AbsentEase
Arizona sick leave law & call-off rules
Arizona mandates earned paid sick time for nearly every employee under the Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act (Prop 206) — and it's one of the few states that spells out, in the statute itself, that counting protected sick time against an attendance policy is retaliation. Arizona employers can still run a firm attendance program; it just has to be built around the sick-time law rather than on top of it. Here is what applies in 2026.
Arizona at a glance
| Paid sick leave mandate | Yes — earned paid sick time, 1 hour per 30 worked (Prop 206) |
|---|---|
| Annual cap | 40 hours at 15+ employees · 24 hours under 15 |
| Attendance points on sick time | Prohibited — counting protected sick time is retaliation by statute |
| Local sick-leave ordinances | None — Prop 206 is the statewide standard; state law preempts local add-ons |
| Employment relationship | At-will, but adverse action within 90 days of sick-time use is presumed retaliatory |
| PTO payout at termination | Vacation/PTO 'due' under your policy is wages and must be paid; sick time need not be paid out |
| Final paycheck deadline | Fired: 7 working days or end of next pay period, whichever is sooner · Quit: next regular payday |
Is paid sick leave required in Arizona?
Yes. The Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act (A.R.S. §§ 23-371 to 23-381) requires virtually all private employers, regardless of size, to provide earned paid sick time. Employees accrue 1 hour per 30 hours worked starting at hire; employers with 15 or more employees may cap accrual and use at 40 hours per year, smaller employers at 24 hours. No Arizona city adds its own ordinance — Prop 206 is the statewide standard.
How Arizona's sick leave law works
| Accrual rate | 1 hour per 30 hours worked, from day one (use may be delayed for the first 90 days for new hires) |
|---|---|
| Annual cap | 40 hours (15+ employees) · 24 hours (under 15 employees) |
| Carryover | Unused time carries over, subject to the annual use cap — or pay it out at year end and front-load the new year's amount instead |
| Covered uses | The employee's own illness or preventive care, a family member's, public-health closures of the workplace or a child's school, and safe leave for domestic or sexual violence |
| Doctor's notes | Only for absences of 3+ consecutive work days — and the note can't be required to explain the condition |
| Call-in procedure | For unforeseeable absences you may require notice per a written policy — but you can't hold employees to a procedure you never gave them in writing |
The anti-retaliation rule is the sharp edge. A.R.S. § 23-373(G) says an absence-control policy that counts protected sick time as an occurrence or point is retaliation, and any adverse action within 90 days of an employee using sick time is presumed retaliatory — rebuttable only by clear and convincing evidence. Your attendance system has to distinguish protected sick time from ordinary absences before any point is assessed.
The federal floor that still applies
FMLA
Employers with 50+ employees within 75 miles must give eligible employees (12+ months tenure, 1,250+ hours in the past year) up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for a serious health condition — their own or a close family member's. FMLA-protected absences can't accrue attendance points, and a call-off that mentions an ongoing condition can be notice enough to trigger your FMLA obligations, even if the employee never says "FMLA."
ADA
For employers with 15+ employees, the ADA can require modified attendance expectations or unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation for a disability. An attendance policy applied "no exceptions" is exactly the kind that loses ADA cases — build an accommodation carve-out into the policy itself.
Call-offs, no-call no-shows, and firing in Arizona
Arizona is at-will, and a no-call no-show that has nothing to do with protected sick time can still be disciplined like anywhere else. The trap is timing and classification: any adverse action within 90 days of an employee exercising Prop 206 rights is presumed retaliatory, so a termination that follows a sick-time call-off needs a clean, documented, non-sick-time reason. That makes the call-off record itself the control point — you need to know, at the moment of each absence, whether it was protected sick time (no points, no discipline) or an ordinary attendance event. Wage and sick-time complaints go to the Industrial Commission of Arizona, and they will ask for exactly that record. A call-off hotline or text-based call-off system that captures the employee's own words with a timestamp is what makes the classification defensible.
PTO payout and final paychecks
| Scenario | Rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Employee is fired or laid off | Final pay due within 7 working days or by the end of the next regular pay period, whichever is sooner; willful failure risks treble damages | A.R.S. § 23-353, § 23-355 |
| Employee quits | Final pay due by the regular payday for the final pay period (by mail on request) | A.R.S. § 23-353 |
| Unused vacation / PTO | Amounts 'due' under your written policy count as wages and must be paid — the policy controls | A.R.S. § 23-350 |
| Unused earned sick time | No payout required — but the balance must be reinstated if the employee is rehired within 9 months | A.R.S. § 23-372 |
Write the vacation-payout rule deliberately — in Arizona the policy language decides whether it's owed. See how PTO accrual works.
Leave Arizona employers must (and must not) provide
| Leave type | Required? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Earned sick time | Yes — paid | Prop 206, per the mechanics above |
| Voting | Yes — paid | Up to 3 combined hours if the employee lacks 3 off-duty hours while polls are open; request before Election Day |
| Jury duty | Yes — unpaid | Job-protected; you can't force use of vacation or sick leave for jury service |
| Military | Yes | USERRA (federal) plus Arizona National Guard protections |
| Meal & rest breaks | No | No state requirement for adults; short breaks you offer are paid under federal law |
The Arizona employer's attendance playbook
- Put it in writing. A written policy — call-off deadline and channel, points or steps, the no-call no-show rule, and carve-outs for legally protected absences — is what makes discipline defensible. Our attendance policy guide walks through it.
- Give call-offs one channel. "Tell whoever answers" is how records get lost. One number every employee texts or calls makes the record automatic.
- Log everything with timestamps. Unemployment hearings and discrimination charges are won on contemporaneous records, not recollections.
- Enforce consistently. Uneven enforcement converts a lawful termination into a discrimination claim.
- Screen call-offs for protected reasons before applying points — sickness that could be state-protected sick time or FMLA/ADA territory gets a different track than an overslept alarm.
Comparing states? See all published guides on the state sick leave laws hub.