Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) in California

You qualify if your employer has 5 or more employees and your provider certifies that pregnancy or a related condition keeps you from working. Unlike CFRA, there’s no waiting period: you’re covered from your first day.

As long as you’re actually disabled, up to four months per pregnancy. For a typical pregnancy that’s up to 4 weeks before your due date and 6 weeks after (or 8 after a C-section). If recovery takes longer, your provider can certify more, up to the four-month limit.

It’s measured in hours, not calendar weeks: four months is the hours you’d normally work in 17⅓ weeks. That means it can also be used in pieces before the birth.

• You return to the same position, not just a similar one.
• Your employer keeps your group health coverage going and keeps paying its share, for up to four months. That’s separate from the 12 more weeks of coverage CFRA gives during bonding.
• Your employer can’t make you use vacation or PTO during PDL. It can ask you to use sick leave for an unpaid stretch — in practice, that’s the 7-day SDI waiting week.

FMLA, if you’re eligible, runs at the same time as PDL and adds no weeks. CFRA bonding leave never overlaps with PDL — it starts when your disability ends. Pay during PDL comes from State Disability Insurance.

Give your employer at least 30 days’ notice when the leave is foreseeable, ask HR for its forms, and ask your provider to certify your dates. Your provider’s certification is also what your SDI claim needs.