Frequently asked questions

Eligibility varies by state. Most state PFML programs require that you work for a covered employer (or have opted in as a self-employed worker), meet a base-period earnings or hours test, and be taking leave for a qualifying reason such as the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child. Our 60-second check walks through your specific state's rules; you can refine details anytime.

It depends on your state. California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and several others allow self-employed individuals to opt into the state program voluntarily, usually with a minimum enrollment period (often three years) and a higher contribution rate. Connecticut and a few others also permit self-employed opt-in. New Jersey currently does not. We treat self-employed and owner-employee situations as first-class. They're not footnotes in our intake.

In most states, yes. If you pay yourself through W-2 payroll and the state PFML contributions are being withheld from your paycheck, you're generally treated like any other W-2 employee. Owner-employees who pay themselves through distributions only (not W-2 wages) typically need to opt in as self-employed where the state permits it.

Federal FMLA applies to employers with 50 or more employees within 75 miles. To be eligible, you must have worked for the employer for at least 12 months and at least 1,250 hours in the prior 12 months. Many states have their own FMLA-equivalents that apply to smaller employers: CT FMLA at 1+ employee, NJ FLA at 30+, and CFRA in California at 5+.

Most state PFML programs base eligibility on the wages your covered employer reports. If you have multiple jobs in the same state, the state can usually combine the wages. If you work in multiple states, the rules get more complex. Our intake handles this case.

Depends on your state, your wages, and the program's formula. Most states use a tiered "bend" formula: a high percentage of wages up to a threshold, then a lower percentage above. Weekly maximums for 2026 range from $900 (Delaware) to roughly $1,765 (California). Our calculator shows your state-specific estimate with the math surfaced so you can see how it was computed.

PFML benefits are generally taxable as federal income. State income tax treatment varies. Connecticut Paid Leave is exempt from CT state income tax, for example, while New Jersey FLI is taxable as NJ state income. You'll receive a 1099-G from the state for the year of benefits.

Yes, in every state that has a PFML program. Each parent can independently file a claim for their own bonding leave. Our joint optimizer for couples (included in Complete and Premium tiers) generates four scored strategies for how to sequence both parents' leaves to maximize total household coverage or total dollars.

Five states have state-mandated short-term disability programs that cover postpartum medical recovery for birthing parents: California (SDI), New Jersey (TDB), New York (DBL), Rhode Island (TDI), and Hawaii (TDI). In every other state, STD is employer-provided (Aflac, The Hartford, Unum, and similar carriers) if available at all. Standard postpartum STD coverage is 6 weeks for uncomplicated vaginal delivery, 8 weeks for Cesarean.

Filing windows vary by state. Connecticut allows filing up to 30 days before your anticipated leave start; California asks you to file within 41 days of bonding leave start; New Jersey allows pre-filing of FLI up to 30 days early. Filing too early is rejected; filing too late can lose retroactive benefits. Our personalized plan includes every filing deadline that applies to your situation.

Most state PFML claims require a government-issued photo ID, proof of relationship to the child (birth certificate, adoption order, or foster placement letter), medical certification, recent pay stubs, direct deposit information, and employer leave approval. Our document checklist is customized to your state and situation.

Most state programs aim to issue a determination within 14-30 days of filing. California is generally faster; some smaller programs are slower. Most states begin payments retroactive to your leave start date once approved, so a delayed determination doesn't reduce your benefits.

Three patterns exist: stacked (employer policy pays in addition to state PFML), supplemental (employer tops up state PFML to a target percentage), or offset (employer pays the policy minus what state PFML pays). The difference between stacked and offset on a typical 12-week leave is often $10,000-$20,000 of household income. Confirming this with HR in writing is the single most valuable conversation you'll have.

Some employers require you to use a certain amount of accrued vacation before paid family leave begins. California explicitly permits this for up to two weeks. Other states vary. Confirm with your HR.

Yes. Complete and Premium tiers include HR policy upload. We extract the weeks of paid leave, percentage of wages paid, and coordination type from your employer's PDF or DOCX, then let you confirm the extraction is correct.

No. Parental Leave Pro provides educational estimates and planning tools. It is not legal, tax, HR, or financial advice. Confirm final eligibility and benefit amounts with the applicable state agency, your employer, or a qualified advisor.

A husband-and-wife team: a Nurse Practitioner and a CPA who's a Navy veteran. Our daughter arrived this summer. We built this because even with our credentials, planning our own leave took weeks of work. Full story on the About page.

Mandatory live (as of June 2026): California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, plus DC. Maryland's program was delayed. Benefits now begin January 2028. Voluntary private market: Vermont, New Hampshire, Virginia. Federal FMLA is evaluated for all 50 states.

State agency calculators show one weekly benefit number for one state. Parental Leave Pro coordinates across federal FMLA, your state's PFML program, your employer's policy, short-term disability, and your PTO balances. It generates a personalized leave plan with every filing deadline, the HR email you should send, and (for couples) four scored strategies for stacking both parents' leaves.

No, and the difference matters. A consultant gives you live, human support, typically $300 to $400 for a 45-minute call plus templates. Parental Leave Pro gives you a self-guided plan built by a deterministic rules engine: eligibility across every program, estimated dollars with the math shown, filing deadlines, coordination logic, and the HR email, for $99 to $299 with 12 months of access and unlimited revisits. If your situation needs hands-on advocacy or legal advice, a qualified professional may be the better fit. If you want the plan, the math, and the next steps today, that is exactly what we built.

You can, and for a simple W-2 employee in a no-PFML state it might be enough. But general LLMs have a knowledge cutoff (they don't know the 2026 rate caps), they hallucinate on state-specific coordination rules (stack vs offset vs supplemental), they can't score couples strategies across your state pair, and they don't remind you when your filing window opens. Parental Leave Pro is a deterministic rules engine with 17 hand-verified state modules, not just an LLM chat. We also use Claude for HR policy extraction, but wrapped with a schema-constrained prompt and a rules engine underneath. If we're wrong within 14 days, you get a full refund. If ChatGPT is wrong, you eat the lost benefits.

Our calculator uses current published state formulas and rate caps. We update within 30 days of annual rate refreshes, within 14 days of mid-year legislative changes, and within 7 days when we are wrong. Estimates assume the inputs you provide are accurate; actual benefits depend on state agency determination of your wage history. See our methodology page for sources.

Yes, launching Q1 2027. Every customer gets a unique code. Share it with an expecting-parent friend and they save $25 off any tier. When their purchase clears the 14-day refund window, you get $25 (redeemable as account credit, an Amazon gift card, or a charity donation to March of Dimes). Capped at 6 successful referrals per customer. Until the system is automated, reply to your purchase email and we'll set up a manual code for you.

Intake answers stay in your browser by default. Servers only see content you explicitly choose to send. An account email, your purchase record, an uploaded HR policy, reminders you opt into, or Leave Watch monitoring. Full details in our Privacy Policy.

No. We do not sell personal information for monetary consideration. We do not share personal information with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Your account and intake data live in a Supabase Postgres database hosted in AWS US-East. Uploaded HR policies live in Cloudflare R2 object storage. Payment records are held by Stripe. Emails are sent via Resend. Our full infrastructure map is on our Security page.

Yes. HR policy PDFs are stored in encrypted-at-rest Cloudflare R2 storage with private ACLs (no public URLs). Only our extraction pipeline can retrieve them, using signed requests. The extracted structured data lives in your account. Original PDFs are auto-deleted 90 days after your plan is generated, or immediately on request.

No. We use Anthropic Claude to extract structured coordination data from your HR policy upload. Under Anthropic's API terms, inputs sent via the API are not used for model training. Anthropic retains inputs for 30 days for trust and safety review, then deletes them.

No. Your employer has no access to your account, your intake, or your uploaded HR policy. If you want your employer to see part of your plan (like the HR email we generate), you send it yourself.

Email [email protected] from the address on your account with the subject 'Data deletion request.' We delete your account, intake, uploaded PDFs, purchase records, and Klaviyo profile within 7 business days. Stripe holds payment records for 7 years for tax and fraud purposes (this is on Stripe's infrastructure and not under our discretion).

No. Parental Leave Pro is not a healthcare provider and does not provide medical care, so HIPAA does not apply. Information you provide about your health (such as expected delivery date) is treated as personal information under our Privacy Policy.