Parental Leave Pay Calculator
The leave, what pays for each part of it, and the tax
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Planning indicator only. It does not assess every part of a household's finances or replace individualized professional advice.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter your normal gross weekly wage and the total weeks of leave you plan to take. Those two set the shape of everything else: the page compares what arrives against what those weeks would have earned.
- 02
Fill in the short-term disability leg that covers birth recovery — the weeks (typically 6, or 8 after a caesarean), the replacement rate and the weekly cap if the policy has one. Leave the cap at 0 where there is none.
- 03
Fill in the state paid family leave leg the same way: weeks, replacement rate and weekly cap. Zero is the correct answer for most of the country, because most states run no programme at all.
- 04
Enter the employer top-up as a percentage of your wage and the weeks it runs for, the weeks of PTO or sick leave you can put against the gap, and your federal bracket.
- 05
Open Advanced options for the elimination period in days, the share of the disability premium your EMPLOYER pays (which decides how much of that benefit is taxable) and the FMLA weeks, then read the week-by-week table showing what pays for each part of the leave and which weeks pay nothing.
Formula
The weeks are paid in sequence, because the order is what decides the answer. 1. Elimination period = the elimination days ÷ 7, rounded up. Those weeks pay nothing from the policy. 2. Short-term disability then runs for the weeks you entered, at min(the weekly cap, your wage × the replacement rate) where a cap is set, otherwise wage × the rate. 3. State paid family leave runs after that, on the same min(cap, wage × rate) arithmetic. 4. PTO fills any week still paying nothing, at your full wage, until the banked weeks run out. 5. The employer top-up stacks on whatever a week already pays, up to but never above 100% of your wage, for the weeks you entered. Anything left after all five pays nothing at all. Total pay = disability + state benefit + PTO + top-up. Share of normal = that total ÷ (your weekly wage × the weeks of leave). Taxable = the state benefit + PTO + top-up + the disability benefit × the share of the premium your employer paid; the rest of the disability benefit is excluded under section 104(a)(3). Federal tax = taxable × your bracket.
Example
A $1,500 weekly wage and 14 weeks of leave: 6 weeks of short-term disability at 60% with no cap, no state programme, no employer top-up, 2 weeks of banked PTO, a 22% bracket, a 7-day elimination period and the employer paying 100% of the disability premium. Week 1 is the elimination period and the policy pays nothing, so the first PTO week covers it at $1,500. Weeks 2 to 7 are disability at $900 a week — $5,400. Weeks 8 to 14 have nothing scheduled: the second PTO week covers week 8 at $1,500, and weeks 9 to 14 pay nothing at all. The leave therefore pays $8,400 in total — $5,400 of disability plus $3,000 of PTO — which averages $600 a week and is 40% of the $21,000 those 14 weeks would have earned, a shortfall of $12,600. Six weeks pay nothing, which is $9,000 of income that simply does not arrive. Because the employer paid the whole disability premium, all $8,400 is taxable: $1,848 of federal tax at 22%, leaving roughly $6,552. Now add a state programme at New York's shape — 8 bonding weeks at 67% capped at $1,228.53. Only 7 of those weeks fit inside a 14-week leave after the elimination week and the 6 disability weeks, and each pays $1,005: $7,035. The leave now pays $13,935, 66% of normal pay rather than 40%, only one PTO week is spent, and NO week goes unpaid. That one field is the largest lever on the page — and for most of the country it is correctly zero.
Definitions
- FMLA
- The Family and Medical Leave Act: 12 weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave for eligible employees, with group health coverage continuing. Eligibility requires 50 employees within 75 miles, 12 months of employment and 1,250 hours worked in the previous 12 months.
- Elimination period
- The waiting days before a short-term disability policy pays anything, most commonly seven. It is unpaid unless you cover it with banked leave.
- Short-term disability
- Wage replacement for a medical inability to work, which covers birth recovery — typically 6 weeks, or 8 after a caesarean, at around 60% of pay. Taxable in the proportion the employer paid the premium.
- Paid family leave
- A state-run wage replacement benefit for bonding and caregiving, distinct from disability and from FMLA. About a dozen states plus DC pay one in 2026, most on progressive rather than flat replacement formulas.
- Third-party sick pay
- Disability benefits paid by an insurer rather than the employer. Where the employer funded the premium, these carry Social Security and Medicare and are reported like wages.
- Employer top-up
- A supplement that brings a leave week from whatever the benefit pays up toward full pay. It stacks on top of disability or a state benefit rather than replacing them, and it is fully taxable wages.
Good to know
The law protects the job and funds none of the leave
The Family and Medical Leave Act is the statute everyone names and almost nobody describes correctly. It provides 12 weeks of job-protected, UNPAID leave in a 12-month period for the birth or placement of a child, among other qualifying reasons. It pays nothing. What it does provide is genuinely valuable and easy to undervalue: the right to return to the same job or an equivalent one, and the continuation of your group health coverage on exactly the same terms throughout the leave, with the employer continuing its share of the premium. Losing coverage in the month a child is born is a materially worse outcome than losing income for it, so this matters. Eligibility is three separate tests and you must clear all three. Your employer must have 50 or more employees within 75 miles of your worksite — a threshold that excludes a great many small employers outright. You must have been employed there for 12 months, which need not be consecutive. And you must have worked at least 1,250 hours in the 12 months immediately before the leave begins, which is roughly 24 hours a week and which part-time workers routinely miss. Fail any one of the three and the leave is not protected at all, whatever your employer's policy says about time off. Two further points shape the planning. Your employer may generally require your accrued paid leave to run CONCURRENTLY with FMLA leave rather than being taken after it, so a PTO balance does not extend the 12 weeks — it funds part of them. And the 12 weeks are a floor rather than a ceiling: a number of states run their own family leave statutes with longer entitlements, broader definitions of family, or lower employer-size thresholds, and where a state law is more generous it applies alongside the federal one.
Short-term disability, and the tax flip on the premium
For the person who gave birth, the first weeks of leave are usually not family leave at all — they are disability. A short-term disability policy treats recovery from childbirth as a covered medical condition, conventionally for six weeks after an uncomplicated vaginal delivery and eight after a caesarean, at a replacement rate that commonly sits around 60% of pay and is often subject to a weekly dollar cap. The partner has no disability claim, which is why a non-birthing parent's leave is usually far worse funded and depends entirely on a state programme or an employer policy. Two features of these policies decide how much actually arrives. The first is the elimination period: the waiting days before the policy pays anything, most often seven. It lands at precisely the moment income has stopped, it is the item plan summaries mention least, and on the worked example it is what makes week one of a 14-week leave pay nothing. The second is the cap, which turns a stated 60% into something much lower for a higher earner and is worth reading off the certificate rather than assuming. Then comes the part that is worth real money and takes five minutes to check: the taxability of the benefit flips entirely on who paid the premium. Where the EMPLOYER paid it, the benefit is taxable under section 105 and arrives as third-party sick pay, with Social Security and Medicare attached and a W-2 to match. Where YOU paid it with after-tax money, the benefit is excluded from income under section 104(a)(3) and arrives tax-free. Where the premium is split, so is the benefit, in proportion. Paying the premium yourself with after-tax dollars costs a few dollars a month and is worth several thousand in the one year you claim — and many employers offer exactly that election during open enrolment without anybody explaining what it does.
State paid family leave in 2026, including the state that is not paying
About a dozen states plus the District of Columbia are paying a mandatory family-leave benefit during 2026: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and DC, with Maine's payments starting on 1 May 2026 and Minnesota's and Delaware's programmes launching on 1 January 2026. One correction matters enough to state outright, because stale 2026 lists get it wrong: MARYLAND IS NOT PAYING IN 2026. Its payroll deductions begin on 1 January 2027 and its benefits on 1 January 2028. If you are in Maryland and planning a 2026 leave around a state benefit, there is not one. Everywhere outside that list, zero is the correct entry for the state fields on this page, and that is most of the country. Two verified anchors are worth calibrating against. California pays 70% to 90% of wages depending on income, to a maximum of $1,765 a week, for up to 8 weeks of bonding leave. New York pays 67% of your average weekly wage capped at $1,228.53 a week for 12 weeks. Notice the shape: most of these programmes are PROGRESSIVE rather than flat, replacing a much higher share of a low wage than a high one, so a single replacement percentage understates what a low earner receives and overstates what a high earner does. Enter your own programme's figures rather than a national average. The tax treatment is its own subject and it is unusual. Revenue Ruling 2025-4 holds that state family-leave benefits are federal gross income under section 61 while sitting outside sections 3121, 3306 and 3401 — so they are taxable, but they carry no Social Security, no Medicare, no FUTA and no withholding at all unless you request it, and the state issues a Form 1099 rather than a W-2 once benefits reach $600. The cheque looks generous and quietly generates a bill.
The order the weeks are paid in is what decides the answer
A leave is not funded by one source; it is funded by a sequence, and the sequence is what produces the number. This page runs it in the order a real leave actually happens. The elimination period comes first and pays nothing. Short-term disability runs next, for the birth-recovery weeks. A state family-leave benefit follows it, for bonding weeks. Banked PTO fills any week that is otherwise paying nothing, starting with the earliest such week. And an employer top-up stacks on top of whatever a week already pays, never taking a week above 100% of your wage. Trace the worked example and the shape becomes obvious. Week one is the elimination period, so the first PTO week is spent on it. Weeks two to seven are disability at $900. Weeks eight to fourteen have nothing scheduled: the second PTO week covers week eight, and weeks nine to fourteen pay nothing at all. Fourteen weeks of leave produce $8,400 against $21,000 of normal pay — 40% — with six weeks entirely unfunded, $9,000 of income that simply does not arrive. That is the true shape of parental leave for most American workers, and it is why the unpaid-weeks figure is given its own stat rather than buried. The levers are then visible. Adding a state programme at New York's shape puts $1,005 into seven of those weeks, lifts the leave to 66% of normal pay and leaves no week unfunded. Shortening the leave by the unfunded weeks costs you time rather than money. Buying disability coverage yourself, with after-tax premiums, makes that leg tax-free. Banking PTO through the year ahead of a planned leave is the cheapest lever of all — although if your employer requires paid leave to run concurrently with FMLA rather than filling gaps at the end, those hours cover weeks that were already covered and the unfunded weeks stay unfunded. Read the policy on that point specifically, well before the leave.
Frequently asked questions
Does the FMLA pay me while I am on leave?
No. That is the single most common misunderstanding about it. The Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees 12 weeks of job-protected, UNPAID leave and funds none of it. What it does provide is real: your job or an equivalent one when you return, and your group health coverage continuing on the same terms throughout. Eligibility is three tests and you must clear all three — your employer has 50 or more employees within 75 miles of your worksite, you have worked there 12 months, and you have worked 1,250 hours in the 12 months before the leave.
So what actually pays during parental leave?
Up to four things, and they stack in a specific order. Short-term disability covers the birth-recovery period for the person who gave birth, typically 6 weeks or 8 after a caesarean, at around 60% of pay after an elimination period. A state paid family leave benefit, where one exists, covers bonding weeks. An employer top-up sits on top of whatever the week already pays. And banked PTO fills the weeks nothing else covers. On the worked example those come to $8,400 across 14 weeks against $21,000 of normal pay — 40% — with six weeks paying nothing at all.
Is short-term disability taxable?
It depends entirely on who paid the premium, and it is worth checking your benefits portal before you assume. Where the EMPLOYER paid it, the benefit is taxable under section 105 and arrives as third-party sick pay with Social Security and Medicare attached. Where YOU paid it with after-tax money, the benefit is excluded from income entirely under section 104(a)(3). The page carries this as the employer premium share, prefilled at 100%: at that setting the whole $5,400 of disability benefit in the example is taxable. Paying the premium yourself costs a little every month and is worth several thousand in the one year you claim.
Is a state paid family leave benefit taxable?
It is taxable income but it is not wages, and the distinction has consequences. Revenue Ruling 2025-4 holds that family-leave benefits go into federal gross income under section 61 while sitting outside sections 3121, 3306 and 3401 — so no Social Security, no Medicare, no FUTA, and no withholding at all unless you request it. The state sends a Form 1099 rather than a W-2 once benefits reach $600. The practical effect is that the cheque looks generous and quietly generates a bill you settle at filing.
Which states pay a family leave benefit in 2026?
About a dozen plus the District of Columbia: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and DC, with Maine's payments starting 1 May 2026 and Minnesota's and Delaware's programmes launching on 1 January 2026. Maryland is NOT paying in 2026 whatever a 2026 list tells you — its deductions begin 1 January 2027 and benefits 1 January 2028. Two verified anchors to calibrate the fields with: California pays 70% to 90% of wages depending on income to a maximum of $1,765 a week for up to 8 weeks, and New York pays 67% of your average weekly wage capped at $1,228.53 for 12 weeks.
What is an elimination period and why does it cost me a week?
It is the waiting period before a short-term disability policy pays its first dollar, most commonly seven days. It is the week the plan documents mention least and claimants notice most, because it lands at exactly the moment income has stopped. On the worked example it makes week one of the leave pay nothing from the policy, and the first of the two banked PTO weeks is spent covering it. If you have any choice in the matter, that is what PTO is best used for.
Can my employer make me use my PTO during FMLA leave?
Generally yes — an employer may require accrued paid leave to run concurrently with FMLA leave rather than being taken after it, so the 12 weeks are not extended by your balance. That is worth planning around, because this page assumes PTO fills the weeks nothing else pays. If your employer requires it to run alongside the disability benefit instead, the same hours cover weeks that were already covered and the unpaid weeks at the end of the leave stay unpaid.