Washington Paid Family Leave Calculator

Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave

How Washington figures your weekly benefit

Washington's paid leave program pays part of your wages when a qualifying event keeps you from working. The benefit starts with your average weekly wage: the total wages from the two quarters of your qualifying period in which you earned the most, divided by 26 and rounded down to a whole dollar. Your qualifying period is the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before you apply, or, if that period does not make you eligible, the last four completed quarters. For an application in early October 2026 the first choice is July 2025 through June 2026.

The formula then works in two parts around half of the state average weekly wage, which ESD's 2026 estimator puts at $915. If your average weekly wage is at or below that line, you receive 90 percent of it. If it is above, you receive 90 percent of half the state average ($823.50) plus 50 percent of the part of your wage above the line. The result is rounded down to the dollar, capped at the 2026 maximum of $1,647 a week, and never less than $100, unless your average weekly wage is under $100, in which case the benefit equals your full wage. In the default example, $38,500 in the two best quarters gives an average weekly wage of $1,480 and a benefit of $1,106 a week.

Our calculation with the formula in RCW 50A.15.020 and ESD's 2026 figures. Lower wages are replaced at a higher rate.

The maximum changes each January 1 because the law sets it at 90 percent of the state average weekly wage. ESD lists the maximums below; your maximum does not change if your claim starts in one year and continues into the next.

Source: Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave (ESD), maximum weekly benefit amounts.

Who qualifies

You must have worked 820 hours in your qualifying period. Full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal work all count, and you do not need to be employed at the moment you take leave. Family leave covers caring for a family member with a serious health condition, bonding with a new child and certain military exigencies; medical leave covers your own serious health condition, including prenatal and postnatal care. Federal employees, employees of a tribally owned business on tribal land, self-employed people who have not opted in, and workers under an approved employer voluntary plan are not automatically covered by the state program.

How much leave you can take

Within a claim year you can take up to 12 weeks of medical leave or 12 weeks of family leave. If you have more than one qualifying event, the combined limit is 16 weeks, or 18 weeks when a condition in pregnancy results in incapacity, such as bed rest or a c-section. The calculator multiplies your weekly benefit by 12 full weeks for the total; your actual total also depends on how many hours you take off each week.

You do not have to take leave all at once. In 2026 a weekly claim needs at least four consecutive hours of leave, down from eight. A week of partial leave pays your weekly benefit times the hours you are off divided by your typical workweek hours, rounded down to the dollar. Typical workweek hours are 40 for a salaried employee, whatever hours you actually work; for others they are the hours you worked in the qualifying period divided by 52, rounded down. At a benefit of $1,106, 20 hours off out of 40 pays $553 for that week.

An hourly example: a worker paid $9,000 in each quarter who worked 1,560 hours has an average weekly wage of $692 ($18,000 divided by 26) and a weekly benefit of $622. Their typical workweek is 30 hours, so taking 15 hours off in a week to care for a parent pays $311 for that week, once the unpaid waiting week has been served. Choose Hourly in the calculator and enter your own hours to see the same breakdown.

The waiting week

Most claims start with an unpaid waiting period of the first seven consecutive calendar days. There is no waiting week for leave for the birth or placement of a child, which covers bonding and leave in the postnatal period, or for a military exigency. You can use paid time off from your employer during the waiting week. ESD says applications take 3 to 4 weeks to process, and you file a weekly claim to be paid.

Job protection, premiums and taxes

Starting January 1, 2026, if your employer has 25 or more employees in Washington and you have worked there at least 180 days, your job is likely protected while you are on paid leave, with some exceptions. The program is funded by premiums of 1.13 percent of gross wages in 2026, with employees paying 71.43 percent of that and employers with 50 or more employees paying 28.57 percent. It is a separate premium from the WA Cares Fund premium of 0.58 percent explained in WA Cares Fund payroll tax.

For federal income tax, the IRS explained in Revenue Ruling 2025-4 that family leave benefits from a state program like Washington's are included in your gross income, while medical leave benefits are excluded except the part attributable to employer contributions. ESD does not give tax advice, so check with a tax professional. To compare the benefit with your regular pay, use the Washington salary calculator, and see the maternity leave pay calculator to compare paid leave in other states. Workers who live in Oregon and work in Washington can check work in Washington, live in Oregon taxes.