Maternity leave and pay in the US

Start here: there is no federal paid maternity leave

The United States has no national paid maternity leave. This is not a technicality or a gap in coverage that other rules quietly fill. The Department of Labor's Women's Bureau states it directly: “there is currently no federal law providing or guaranteeing access to paid family and medical leave for workers in the private sector.”

What federal law does provide is unpaid leave, through the Family and Medical Leave Act, and only to some people. Everything paid comes from one of three places: your state, your employer, or an insurance policy. If you are comparing the US against the UK, Canada or Australia, there is no equivalent to Statutory Maternity Pay here. Plan around that fact rather than hoping to find it.

FMLA: what unpaid job protection actually gives you

FMLA gives eligible employees of covered employers up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period, including for the birth of a child or bonding with a newborn. Two protections come with it and they are genuinely valuable:

• Your employer must continue your group health benefits on the same terms as if you had not taken leave.
• You must be restored to the same or a virtually identical position when you return.

FMLA leave may be unpaid, or taken at the same time as employer-provided paid leave. Bonding leave can only be taken intermittently or on a reduced schedule if your employer agrees — unlike medical leave, you do not have a right to break it up.

Eligibility — all three tests must be met

• You have worked for a covered employer for at least 12 months.
• You have at least 1,250 hours of service with that employer in the 12 months before your leave starts — roughly 24 hours a week.
• You work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles.

Covered employers are private-sector employers with 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks in the current or previous calendar year, all public agencies regardless of size, and all public and private elementary and secondary schools regardless of size.

Read those three tests together and you can see who falls out: people at small businesses, people in their first year at a job, and part-time workers. Give your employer at least 30 days' notice where the leave is foreseeable, which a due date always is.

State paid leave: where the money actually comes from

Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have laws creating paid family and medical leave programs. Hawaii has paid temporary disability leave, and Puerto Rico has both temporary disability and maternity leave laws. New Hampshire, Vermont and Virginia run voluntary programs where workers and employers can buy private leave insurance.

These programs are funded by payroll contributions and paid by the state, not your employer, so they survive a job change in a way employer benefits do not. Figures below are the 2026 amounts.

California

California splits it in two. State Disability Insurance (SDI) covers your own pregnancy-related disability — typically the weeks before and after delivery. Paid Family Leave (PFL) then covers up to 8 weeks of bonding in a 12-month period, and birth mothers usually transition straight from disability benefits into PFL. Both pay 70–90% of your wages depending on income, up to a maximum of $1,765 per week for claims beginning on or after 1 January 2026, with a $50 weekly minimum.

New York

Up to 12 weeks of job-protected paid leave at 67% of your average weekly wage, capped at 67% of the state average weekly wage. For 2026 the NYSAWW is $1,833.63, making the maximum benefit $1,228.53 per week. Employees fund it through a payroll deduction of 0.432% of gross wages, capped at $411.91 for the year.

New Jersey

Family Leave Insurance provides up to 12 weeks at 85% of your average weekly wage, up to $1,119 per week in 2026. To qualify in 2026 you must have worked 20 weeks earning at least $310 a week, or earned $15,500 total in the base year. Temporary Disability Insurance covers the pregnancy and recovery period separately.

Washington

Up to 12 weeks of family leave and 12 weeks of medical leave, combined to a maximum of 16 weeks — extendable to 18 weeks if you experience a serious health condition with pregnancy that results in incapacity. You need 820 hours worked in the qualifying period. The maximum weekly benefit is $1,647 in 2026, with a $100 minimum. The 2026 premium rate is 1.13% of wages, split 71.43% employee and 28.57% employer.

Massachusetts

Up to 20 weeks of paid medical leave and 12 weeks of paid family leave, with a combined maximum of 26 weeks in a benefit year. The maximum weekly benefit is $1,230.39 in 2026, up from $1,170.64 in 2025.

New for 2026

Three more programs came online this year. Delaware Paid Leave took full effect on 1 January 2026, with up to 12 weeks of combined leave for workers with 12 months of service and 1,250 hours. Minnesota Paid Leave began covering workers on 1 January 2026. Maine began paying benefits in May 2026, offering up to 12 weeks, with job protection after 120 consecutive days with an employer.

If you do not qualify for any of it

Check these in order, because they stack differently:

• Employer policy. Many large employers offer paid parental leave well beyond anything the law requires. Ask HR for the written policy, not a summary.
• Short-term disability insurance. Often the only wage replacement available in states without a public program. It generally must be in place before you conceive — buying it once pregnant almost always excludes the pregnancy.
• Accrued PTO and sick leave. Frequently the real source of paid time off, and your employer can require you to use it concurrently with FMLA.
• State unpaid leave laws. Several states extend job protection to smaller employers than FMLA covers.

Two federal protections apply regardless of leave eligibility. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act bars treating pregnancy less favorably than other temporary conditions, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy and childbirth.

Where to get help

The US Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division is the governing authority for FMLA and investigates complaints at no cost; Fact Sheet #28 is the plain-language reference. For paid benefits, go straight to your state agency — state programs, not federal ones, are where the money is, and each has its own application, deadlines and appeal route. The Women's Bureau maintains an interactive map linking every state program.