FMLA Eligibility Hours Calculator
Enter your months of service, average weekly hours and paid-leave hours to check all three federal FMLA eligibility tests, and see how many hours you are short of 1,250.
FMLA Eligibility Hours Calculator
Which Rules Apply to You?
Most workers use the standard 1,250-hour test. Teachers and airline flight crew have their own rules under 29 CFR Part 825.
Test 1: Length of Service
The 12 months do not have to be consecutive, so add up all of your periods of employment. You can ignore employment before a break in service of seven years or more, unless the break was military service or you had a written rehire agreement (29 CFR 825.110(b)).
Test 2: Hours of Service
Overtime hours do count toward the 1,250 because they are time actually worked. Only add them here if they are not already inside your weekly average, otherwise they get counted twice.
Use the figure from your pay stubs or payroll portal, then subtract paid leave below. Payroll usually reports hours paid, which runs higher than FMLA hours of service.
These get subtracted. Paid time off does not count toward the 1,250, only hours you actually worked (29 CFR 825.110(c)(1)). Include any FMLA leave you already took: that is not time worked either.
If you were on qualifying military duty, you are credited with the hours you would have worked (29 CFR 825.110(c)(2)). Use your pre-service schedule to estimate them.
An average above 100 hours a week is unusual. Double-check the figure, the math still runs.
The weeks you entered exceed what your months of employment allow. That is fine if you are estimating, but check both fields.
Test 2: Flight Crew Hours of Service
Reserve status uses the number of hours your employer has agreed to pay you for the month. Exclude personal commute time and time on vacation, medical or sick leave (29 CFR 825.801).
No monthly guarantee entered, so only the 504-hour test is being applied. Enter your applicable monthly guarantee to check the 60 percent test as well.
Test 2: Hours of Service (Deemed Met)
Full-time teachers of an elementary or secondary school system, an institution of higher education, or another educational establishment are deemed to meet the hours-of-service requirement (29 CFR 825.110(c)(1)). No hours entry is needed, but you still have to satisfy the 12-month test and the worksite test.
Type of Leave
Standard FMLA leave is 12 workweeks in a 12-month period (29 CFR 825.200). Military caregiver leave for a covered servicemember is 26 workweeks in a single 12-month period (29 CFR 825.127).
Test 3: Worksite Size
Count everyone on the payroll within 75 surface miles of your worksite, including part-timers and people on leave, not just your own department (29 CFR 825.111). This test applies to public-agency and school employees too, even though those employers are covered regardless of size.
Fill in the fields to test all three federal FMLA requirements.
Hours of Service Breakdown
Enter your average weekly hours to project when you cross 1,250.
Flight Crew Hours Breakdown
Both parts of the flight crew test have to be met (29 CFR 825.801). Passing 504 hours alone is not enough if you are below 60 percent of your guarantee.
Leave You Would Be Entitled To
The entitlement is 12 workweeks, not a flat 480 hours, so the hour equivalent is pro rata to your own normal workweek (29 CFR 825.205(b)).
Read Before You Rely on This
Log Every Hour Worked with Timeclock44
Payroll reports hours paid. FMLA counts hours worked. Timeclock44 keeps a clock-in and clock-out record with breaks deducted, so you have your own number when HR asks.
The three FMLA eligibility tests
Federal FMLA eligibility comes down to three conditions in 29 CFR 825.110(a), and all three have to be true at the same time. Passing two of them does nothing on its own.
- 12 months of employment. You must have been employed by the employer for at least 12 months. Those months do not have to be consecutive, so add up every period you worked there. Employment before a break in service of seven years or more can generally be dropped, unless the break was covered military service or a written rehire agreement existed.
- 1,250 hours of service. You must have at least 1,250 hours of service in the 12-month period immediately before the leave begins. Hours of service follow FLSA hours-worked principles, which is why paid leave is not in the count.
- 50 employees within 75 miles. You must be employed at a worksite where the employer has 50 or more employees within 75 miles. The distance is measured in surface miles by the shortest route over public roads and waterways, and the count is based on employees maintained on the payroll (29 CFR 825.111).
Timing matters as much as the numbers. Eligibility is determined as of the date the leave is to start, not the date you ask about it (29 CFR 825.110(d)). If you are 40 hours short today and your leave starts in three weeks, you may well be eligible by then.
One point that trips people up: public agencies and public and private elementary and secondary schools are covered employers no matter how many people they employ. That does not exempt their employees from the worksite test. A school district employee at a small remote site still has to clear the 50-within-75-miles condition.
Hours worked vs hours paid: what counts toward 1,250
The 1,250-hour test uses the FLSA compensable-hours standard (29 CFR 825.110(c)(1), applying 29 CFR Part 785). Time when you were completely relieved of duty is not hours worked, whether or not you got paid for it.
| Counts toward 1,250 | Does not count |
|---|---|
| Regular hours worked | Vacation and PTO |
| Overtime hours | Paid or unpaid sick leave |
| Paid training and mandatory meetings | Holidays |
| On-call time you were not free to use | Parental and personal leave |
| Travel time compensable under the FLSA | Time already spent on FMLA leave |
| USERRA military service (credited) | Short-term disability leave |
Work the numbers and you can see where this actually bites. A full-time worker with 2,080 paid hours who took three weeks of PTO and holidays still worked about 1,960 hours. Clear by a mile. A part-timer with 1,300 paid hours who took the same leave drops to roughly 1,180 hours worked and loses eligibility, even though the pay stub total looked fine.
Only one kind of absence gets special treatment. Under USERRA, a returning servicemember is credited with the hours they would have worked during the military service, calculated from the pre-service schedule (29 CFR 825.110(c)(2)). Time on FMLA leave gets no such credit. That is why intermittent leave in one year so often blocks eligibility the next.
How many more hours do you need?
The shortfall is usually more useful than the pass or fail. Take a worker at 30 hours a week for 44 weeks plus 20 overtime hours: 1,340 raw hours. Subtract 96 hours of PTO and holidays and the qualifying total is 1,244, six hours short of the line. Because eligibility is measured on the leave start date, one more shift can flip the answer.
Some shortfalls are not about timing at all. 1,250 hours divided by 52 weeks is 24.04 hours of actual work per week. At 20 hours a week you top out near 1,040 hours in a full year, and no amount of waiting gets you to 1,250 without overtime or a second period of employment. Better to know that before you plan a leave around it. For the wider part-time picture, see our guide on part-time vs full-time hours.
If the worksite test is the one that fails, the hours are beside the point. Federal eligibility ends right there. State leave laws are often broader, and several set an employer-size threshold well below 50. Our roundup of paid sick leave laws by state is a starting point, and the sick leave accrual calculator covers the accrual math those laws use.
Keep your own record of hours worked
One rule here works in your favor. Where an employer has not kept an accurate record of hours worked, the employer carries the burden of showing that the employee has not worked the requisite hours (29 CFR 825.110(c)(3)). A log you kept yourself, as the shifts happened, is what makes that burden real.
It also solves a practical problem. Payroll systems report hours paid, so the figure on your pay stub is usually higher than your FMLA hours of service: it includes PTO, holidays and sick time that the 1,250 test excludes. Working backward from a pay stub means guessing at the subtraction.
The Timeclock44 app records actual clock-in and clock-out times with breaks deducted, tracks hours per job, and exports to CSV or PDF, so the number you hand HR is one you can stand behind. To cross-check related thresholds, try the annual work hours calculator, the ACA full-time status checker, or the FLSA overtime exemption checker. Estimates only, not legal or tax advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about fmla eligibility hours calculator
What counts toward the 1,250 hours for FMLA?
Only hours you actually worked. The regulation borrows the FLSA hours-worked rules (29 CFR 825.110(c)(1)), so regular hours count, and so do overtime, paid training, mandatory meetings, on-call time you were not free to use for yourself, and travel time the FLSA treats as compensable. If you were completely relieved of duty, it does not count. To turn a schedule into a yearly worked-hours figure, use the annual work hours calculator.
Does PTO count toward FMLA eligibility hours?
No. Paid or unpaid vacation, sick leave, parental leave, holidays and personal leave are all excluded from the 1,250. Hours paid and hours worked are two different numbers. Payroll reports the first, FMLA counts the second, and the gap between them is usually wider than people expect. See the PTO accrual calculator for the paid-leave side of the math.
Do overtime hours count toward the 1,250-hour FMLA requirement?
Yes. Overtime is time actually worked, so every overtime hour counts toward the 1,250. That is why someone whose schedule says under 24 hours a week can still qualify after a heavy overtime year. Put overtime in the overtime field only if it is not already inside your weekly average, or you will count it twice.
How many hours a week do I need to work to qualify for FMLA?
About 24. Divide 1,250 hours by 52 weeks and you get 24.04 hours a week of real work, held for a full year. Below that, a normal 52-week look-back never reaches 1,250 however the weeks fall, unless overtime or a second stretch of employment closes the gap.
Can part-time employees get FMLA leave?
Yes. There is no full-time requirement in the FMLA, only the 1,250-hour test. A part-timer at 25 hours a week of actual work clears 1,250 in roughly 50 weeks. One catch: the entitlement is 12 workweeks, not a flat 480 hours, so a part-timer's hour equivalent is pro rata to their own normal schedule (29 CFR 825.205(b)). Our ACA full-time status checker covers a different hours threshold part-timers often run into.
Do the 12 months of employment have to be consecutive?
No. Add up every period you worked for that employer (29 CFR 825.110(b)). You can usually drop employment that came before a break in service of seven years or more, unless the break was covered military service, or the employer had put a rehire promise in writing.
Does time I already spent on FMLA leave count toward next year's 1,250 hours?
No. FMLA leave is not time worked, so it builds nothing toward the next period's eligibility. That is how people on intermittent leave slip below 1,250 in year two. Only USERRA-protected military service gets credit: for that absence you are credited with the hours you would have worked (29 CFR 825.110(c)(2)).
What if my employer does not track my hours?
The burden shifts to the employer. Where an employer has not kept an accurate record of hours worked, the employer has the burden of showing that the employee has not worked the requisite hours (29 CFR 825.110(c)(3)). Your own log of clock-in and clock-out times, kept as you go, is what fills the gap. Our guide on how to track work hours covers the habit.
How does FMLA eligibility work for flight attendants and pilots?
Airline flight crew employees get their own hours test. In the previous 12 months you must have worked or been paid for at least 60 percent of your applicable monthly guarantee, and for at least 504 hours (29 CFR 825.801). Personal commute time and time on vacation, medical or sick leave do not count. Both halves have to be met, not one or the other. Entitlement is measured in days too: 72 days rather than 12 weeks (29 CFR 825.802).