Sick leave in New Zealand, explained

Sick leave is the leave type managers deal with most often and understand least. The questions arrive on a Monday morning: can I ask for a medical certificate for one day? Does she get 10 days if she only works Tuesdays and Wednesdays? He went home at 11am, is that a whole day? What do I pay a casual who is sick on a day they were rostered?

The Act answers all of these, mostly in about ten sections. This guide walks through them in the order the questions come up, and where the Act is silent we tell you what we do and why. It is part of our plain-English series on NZ employment leave.

Quick answers

Who qualifies, and when the clock starts

Sick leave (and bereavement leave, which shares the same gateway) becomes available once an employee has completed 6 months' current continuous employment with the employer (s 63(1)(a)). From that point they get 10 days for the 12 months that follows, and 10 more at the start of each subsequent 12 months (s 63(2)(a)).

There is a second door for people whose employment isn't neatly continuous, typically casuals. An employee also qualifies if, over a period of 6 months, they worked for the employer (s 63(1)(b)):

• at least an average of 10 hours a week; and
• no less than 1 hour in every week, or no less than 40 hours in every month.

They then get the same 10 days for the following 12 months, and keep getting it each year as long as that pattern continues (s 63(2)(b)).

An employer and employee can agree to sick leave in advance of the 6 months, with the amount deducted from the entitlement when it arises (s 63(3)). That is optional.

What sick leave can be used for (s 65)

An employee may take sick leave if:

1. the employee is sick or injured; or
2. the employee's spouse or partner is sick or injured; or
3. a person who depends on the employee for care is sick or injured.

The third category is deliberately wide. It is not limited to children. An elderly parent, a disabled sibling, a grandchild the employee looks after: if that person depends on the employee for care and is sick or injured, sick leave applies. New Zealand has no separate "carer's leave"; it all comes out of the same 10 days. The Act does not require the sickness to be serious, and it does not require the employee to prove they were needed for the care. The good-faith obligation (s 73) runs both ways.

Ten days: what a "day" is, and part days

The entitlement is 10 days, full stop (s 65(2)). It is not pro-rated for part-timers. Someone who works two days a week gets 10 days, which is five of their weeks. That feels generous and it is intentional; it was the trade-off Parliament made for simplicity when the entitlement rose from 5 to 10 days on 24 July 2021.

A day of sick leave is only deducted, and only paid, for a day that would otherwise have been a working day (s 71(1)). If a part-timer who works Monday and Tuesday is sick from Monday to Friday, that is 2 days of sick leave, not 5. The otherwise working day test is the same one used for public holidays, and our otherwise working day calculator handles the no-fixed-pattern cases.

Carry-over: the 20-day cap (s 66)

Unused sick leave carries into the next 12-month period, up to a maximum current entitlement of 20 days in any year (s 66(2)). The mechanics:

The cap is on the balance, not on how many days can be used. An employee with 20 days who is off for 15 days has 5 left and will get another 10 at the anniversary. An employer can allow more to be carried over as an enhanced entitlement (s 66(3)); it just can't allow less.

Telling the employer (s 64)

The employee must notify the employer that they intend to take sick leave as early as possible before they are due to start work on the day, or if that isn't practicable, as early as possible afterwards. The Act doesn't prescribe how. A text message is notice. A policy can ask for a phone call rather than a text, but a failure to follow the policy's method doesn't cancel the entitlement if the employer was told.

Medical certificates and other proof (s 68)

This is the section most often misread in both directions.

Three details that matter:

• Proof is not only a GP note. It "may include" a certificate from a health practitioner, a term that covers nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physiotherapists, midwives and others registered under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (s 68(3), (5)). A certificate from a nurse practitioner at an after-hours clinic is proof.
• The employer cannot choose the practitioner (s 68(4)(b)). Sending the employee to the company doctor is not permitted for this purpose.
• No proof, no pay, until it arrives. If proof is validly required and the employee fails to produce it without reasonable excuse, the employer need not pay the sick leave until they do (s 72(2)). It does not entitle the employer to treat the absence as misconduct on its own.

How sick leave is paid (ss 71–72)

For each day of sick leave that would otherwise be a working day, the employer must pay the employee's relevant daily pay (RDP), or average daily pay (ADP) where the Act allows it (s 71(1)). Payment goes in the pay for the period in which the leave was taken (s 72(1)).

Relevant daily pay Default

What the employee would have received had they worked that day, including overtime, commission or incentive payments they would have earned, and the cash value of board or lodgings (s 9).

Average daily pay Only when allowed

Gross earnings for the previous 52 weeks divided by the number of whole or part days worked or on paid leave in that period (s 9A(2)). Allowed only if RDP can't be determined, or the employee's daily pay varies within the pay period in which the leave falls (s 9A(1)).

The full RDP-versus-ADP logic, with the common mistake of defaulting to ADP for anyone on variable hours, is covered in the public holidays guide. The same rules apply here.

ACC and work injuries (s 71(2)–(4))

• The employer doesn't have to pay sick leave for any time the employee is receiving ACC weekly compensation.
• The employer must not make the employee use sick leave for time covered by first-week compensation for a work injury (which the employer pays at 80%), or by weekly compensation for a work-related injury.
• If the employer tops up ACC's 80% to full pay, it may agree with the employee to deduct 1 day of sick leave for every 5 whole days of top-up (s 71(4)). Agreement is required; it can't be imposed.

Sick on a public holiday, or during annual leave

• Public holiday. If the employee was going to work a public holiday but is sick, the day stays a public holiday: paid at RDP or ADP if it was an otherwise working day, no sick leave deducted, no time and a half, no alternative holiday (s 61A). The same applies if the employee's partner or dependant is sick.
• Annual leave. If the employee (or their partner or dependant) gets sick during annual holidays, the employer may agree to treat those days as sick leave instead (s 36). It is discretionary, unlike bereavement, which must be allowed (s 37). Our practice is to agree whenever the usual proof rules are met.

When employment ends (s 67)

Unused sick leave is not paid out. It has no cash value unless the employment agreement says otherwise. A sick employee working out their notice can still take sick leave during the notice period, and it is paid in the normal way.

If the employee is re-hired later, the 6-month clock starts again from the new start date, because the entitlement depends on current continuous employment (s 63(1)(a)). Some employers reinstate the old balance as a matter of policy; the Act doesn't require it.

The records you must keep (s 81)

The current sick leave entitlement, the dates sick leave was taken, and the amount paid for it (s 81(2)(f)–(h)), kept for 6 years. Because sick leave is only deducted for otherwise working days, you also need the hours worked each day (s 81(2)(c)), which is what lets you show why a day was, or wasn't, one.

The mistakes we see most

1. Pro-rating the 10 days for part-timers. The Act doesn't allow it.
2. Ignoring the hours test for casuals and treating "casual" as "no sick leave".
3. Deducting sick leave for non-working days, e.g. 5 days for a part-timer who only had 2 rostered days.
4. Blanket certificate policies for short absences without paying for the certificate.
5. Defaulting to average daily pay for anyone on variable hours when the rostered day's pay is known.
6. Capping the balance at 10 instead of 20, or resetting balances on 1 January instead of the employee's own anniversary.
7. Deducting sick leave for a public holiday the employee was rostered on (s 61A).

What changes on 6 August 2028

Under the Employment Leave Act 2026, as passed:

• Hours from day one. Sick leave accrues at not less than 0.0385 hours for every standard hour worked or on paid leave (ELA s 73). For a 40-hour week that is 1.54 hours a week, about 80 hours a year, the equivalent of 10 days. There is no 6-month wait.
• Part-timers accrue in proportion to their standard hours. A 20-hour-a-week employee accrues about 40 hours a year, which is the same 10 of their days. This is a genuine reduction for part-timers compared with the current flat 10 days.
• Cap of 160 hours. Accrual pauses at 160 hours and resumes when the balance drops below it (ELA s 75). More can be agreed.
• Taken in hours, so part days are deducted exactly.
• Casual hours don't accrue sick leave. Instead the employee receives a leave compensation payment of at least 12.5% of the ordinary hourly rate each pay period on casual and qualifying additional hours.
• Proof rules are essentially unchanged: 3 consecutive calendar days, or earlier at the employer's cost, no choosing the practitioner (ELA s 80). If proof is required and not provided, the employer must not deduct the hours from the balance either (ELA s 122(3)).
• Paid at a single hourly leave payment rate plus fixed allowances, replacing RDP and ADP (ELA ss 121–123).
• Still not paid out when employment ends (ELA s 77).

Existing balances convert to hours on commencement under the Act's transitional schedule. Until 6 August 2028 nothing in this guide changes.

Frequently asked questions

Sources