Learn which states require bereavement leave, what federal and state laws actually mandate, and how employers can build policies that go beyond legal minimums to truly support grieving employees.
Last updated: February 2026
Is bereavement leave required by law? No. There's no federal mandate. Most companies offer it anyway, but they're doing it voluntarily.
Seven states have changed that. Oregon, California, Illinois, Maryland, Washington, Minnesota, and Colorado now require certain employers to provide bereavement leave. The rules vary significantly—some mandate paid time off, others just protect your job while you're unpaid, and employer size thresholds determine who has to comply.
If you're in HR or manage people, you need to know which laws apply to your organization and where the legal floor sits. Then you need to decide whether meeting that floor is enough.
No. The federal government hasn't touched this.
The Family and Medical Leave Act covers serious health conditions and caring for sick family members, but grief doesn't qualify. You can take FMLA leave to care for a dying parent. You cannot take FMLA leave after they die.
Federal employees get something different. Under federal sick leave policies, they can use up to 13 days of accrued sick leave per year for bereavement, making funeral arrangements, and settling estates. Some categories of federal workers can also take up to 104 hours of unpaid leave for the same reasons.
Private sector workers don't have that protection unless their state stepped in or their employer chose to offer it. Most employers do offer something, but what that "something" looks like varies wildly.
Seven states have laws on the books:
The details matter more than the headlines. Oregon gives you two weeks, but it's unpaid. Washington gives you two weeks too, but the state insurance program pays for it. California only gives you five days, but at least your job is protected.
These aren't interchangeable policies with different labels. They're fundamentally different approaches to the same problem, and if your company operates across state lines, you're stuck navigating all of them.
State bereavement laws spell out specifics:
Most states prohibit retaliation. You can't get fired, demoted, or punished for using leave you're legally entitled to. Some states bar employers from demanding death certificates or other proof. Others allow "reasonable verification."
What counts as reasonable? That's where it gets fuzzy and where employers make mistakes.
Small businesses get carved out in most states. Illinois set the threshold at 50 employees. Maryland drew the line at 15. California's law kicks in at 5 workers.
If you're below the threshold, you're not legally required to provide leave. Many small employers offer it anyway because losing someone mid-project when you only have 8 people total can be devastating to morale.
Larger employers with locations across multiple states face a compliance nightmare. You need to track which version of which rule applies to which employee based on where they work, how big that location is, and which state law governs their employment.
In the 43 states without laws? No legal requirement exists.
But according to SHRM's 2024 Employee Benefits Survey, 91% of employers offer bereavement leave anyway. It's become standard practice even without legal pressure.
What's not standard is how much they offer. The average sits at 5.6 days for immediate family, based on data from Empathy's 2024 Cost of Dying report. Most companies cluster in the 3-5 day range.
Grief experts say people need at least 20 days for a close loss. The gap between what's typical (5 days) and what's actually helpful (20 days) is massive. That gap shows up later as turnover.
Offering the standard bereavement leave duration makes you average. It doesn't make you supportive. If your goal is retention and loyalty, you need to think past industry norms.
Depends entirely on where you are and who you work for.
In states without laws, whether bereavement leave is paid is whatever your employer decided when they wrote the policy. Most do pay, but amounts vary by relationship (more for a spouse, less for a grandparent) and company size.
State laws split several ways:
Unpaid leave keeps your job but adds financial pressure when you're already dealing with funeral costs and travel. People come back early when they can't afford to stay out. Paid leave removes one stressor from an already brutal situation.
Meeting the legal minimum rarely feels supportive to the employee using it.
A bereavement policy that checks compliance boxes—five paid days, immediate family only, must be consecutive—protects the company from lawsuits. It doesn't protect employees from the chaos of early grief or the months of estate work that follow.
Research published in The Transdisciplinary Journal of Management found that 44% of bereaved employees separate from their employer within a year, with more than half of those departures being voluntary quits. People leave when they don't feel supported.
Standard bereavement leave doesn't prevent that outcome on its own. Employees need more than protected time off:
Legal compliance protects you from labor violations. Actual support protects you from losing good people. Companies that treat the legal minimum as sufficient miss the entire point.
Start with the legal requirements. If you operate in one of the seven states with laws, compliance isn't optional. Multi-state employers need documentation showing which policy applies to which employee and why.
Once you've covered that baseline, look at what employees actually face when someone dies.
Empathy's research shows the average person spends 15-18 months completing all death-related administrative tasks. That includes estate settlement, closing financial accounts, transferring property titles, dealing with insurance, and handling a dozen other things that can't be done in the first week.
Three days of leave covers the funeral. It doesn't cover anything else.
Better policies include:
You can meet every legal requirement and still fail to support people through loss. The question isn't just "Are we compliant?" It's "If someone on my team experienced this, would they feel we showed up for them?"
Yes, if the states you operate in have different requirements.
Most employers write one company-wide policy that meets or exceeds the most generous state requirement. Everyone gets the better benefit, administration stays simple, and you avoid confusion about who qualifies for what.
Some companies maintain separate state-specific policies with clear documentation. This works if you have distinct regional operations with separate HR systems, but it creates complexity when employees transfer between states.
Depends on your state. Some prohibit requiring death certificates or obituaries. Others allow reasonable verification.
Most employers skip it unless something seems off. Asking for proof during grief damages trust, creates administrative work for both sides, and solves a problem that barely exists. Bereavement leave fraud isn't common enough to justify routine verification.
They usually piece together other leave types. PTO, sick days, personal time, or unpaid leave can extend their time off after bereavement leave runs out.
Some state laws require employers to allow accrued paid time off for bereavement purposes, so check your local requirements before saying no.
Employers with generous initial bereavement leave deal with this less. When your policy better matches the actual timeline of grief, fewer people need to cobble together extra days from multiple leave buckets.
Yes. State labor departments enforce these laws.
Penalties can include fines, back pay requirements, damages, and legal fees. Employees can file complaints if they're denied legally mandated leave or punished for using it.
Beyond legal penalties, there's reputational damage. Employees who feel unsupported during grief tell people. Those stories spread through your industry and show up on Glassdoor and Reddit. The cost of a ruined employer brand exceeds any fine.
Bereavement leave laws exist because employees needed job protection during loss. Before these laws, people got fired for attending their own parent's funeral or had to choose between paying bills and grieving.
Legal protection matters. It prevents immediate catastrophe.
But laws can't create compassionate workplaces. An employee who comes back after three legally compliant days of leave might still feel abandoned. They might make mistakes because grief shredded their focus. They might quietly update their resume because the company treated their worst life moment as a three-day inconvenience.
The turnover data tells the story. Research shows 51% of employees who lose someone close leave their job within a year. That's not about the number of leave days. It's about whether the organization showed up when it mattered or just followed the minimum rules.
Managers need skills for difficult conversations. HR needs systems that create consistency. Teams need coverage plans that don't punish people for taking time off. Comprehensive manager grief training prepares leaders to respond with empathy instead of panic.
Compliance addresses legal risk. Compassion addresses human risk. Organizations that grasp this distinction build loyalty that outlasts any single policy change.
No federal law requires it. Seven states—Oregon, California, Illinois, Maryland, Washington, Minnesota, and Colorado—have their own laws. The other 43 states leave it up to employers.
Washington and Minnesota provide paid leave through state-funded programs. Colorado requires employers with 50+ workers to pay for leave. Other states allow unpaid leave or let employees use existing PTO.
No. FMLA covers serious health conditions and caregiving for living family members. It doesn't include time to grieve deaths or attend funerals.
Average is 5.6 days for immediate family. Most cluster in the 3-5 day range. Grief experts recommend at least 20 days for close losses, so there's a significant gap between typical and adequate.
No legal requirement exists in states without laws. However, 91% of U.S. employers voluntarily provide some form of bereavement leave.
In states with laws, employers must provide leave to eligible employees. In states without laws, employers set their own rules but need to apply them consistently to avoid discrimination issues.
They typically use other leave types—PTO, sick time, unpaid leave. Some state laws specifically allow employees to use accrued paid time off for bereavement beyond the minimum required leave.
Yes. Violating state laws can result in fines, back pay requirements, damages, and employee lawsuits. Penalties vary by state and violation severity.
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