Bereavement Leave by State: Where Employers Must Provide Time Off

States with verified private-employer bereavement mandates (green) and Washington’s limited PFML child-loss path (amber) — hover any shaded state. Unshaded states are policy-driven at research time.

Federal law does not require private employers to provide bereavement leave — a handful of states do.

There is no general federal statute that forces a private employer to give paid or unpaid time off when an employee loses a family member. The Fair Labor Standards Act does not require pay for time not worked, and the Family and Medical Leave Act does not list bereavement as a covered reason. The few state bereavement mandates sit almost entirely in state statutes.

That patchwork is the employer problem. California requires up to five days of bereavement leave for employers with five or more employees. Illinois and Oregon require multi-week unpaid leave for larger employers. Maryland mostly requires that existing paid leave be usable for bereavement. Washington does not have a general private-employer bereavement bank, but its paid family leave program can cover seven days after the death of a child the employee would have bonded with.

This article is the employer decision guide. For primary sources, jury-duty pay, voting leave, and domestic-violence leave maps, use the full bereavement and civic leave research. For a one-minute answer, see how bereavement leave rules vary by state.

Quick reference

• Federal bereavement mandate: None for private employers.
• Clear stand-alone private mandates (as of July 2026): California (5 days; 5+ employees), Illinois Family Bereavement Leave (up to 2 weeks unpaid; FMLA-covered employers, generally 50+), Oregon OFLA bereavement (up to 2 weeks per family member / 4 weeks per year; 25+ employees), Maryland Flexible Leave Act (use of existing paid leave for death of child, spouse, or parent; 15+ employees that provide paid leave).
• Washington: No general private bereavement bank. Paid Family and Medical Leave can provide up to seven calendar days after the death of a child eligible for bonding/birth-related leave — not general bereavement for other relatives.
• Pay: Usually unpaid under the state mandates unless policy, other available leave, or a state wage-replacement program fills the gap.
• Everywhere else: Handbook, contract, CBA, or sometimes sick leave / general paid-leave statutes if the use actually fits — not an invented nationwide bereavement bank.

The 5 Most Expensive Bereavement Leave Mistakes

1. Treating bereavement as “policy only” in California, Illinois, or Oregon. Employers with a three-day handbook bereavement benefit often assume the handbook is the ceiling. In California, the statute requires at least five days after a covered family member’s death for employers with five or more employees — even if the existing policy is shorter or unpaid. Illinois can require up to 10 workdays (and more after multiple losses) for FMLA-covered employers. Oregon’s OFLA bereavement entitlement runs up to two weeks per family member (capped at four weeks per leave year). Denying the statutory floor after a funeral is a leave-rights violation, not a handbook interpretation dispute.

2. Forcing a California employee to “finish in three consecutive days.” California days need not be consecutive, but they must be completed within three months of the date of death. Managers who insist on one continuous block create unnecessary friction and can interfere with a statutory right.

3. Ignoring Illinois’s second statute after a child’s death by suicide or homicide. Separate from ordinary Family Bereavement Leave, Illinois’s Child Extended Bereavement Leave Act provides longer unpaid, job-protected leave (6 weeks for employers with 50–249 employees; 12 weeks for 250+) when a parent loses a child by suicide or homicide. It is not ordinary bereavement for natural causes.

4. Coding Maryland and sick-leave states as if no leave applies. Maryland’s Flexible Leave Act does not invent a new bank — but if you already provide paid leave and have 15+ employees, employees can use earned paid leave for the death of a child, spouse, or parent. Several sick-leave and general paid-leave statutes can also cover funeral logistics when the use list actually fits. See paid sick leave laws by state.

5. Using HQ-state rules for a remote employee. A Texas-headquartered company with one California remote worker who has been employed 30+ days is in California bereavement territory for that worker. Work location controls.

Federal Baseline

Neither the FLSA nor the FMLA requires private employers to provide bereavement leave. Death of a family member, by itself, is not a listed FMLA reason. An employee’s own serious health condition triggered by grief can sometimes qualify for medical leave — that is a medical-leave analysis, not a bereavement entitlement.

The practical federal floor is simple: if you promise bereavement leave in a handbook or contract, keep the promise. Breaking a promised benefit can create a wage or contract claim even without a bereavement statute.

California — Five Days for Employers With Five or More Employees

California is the broadest private-employer bereavement rule most small businesses will hit.

• Employer size: five or more employees.
• Employee eligibility: employed at least 30 days before leave starts.
• Amount: up to five days after the death of a covered family member.
• Timing: days need not be consecutive; leave must be completed within three months of the date of death.
• Family member: spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic partner, or parent-in-law (as defined by cross-reference in the statute).
• Pay: the statute does not create a freestanding paid bank. Leave runs under any existing bereavement policy. If there is no policy, leave may be unpaid, but the employee may use vacation, personal leave, accrued sick leave, or compensatory time that is otherwise available. If an existing policy provides fewer than five paid days, the employee still gets a total of five days — paid days under the policy plus unpaid days (or other available paid leave) to reach five.
• Documentation: employer may require documentation of the death within 30 days of the first day of leave (death certificate, published obituary, or written verification from a mortuary, funeral home, burial society, crematorium, religious institution, or governmental agency). Keep documentation confidential except as necessary for personnel or counsel, or as required by law.
• Retaliation and interference are separately unlawful.

Things California employers consistently miss

• Five days is the floor, not the handbook ceiling.
• The three-month completion window is hard.
• Sick leave can be elected for otherwise unpaid bereavement days — both the sick-leave balance and the bereavement designation need to show up in the leave record.
• Remote California employees count.

Illinois — Family Bereavement Leave and Child Extended Bereavement

Family Bereavement Leave Act

• Coverage: public employers and private employers with 50 or more employees covered by the federal FMLA. Eligible employees generally need 1,250 hours of service in the prior 12 months.
• Amount: up to 2 weeks (10 workdays) of unpaid leave per covered event; up to 6 weeks if the employee experiences more than one covered event in a 12-month period.
• Covered events: death of a covered family member; stillbirth; miscarriage; unsuccessful reproductive procedure; failed adoption match or contested adoption that is not finalized; failed surrogacy agreement; or a diagnosis that negatively impacts pregnancy or fertility.
• Covered family: child, stepchild, spouse, domestic partner, sibling, parent, mother-in-law, father-in-law, grandchild, grandparent, or stepparent.
• Timing: complete within 60 days after the employee receives notice of the event. Employee notice is generally 48 hours in advance unless not reasonable or practicable.
• FMLA interaction: this leave is not a free extra bank stacked on top of a full FMLA entitlement in the way some employers assume — follow the interaction rules IDOL describes.

Child Extended Bereavement Leave Act

When a parent loses a child by suicide or homicide:

• Employers with 50–249 employees: up to 6 weeks unpaid, job-protected leave.
• Employers with 250+ employees: up to 12 weeks.
• Employers with fewer than 50 employees: not covered.

Oregon — OFLA Bereavement

Oregon was an early mover through the Oregon Family Leave Act.

• Employer size: 25 or more employees.
• Employee eligibility: generally an average of 25 hours per week for 180 days (with public-health-emergency and other adjustments).
• Amount: up to two weeks per family member, maximum four weeks in a leave year inside the broader OFLA bank for sick-child and bereavement uses.
• Timing: available within 60 days after the employee learns of the death.
• Pay: OFLA leave is unpaid unless vacation, sick, or other paid leave is applied. Paid Leave Oregon does not cover bereavement as a wage-replacement event.
• Family member: broad, including spouses and domestic partners, children and their spouses/partners, parents and their spouses/partners, siblings and stepsiblings (and their spouses/partners), grandparents and grandchildren (and their spouses/partners), and any individual related by blood or affinity whose close association is the equivalent of a family relationship.

As Oregon realigned family leave around Paid Leave Oregon, bereavement and sick-child leave remain OFLA-centric and still matter for 25+ employers. For broader family-leave wage replacement, see paid family and medical leave laws by state.

Maryland — Use of Existing Paid Leave

Maryland does not create a new bereavement bank for every employer. Under the Flexible Leave Act expansion, private-sector employers with 15 or more employees that provide leave with pay must allow employees to use that earned paid leave for bereavement after the death of a child, spouse, or parent.

Operational meaning:

• If you do not offer paid leave, the Act does not invent paid leave for you.
• If you do offer paid leave, employees can use what they have already earned for covered bereavement — and the statute does not impose a short “three-day funeral” cap the way many handbooks do.
• Retaliation for using leave under the Act is prohibited.

Confirm current Labor & Employment Article section numbers in the Maryland Code before publishing handbook language.

Washington — PFML Child-Loss Leave, Not General Bereavement

Washington civil-service rules provide paid bereavement for state employees. That is not a private-employer mandate.

For private employers, Paid Family and Medical Leave can provide family leave for the seven days following the loss of a child if the employee would have qualified for prenatal/postnatal medical leave for that child’s birth, or for bonding leave after birth, placement, or adoption. Key limits:

• Up to seven calendar days, beginning after the date of death or delivery of the deceased child.
• Does not include leave for the death of other family members.
• Draws from the employee’s available PFML family-leave duration.
• Wage replacement is through the state program, not an employer-paid bereavement bank.

The Employment Security Department states plainly that Paid Leave benefits do not cover general bereavement leave.

State Mandate Map

Jurisdiction	Private-employer rule (high level)	Paid?	Size / eligibility
California	Up to 5 days after death of covered family member; complete within 3 months	Unpaid unless policy or other available paid leave	5+ employees; employee 30+ days
Illinois (FBLA)	Up to 2 weeks (10 workdays) per covered event; up to 6 weeks for multiple events	Unpaid (other paid leave if policy allows)	FMLA-covered (generally 50+); 1,250 hours prior 12 months
Illinois (CEBLA)	Extended leave after child death by suicide or homicide	Unpaid	6 weeks (50–249); 12 weeks (250+)
Oregon (OFLA)	Up to 2 weeks per family member, max 4 weeks/leave year; within 60 days of learning of death	Unpaid (may run with sick/vacation)	25+ employees; OFLA eligibility
Maryland	Use of existing paid leave for death of child, spouse, or parent	Paid only to the extent employer already provides paid leave	15+ employees that provide leave with pay
Washington	No general private bereavement bank; PFML family leave up to 7 calendar days after death of a qualifying child	State wage replacement if PFML-eligible	PFML program rules
All other states	No verified stand-alone private-employer bereavement mandate at research time	Policy-driven	—

Where sick leave or general paid leave can cover funerals

Some paid sick leave or “paid leave for any reason” laws can cover funeral absences when the statutory use list fits — for example Illinois’s Paid Leave for All Workers Act is usable for any reason for covered employers. Do not treat “sick leave” as automatic bereavement leave without reading the use section. Municipal safe-and-sick ordinances usually focus on health and safety uses, not general bereavement.

Operational Mechanism — Code the Leave Correctly

The compliance failure mode is the same across bereavement and civic leave: the absence is real, but the record is wrong.

What to track for every covered absence:

1. Leave type — bereavement (and which statute or policy), not a single “UNPAID” bucket.
2. Work location on the day of leave — state (and city, if a local ordinance applies).
3. Pay treatment — unpaid statutory leave vs. employer-paid policy vs. employee-elected PTO vs. state PFML wage replacement.
4. Notice and documentation — stored confidentially.
5. Attendance points — whether the absence was excluded from no-fault discipline.

For a multi-state employer, the practical system marks “CA bereavement day 3 of 5” or “WA PFML child-loss day 1 of 7,” then exports hours to payroll without retyping. Jury service and voting leave use the same discipline — see jury duty pay by state.

Multi-State and Remote Workers

Leave mandates generally follow where the employee works, not where the company is headquartered.

• Maria works remotely from Sacramento for a Dallas-based 60-person firm. California’s five-day bereavement rule applies after 30 days of employment. Texas handbook silence does not control.
• The same firm’s Colorado warehouse lead is not under California bereavement law — check Colorado policy and any sick-leave overlap instead.

What to Do This Week

1. Map headcount and work locations for CA, IL, OR, MD, and WA.
2. Compare handbook bereavement language to each statutory floor — California’s five days is the most common shortfall.
3. Separate bereavement reason codes from generic “personal” and “PTO.”
4. Train managers that attendance points for protected statutory leave are a retaliation risk.
5. Confirm how sick leave, vacation, and PFML interact when bereavement would otherwise be unpaid.
6. Pull the last 24 months of funeral-related “personal” codes and reclassify what the statute required.

FAQ

If You Discover You've Been Doing This Wrong

1. Map who works in CA, IL, OR, MD, and WA.
2. Pull funeral-related personal/PTO codes from the last 24 months and reclassify what the statute required.
3. Repair pay where policy or statute required paid treatment and it was denied.
4. Rewrite handbook sections so bereavement floors are separate from generic PTO.
5. Fix leave reason codes so statutory bereavement days export cleanly to payroll.
6. For multi-week Illinois or Oregon leave, or CEBLA facts, involve employment counsel before denying the request.

The Bottom Line

Bereavement leave is not one national policy. It is a thin federal “no mandate” baseline under a state patchwork: a few clear private-employer mandates, one PFML child-loss path in Washington, and policy everywhere else.

The failure modes recur:

• Assuming a three-day handbook is enough in California, Illinois, or Oregon.
• Missing Illinois’s extended leave after certain child deaths.
• Treating Maryland paid-leave use rules as if no duty exists.
• Coding funerals as unprotected “personal time” and docking attendance points.

When in doubt, code the leave correctly and keep the work location on the record. That ledger is what makes a short absence defensible instead of a long dispute.

Sources

Primary statute text and official agency pages live in bereavement and civic leave laws by state. Key anchors translated here:

• California Government Code § 12945.7; CRD bereavement leave FAQ
• Illinois FBLA (820 ILCS 154) and Child Extended Bereavement Leave Act — IDOL summaries
• Oregon OFLA / ORS 659A.150–.186 — BOLI guidance
• Maryland Flexible Leave Act expansion (2021)
• Washington PFML child-loss leave — paidleave.wa.gov / RCW Title 50A

Related Clockspot reading

• How bereavement leave rules vary by state
• Jury duty pay by state
• Paid sick leave laws by state
• Paid family and medical leave laws by state