FMLA Leave: Check Eligibility and Find the Date Your 12 Weeks End

FMLA Leave: Eligibility and the Date Your 12 Weeks End

The Family and Medical Leave Act lets eligible employees take unpaid leave without losing their job, but two questions come first: am I eligible, and when will my leave actually end? The FMLA Eligibility and Leave End Date Calculator answers both.

The three eligibility tests

1. Time with the employer: at least 12 months, which need not be consecutive in some cases.
2. Hours: at least 1,250 hours worked in the 12 months before the leave starts, about 24 hours a week.
3. Employer size: the employer must have 50 or more employees within 75 miles of your worksite.

The leave must also be for a qualifying reason, such as the birth or adoption of a child, a serious health condition of your own or a close family member, or a military caregiver or exigency reason. The employer must be a covered employer; public agencies and schools are covered regardless of size.

How much leave

Eligible employees can take up to 12 workweeks in a 12-month period, and up to 26 workweeks to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness. The tool lets you pick the type and subtract weeks already used in the period.

Reduced and intermittent schedules

With a reduced schedule, only the hours of leave count against your 12 weeks. Someone who normally works five days and takes leave on three of them uses 0.6 of a week each calendar week, so 12 weeks of leave last 20 calendar weeks. The tool translates your pattern into the end date.

Using the calculator

Enter the months with the employer, hours in the last 12 months and the number of employees within 75 miles. Choose the first day of leave, the type, your pattern and weeks already used. The result shows a yes or no for each test, the weeks of leave, the weeks left, the start, the end, the calendar weeks covered and the return date.

A worked example

An employee has worked 18 months and 1,600 hours at an employer with 120 employees: eligible on all three tests. Leave starts on Monday, November 30, 2026 for the full 12 weeks. Twelve weeks are 84 days, so the leave ends on Sunday, February 21, 2027 and the return date is Monday, February 22. If the person takes leave only on three days of each week, the 12 weeks stretch over about 20 calendar weeks and the end date moves into April.

What the tool cannot decide

Your employer chooses how the 12-month period is measured: a calendar year, a fixed year, or a rolling period counted backward. Notice and medical certification rules, whether the leave qualifies, and how your benefits continue are all outside this tool. State laws may offer more leave or cover smaller employers.

Good practice

Give your employer notice as early as you can, 30 days when the need is foreseeable. Ask HR for the leave year method and keep copies of everything. This tool is a planning aid and not legal advice.

Quick questions

Do I have to take all 12 weeks at once? No. Leave can be taken in blocks or intermittently for a serious health condition when medically necessary.

Is FMLA leave paid? It is unpaid, but you may be able to use paid sick or vacation leave, and some states offer paid family leave.

Does my job come back? Generally you must be restored to the same or an equivalent job with the same pay and benefits.