AbsentEase
Montana sick leave law & call-off rules
Montana has no sick leave mandate — and that's the least interesting thing about it, because Montana is the only state that isn't at-will. After the default 12-month probationary period, discharge requires good cause under the Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act, and materially skipping your own handbook's discipline steps is itself wrongful discharge. In Montana, the attendance policy isn't just protection — it's the legal foundation of every termination. Here is what applies in 2026.
Montana at a glance
| Paid sick leave mandate | None — and no local ordinances |
|---|---|
| Employment relationship | NOT at-will after probation — good cause required (WDEA) |
| Probation | 12 months by default, extendable to 18 before it expires |
| Your own handbook | Materially skipping its steps is independently actionable |
| Vacation at termination | Earned wages — forfeiture prohibited; reasonable accrual caps allowed |
| Final paycheck (fired) | Immediately (within 4 hours or end of business day, whichever comes first) — unless a written policy extends to next payday/15 days |
| Meal & rest breaks | None at any age |
Is paid sick leave required in Montana?
No sick leave mandate — no accrual, no caps, no local ordinances. But accrued vacation, once offered, is treated as wages that cannot be forfeited at separation, and every attendance decision after probation runs through the WDEA's good-cause requirement below.
How the WDEA changes attendance terminations
| Probation | Default 12 months from hire (extendable before expiry to 18 max); during it, discharge for any lawful reason |
|---|---|
| After probation | Discharge requires good cause: reasonable job-related grounds — unsatisfactory performance, disruption of operations, or another legitimate business reason (not false, whimsical, arbitrary, or capricious) |
| Your own policy binds you | A material violation of the employer's own written policy that deprives the employee of a fair shot at keeping the job is itself wrongful discharge |
| Grievance procedures | If you have a written internal procedure, you must supply it to the discharged employee, and they must exhaust it before suing |
| Exposure | Up to 4 years of lost wages and benefits (offset by interim income) |
What this means for attendance: a documented, written, consistently applied attendance policy — with its warning steps actually followed — is the textbook "legitimate business reason." A points termination with fuzzy records, skipped steps, or uneven enforcement is the textbook WDEA claim.
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.
FLSA overtime and attendance bonuses
A cash bonus promised in advance for good attendance counts as wages under federal overtime law. It has to be added into the regular rate for the weeks it covers, so any of those weeks over 40 hours owes extra overtime on the bonus, usually recalculated after the bonus is paid. State overtime law can add to this, but can't go below it. See how attendance bonuses change overtime pay.
Call-offs, no-call no-shows, and firing in Montana
Montana inverts the national default: past 12 months, "we're at-will" is not a defense, and every attendance termination must stand up as good cause. The good news for disciplined employers is that the WDEA explicitly blesses what a well-run call-off system produces — reasonable, job-related, documented grounds applied through your own stated process. The failure modes are equally specific: firing on a supervisor's recollection instead of records, skipping a warning step the handbook promises, or enforcing points unevenly across a crew. Wage claims go to the Department of Labor & Industry; WDEA claims go to court with up to four years of wages on the table. A call-off hotline or text-based call-off system is closer to mandatory here than anywhere — it's the evidence that good cause existed.
After a no call, no show termination in Montana
| Does Montana law define job abandonment? | No statute or regulation defines job abandonment or sets a consecutive-days threshold; it is set by employer policy. Montana is not an at-will state after probation: under the Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act a discharge is wrongful if 'the discharge was not for good cause and the employee had completed the employer's probationary period of employment' (§ 39-2-904(1)(b)); 'good cause' means 'any reasonable job-related grounds for an employee's dismissal based on the employee's failure to satisfactorily perform job duties, the employee's disruption of the employer's operation, the employee's material or repeated violation of an express provision of the employer's written policies, or other legitimate business reasons' (§ 39-2-903(5)); if the employer sets no probationary period, 'there is a probationary period of 12 months commencing on the date the employee begins work,' extendable before it expires to a combined maximum of 18 months (§ 39-2-910(1)-(2)), and during probation employment 'may be terminated at the will of either the employer or the employee on notice to the other for any reason or for no reason' (§ 39-2-904(2)). A post-probation no-call, no-show discharge therefore needs to rest on a documented written attendance policy or performance grounds, and the employer must also not have 'materially violated an express provision of its own written personnel policy prior to the discharge' (§ 39-2-904(1)(c)). (Mont. Code Ann. §§ 39-2-903(5), 39-2-904(1)(b)-(c), 39-2-904(2), 39-2-910; §§ 39-51-2302, 39-51-2303, 39-51-201(19)(a)(i)(B), (E), (G)) |
|---|---|
| Final paycheck if you treat it as a discharge | When an employee 'is separated for cause or laid off from employment by the employer, all the unpaid wages of the employee are due and payable immediately upon separation unless the employer has a written personnel policy governing the employment that extends the time for payment of final wages to the employee's next regular payday for the pay period or to within 15 days from the separation, whichever occurs first.' The Department of Labor & Industry reads 'immediately' as within four hours or the end of the business day, whichever occurs first. (Mont. Code Ann. § 39-3-205(2); Mont. DLI Wage and Hour FAQ) |
| Final paycheck if you treat it as a resignation | When an employee quits (with or without notice; the statute does not distinguish), all unpaid wages 'are due and payable on the next regular payday for the pay period during which the employee was separated from employment or 15 days from the date of separation from employment, whichever occurs first,' through regular pay channels or by mail if the employee requests. (Mont. Code Ann. § 39-3-205(1)) |
| Accrued PTO at separation | Earned vacation must be paid; PTO and sick banks follow your written policy. Earned vacation is wages: once vacation has been earned under the employer's policy the Department of Labor & Industry treats it as wages 'due and payable in the same manner as regular wages', 'use it or lose it' policies are not permitted (reasonable accrual caps are), and the Montana Supreme Court reached the same result in Langager v. Crazy Creek Products. Combined PTO, sick leave and severance are different: the Department states that private employers 'are not required to pay out severance pay, sick leave, or paid time off (PTO)', which 'are considered benefits and may be paid based on the employer's policies', and that for PTO 'payout of this benefit is dependent on the employer's policy.' (Mont. Code Ann. § 39-3-201(6)(a); Mont. DLI Wage and Hour FAQ (vacation); Langager v. Crazy Creek Products, Inc., 1998 MT 44) |
| Unemployment claims | A claimant who 'left work without good cause attributable to the employment' is disqualified until earning six times the weekly benefit amount (§ 39-51-2302(1), (3)); a discharge 'for misconduct connected with the individual's work' disqualifies until the claimant earns eight times the weekly benefit amount (§ 39-51-2303), and the statutory definition of misconduct includes 'repeated and inexcusable absences, including absences for which the employee was able to give advance notice and failed to do so' (§ 39-51-201(19)(a)(i)(E)), 'repeated inexcusable tardiness following warnings by the employer' ((B)), and 'violations of a company rule if the rule is reasonable and if the claimant knew or should have known of the existence of the rule' ((G)). |
If a state agency later treats a "resignation" as a discharge, the discharge deadline governs, so pay by the earlier of the two when in doubt. Document each step with the no call, no show write-up and termination letter templates, which fill in Montana's final-pay rule.
Write a no call, no show policy that fits Montana
Start from our no call, no show policy guide and free template, or let the generator turn nine quick questions into a signature-ready policy with Montana already selected so the protected-leave section covers the federal FMLA and ADA rules that still apply here.
PTO payout and final paychecks
| Scenario | Rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Employee is fired | Immediately — end of that business day or within 4 hours, whichever comes first (per Department of Labor & Industry rule) — unless a written personnel policy extends it to the next payday or 15 days, whichever is first | Mont. Code 39-3-205 |
| Employee quits | Next regular payday or within 15 days, whichever occurs first | Mont. Code 39-3-205 |
| Unused vacation | Earned wages — must be paid at separation; use-it-or-lose-it at termination is prohibited | Montana wage law |
| Unused PTO / sick leave / severance | Payout depends on your written policy — the Department of Labor & Industry treats these as benefits, not wages | Mont. DLI Wage and Hour FAQ |
| Late payment | Penalties up to 110% of wages due | Mont. Code 39-3-206 |
Adopt the written policy extending final pay to the next payday — without it, every firing is a same-day payroll event. See how PTO accrual works.
Leave Montana employers must (and must not) provide
| Leave type | Required? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Jury duty | Protected in practice | No dedicated private-sector statute — but a jury-service firing would be a WDEA public-policy discharge; federal jurors protected by federal law |
| Military | Yes | USERRA (federal) plus Montana National Guard protections |
| Voting | No | No voting-leave statute |
| Sick leave | No | Whatever your written policy provides |
| Meal & rest breaks | No | None required at any age |
The Montana 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 FMLA/ADA territory gets a different track than an overslept alarm.
Comparing states? See all published guides on the state sick leave laws hub.