Amended Maine Mandatory PTO Law Increases Overall Accrual Cap

On July 1, 2025, Maine Governor Janet Mills signed into law LD 55, which increases the number of hours of legally required paid time off (PTO) an employee must be able to accumulate year-over-year. Given the changes will take effect on September 24, 2025, some employers might need to respond quickly.

Among the dozens of state and local laws in the United States that mandate employers provide paid sick and safe time or paid time off employees can use for any reason, the way in which Maine’s accrual cap and carryover currently work together is unusual (only Colorado and Allegheny County/Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania take a similar approach). Under the statute, employees are entitled to accrue “up to 40 hours in one year of employment.” Although the statute does not expressly address the carryover of unused hours from one year to the next, the regulations dictate: “Covered Employees with accrued and unused hours of earned paid leave from the previous year of employment will have those hours available for use by the employee in the current year of employment, up to a maximum of forty hours.” Where things get unique is the regulation’s next sentence: “Hours are only required to continue to accrue up to forty hours in the current year of employment.” As explained by the Maine Department of Labor in its FAQs: “If the employee rolls over 40 hours of unused accrued Earned Paid Leave from one year to the next, the employee will not accrue any additional hours.” Accordingly, any unused leave an employee carries over from a previous year counts against their ability to accrue 40 hours in the current year. For example, if they carried over 20 hours from the previous year, they could only accrue 20 hours in the new year; or if they carried over 30 hours, they could only accrue 10 hours. As a result, an employee’s earned paid leave balance would never exceed 40 hours in a single year. 

LD 55’s amendments change things. Unused accrued leave from the immediately preceding year will still carry over into the next year, but carryover will not affect an employee’s ability to accrue up to an additional 40 hours in the new year. This means that an employee’s earned paid leave balance may reach 80 hours (40-hour carryover plus a new 40-hour annual accrual) -twice the current 40-hour cap -  in the second (or later) year of employment (unless an employer establishes a higher accrual cap). Although earned paid leave balances may be higher, the current regulations allow employers to limit the amount of leave employees can use in a year to 40 hours. Interestingly, though, LB 55 directs the state Department of Labor to enforce the new provisions “within existing resources using strategic enforcement.” Therefore, it is unclear at this time whether further rulemaking will be initiated by the Department in the coming months to amend the current regulations and clarify the impact of these changes. 

Some employers might feel like they can’t catch a break in 2025 because of how often mandatory short-term paid leave standards are changing. As attorneys who also need to monitor and react to changes across the country, we understand how challenging keeping on top of things can be. Although we would welcome an “intermission,” based on what we have seen this year, and what we know is in the pipeline, idle time appears not to be in our collective future.