Changes to Maine Earned Paid Leave Law Now in Effect
On July 1, 2025, Maine Governor Janet Mills signed into law “An Act to Amend the Law Governing the Accrual of Earned Paid Leave,” which updates the number of hours of earned paid leave an employee can carry over and accumulate from one year to the next.
Specifically, the law amends Maine’s existing Earned Paid Leave (EPL) program by now allowing employees to carry over accrued and unused leave from one year to the next without reducing the amount of leave an employee can accrue the following year. Any provisions of the law or related rules/guidance not addressed below have not changed.
Background: Maine EPL Initially Required Carryover but Permitted Cap on Subsequent Accrual and Use
Under the EPL law and rules, employers must allow employees to accrue one hour of EPL for every 40 hours worked, up to 40 hours in a given year. Under the original EPL framework, employers that did not frontload 40 hours at the start of the year had to allow employees to carry over up to 40 hours of unused accrued EPL from one year to the next, but such carried-over hours could reduce the amount of leave accrued in the following year. Importantly, employers were also permitted to cap EPL use at 40 hours per year.
Effective September 24, 2025: Maine EPL Law Revised to Remove Cap on Accrual
Effective September 24, 2025, however, the law changed with respect to the carryover of unused EPL. Pursuant to this change, employers must now allow carryover of unused accrued EPL— even if they frontload EPL in January — and such carryover cannot reduce the amount of EPL an employee can accrue in the following year.
For example, if an employee carries over 40 hours of unused accrued EPL from Year 1, the employee may still accrue an additional 40 hours in Year 2, resulting in a potential balance of 80 hours (40 hours carried over + 40 hours accrued in Year 2).
Furthermore, if an employer’s policy provides for a higher annual accrual cap—for instance, 100 hours per year, the employee may continue to accrue a new 100 hours in Year 2 even after carrying over unused time from Year 1, potentially reaching a balance of up to 200 hours (100 hours carried over + 100 hours accrued in Year 2).
New MEDOL Guidance as of November 2025: Cap on Use of EPL Prohibited
Under the amended law, the Maine Department of Labor (MEDOL) is tasked with enforcing the new carry-over provision, and has begun revising its FAQs, rules, and other guidance to better explain the impact of the amended law on existing employer EPL policies.
As part of its efforts to publish new guidance, MEDOL published new “Brief Points About the New Law” on November 6, 2025. This new guidance, which appears on MEDOL’s Earned Paid Leave website, clarifies that employers may no longer limit the number of accrued EPL hours an employee can use in a given year. As a result, employees must be allowed to use their full accrued balance, regardless of how large it becomes due to the carryover requirement.
This change is important to employers because EPL is protected leave that, in essence, cannot be forfeited. Therefore, we encourage all employers to begin tracking EPL year-to-year to ensure employees receive and can use all of their statutorily-provided EPL.
MEDOL’s new guidance does not fully align with existing EPL law and rules, and it remains to be seen whether they will issue further clarification. In the meantime, employers should carefully review their EPL and PTO policies to ensure compliance while minimizing operational disruption.
If you have questions about Maine Earned Paid Leave and/or updating your current employer policies to comply with the new law, please contact Employment Practice Group attorneys Jack Bjorn, Katherine Porter, Suzanne King, Soyoung Yoon, or your Pierce Atwood employment lawyer.