Minnesota Paid Leave can be administered through:

  • State Plan (default) - administered by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED)

  • 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.

Excluded Employers

❌ Manual Action 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.

This policy is a state paid leave program that may have eligibility criteria tied to wages/earnings that are not available in the platform. Employers should follow the state's determination for the wage replacement policy.

Job protection under MN-PL-JP is determined by the employer and may be tied to the employee receiving wages under MN-PL.

💡 Best Practice: Follow the state's decision so the policy status matches the state's determination for eligibility.

❌ Manual Action Required: Overrides in eligibility may be required if the state determines the employee has not met the eligibility requirements necessary for paid benefits.

Work State Requirements

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

❌ Manual Action 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

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

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

Qualifying Family Members

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Special Family Relationship Requirements

De Facto Custodian:

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft does not have a relationship for 'De Facto Custodian'. Users should select:

  • Legal Ward in place of this relationship for a child

  • Legal Guardian in place of this relationship for a parent

Leave Entitlements and Duration

Entitlement Overview

MN-PL entitlement is divided into two separate entitlement banks by absence-reason category within a 52-week Sunday Forward period, capped at a combined maximum of 20 weeks across all reasons.

  • Medical Leave (Employee Health Condition, Pregnancy/Maternity)

    • Entitlement - Up to 12 weeks in a 52-week Sunday Forward period

      • does not share entitlement with Family Leave

  • Family Leave (Adoption/Foster Care, Bonding, Care of Injured Servicemember, Domestic Violence, Family Health Condition, Qualifying Exigency, Safe Leave)

    • Entitlement - Up to 12 weeks in a 52-week Sunday Forward period

      • does not share entitlement with Medical Leave

  • Combined maximum - Up to 20 work weeks in a 52-week Sunday Forward period across all absence reasons

Entitlement Rules

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

📝 Configuration Note: A combined maximum of 20 work weeks across both pools is configured within each absence reason's second entitlement tier.

Pregnancy and Bonding Cases

❌ Manual Action Required: If Bonding is requested in association with a Pregnancy/Maternity case, the bonding portion must be submitted as a separate case with a Bonding absence reason so entitlement is calculated properly. Opening of new cases 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 a new case should be opened.

How Leave Can Be Taken

Intermittent Leave Requirements

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

❌ Manual Action Required: Users are required to track manually/defer to the state’s confirmation whether the employee has accumulated 8 hours of leave within a 30-day period, since wage replacement is only payable once that threshold is met for intermittent leave.

Pay and Benefits

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Benefit Coordination

❌ Manual Action Required: No PTO agreements are available in the platform. Employers wishing to enforce a coordination agreement with PTO or other employer-paid time off will need to track that agreement outside of the platform or update any relevant communications/paperwork offerings.

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy is not configured to exclude work-related disabilities, as it 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.

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

Elimination Period

📝 Configuration Note: The elimination period is configured inclusively on MN-PL. It does not apply to the MN-PL-JP, since job-protected benefits are not subject to a waiting period.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Elimination periods should be recorded and confirmed in the platform based on the state's determination; follow the state's recommendation for claims that do not meet the payable limitation.

Required Paperwork/Communication

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft provides core paperwork for MN-PL through the MN Paid Leave(MNPLPOSTER) 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.


MN-PL certification forms are not available in the platform and are made available to the employee through the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) 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.

Managing In-Flight Cases

For leaves that began before but continue on or after January 1, 2026, manual intervention is required.

❌ Manual Action Required: Review all active Minnesota cases to identify those that were open before January 1, 2026, continue on or after January 1, 2026, and meet qualifying criteria for Minnesota Paid Leave.

💡 Best Practice: Proactively communicate with employees about their new benefit eligibility. Many may not be aware.

❌ Tracking Required: Create a list of all potentially eligible in-flight cases before January 1, 2026 to ensure none are missed.

Qualifying Absence Reasons to Review

  • Adoption/Foster Care

  • Bonding

  • Employee Health Condition

  • Family Health Condition

  • Care of Injured Servicemember

  • Qualifying Exigency

  • Safe Leave

  • Domestic Violence

  • Pregnancy without Bonding

Re-adjudication Instructions

❌ Manual Action Required: For cases that are open and span January 1, 2026:

  1. Manually add the Minnesota Paid Leave policy (if applicable/eligibility criteria is met)

  2. Manually add the Minnesota Paid Leave - Job Protection policy (if applicable/eligibility criteria is met)

  3. Both policies should start on 1/1/2026

  4. Send MN Paid Leave paperwork to employee

💡 Best Practice: Document in case notes: "Minnesota Paid Leave added retroactively for in-flight case effective 1/1/2026"

Pregnancy and Bonding Case Splits

The Pregnancy absence reason does not share its entitlement with the Bonding absence reason for Minnesota Paid Leave (separate pools).

❌ Manual Action Required: If bonding leave is requested in correlation with a pregnancy case spanning January 1, 2026, they must be submitted as separate cases so entitlement can be allocated properly.

Bonding starting on or after 1/1/2026:

  1. Perform a case change to end the existing Pregnancy/Maternity case the day before bonding is scheduled to begin

  2. Manually add the Minnesota Paid Leave and Minnesota Paid Leave - Job Protection policies (if applicable/eligibility criteria is met), both starting 1/1/2026

  3. Create a new Bonding case starting on the scheduled bonding start date; Minnesota Paid Leave policies should automatically apply

Bonding starting before 1/1/2026:

  1. Perform a case change to end the existing Pregnancy/Maternity case on 12/31/2025

  2. Create a new Bonding case starting 1/1/2026; Minnesota Paid Leave policies should automatically apply

❌ Manual Action Required: 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.

💡 Best Practice: Document the split clearly in both case notes, explaining the separate entitlement allocations.

Payroll Calculations

This policy uses a Base Wage Calculation Method developed from information published by the state of Minnesota. It aims to closely replicate the calculations performed by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

Pay History

Uses the employee's effective salary if salaried, or the single highest of the last 4 quarterly totals if hourly.

📝 Configuration Note: For salaried employees, Pay Type = Salary and Pay History = Effective Salary; salary should reflect the base salary, and AbsenceSoft calculates the weekly salary as annual salary divided by 52. For hourly employees, provide the 4 most-recent Quarterly Totals; gross quarterly totals should include all wages reported to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), including base wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, tips, and gratuities. Annual bonuses are reported in the quarter paid. Minnesota uses the single highest quarter for hourly employees; a bonus paid in that quarter may significantly increase the benefit estimate.

Policy Configuration

A State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) is configured in the policy's Benefit Settings; Minnesota compares the calculated benefit directly against this value rather than a separate weekly maximum.

📝 Configuration Note: MN-PL SAWW is $1,423, effective 01/01/2026. Minnesota caps the weekly benefit at the SAWW itself rather than a separate maximum.

Minnesota Base Wage Calculation Method Logic

  1. Determine if the employee is salaried or hourly:

    1. First check the optional Pay Type field for Salary or Hourly. If available, use selection.

    2. If Pay Type is not entered, check Pay History entry.

      1. If Salary is entered, assume Salary.

      2. If Salary is not entered, assume Hourly.

  2. Retrieve Pay History

    1. If the employee is salaried, retrieve the Pay History → Salary.

    2. If the employee is hourly, retrieve last four full quarters of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date.

  3. Check Eligibility:

    1. Retrieve the State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) from Benefit Settings within the Policy Configuration.

    2. Confirm the employee has earned at least 5.3% of the SAWW in the past year. If not, set the Base Wage to $0 and display the ineligibility message.

  4. Calculate the employees Average Weekly Wage (AWW):

    1. If salaried, divide Salary by 52.

    2. If hourly, identify the quarter with the highest total earnings and divide by 13.

  5. Calculate the Base Weekly Wage:

    1. Apply the tiered state benefit percent to the AWW:

      1. For the portion of AWW between $0 and 50% of SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (90%): multiply by 0.90.

      2. For the portion of AWW between 50% and 100% of SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (66%): multiply by 0.66.

      3. For the portion of AWW above 100% of SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (55%): multiply by 0.55.

    2. Sum the results from each tier to determine the estimated weekly benefit.

    3. If the calculated benefit exceeds the state max (SAWW), cap the result at the SAWW.

    4. Return this as the Base Weekly Wage.

📋 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.