On October 25, 2025, New York City amended its Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA), radically expanding the law and the benefits it provides to employees. Importantly, effective February 22, 2026:

• Employers must provide 32 hours of unpaid safe and sick time to covered employees, in addition to the paid sick and safe time that was already provided by the statute; and
• The covered uses of safe and sick time will expand to reach new employee circumstances.

The amended ESSTA requires employers to make available the additional 32 hours of unpaid safe/sick time immediately at hire, as well as to “frontload” it at the start of each new benefit year. The unpaid safe/sick time may be used immediately by employees upon receipt. Further, under the amended ESSTA, if an employee communicates to their employer that they need time off for a purpose covered by safe/sick time, the employer must provide paid safe/sick time unless the employee has no such time available or the employee specifically requests to use other leave in lieu of paid safe/sick time.

Unlike paid sick time, under the amended ESSTA, unused unpaid safe/sick time need not be carried over from one benefit year to the next. As is the case now with paid safe/sick time, the amended ESSTA requires the unpaid safe/sick time to be reported on pay statements or on another form of written documentation that is provided to the employee each pay period.

The new 32-hour unpaid safe/sick time benefit is designed to align with the...

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