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September 29, 2025
Maine recently amended its Earned Paid Leave Law to change how leave accrues and how it can be carried over.
Previously, employees could accrue up to 40 hours of paid leave annually. Unused hours would carry over to the next year. However, because of the existence of a 40-hour cap on accrual, any hours carried over would reduce the amount of leave that the employee could accrue in the next year.
Effective September 24, 2025, an amendment to the law increases that cap to 80 hours. However, the annual limits on accrual and usage remain at 40 hours per year. Thus, although employees can have more than 40 hours in their “leave bank,” they cannot accrue more than 40 new hours of leave per year, nor can they use more than 40 hours of leave per year.
Maine Employers: Update your policies and practices – including providing clear communications to employees about the updates – to reflect these new rules and to ensure accurate accrual calculations.
The author of this article, Patricia Tsipras, is a member of the Bar of Pennsylvania. This article is designed to provide one perspective regarding recent legal developments, and is not intended to serve as legal advice in Pennsylvania, Maine, or any other jurisdiction, nor does it establish an attorney-client relationship with any reader of the article where one does not exist. Always consult an attorney with specific legal issues.
