Washington Expands Covered Uses of Paid Sick Leave to Include Immigration Proceedings

On April 25, 2025, Washington State Governor Bob Ferguson signed House Bill 1875 into law. The amendment will become effective July 27, 2025. The new law amends Revised Code of Washington § 49.46.210 to expand the reasons for which employees and transportation network company drivers can use paid sick leave. Specifically, the amendment allows the employee or driver to use such leave to prepare for, or participate in, any judicial or administrative immigration proceeding involving the employee or driver or their family member.

Additionally, the law outlines the verification process for such leave, allowing employees and drivers to provide documentation from various professionals, such as advocates or attorneys, or their own written statement. The law provides that the documentation or written statement must not disclose any personally identifiable information about the person’s immigration status or underlying immigration protection. 

The law expands the protections for employees by prohibiting employers from counting the use of paid sick leave for the newly included immigration-related purposes as an absence that could lead to disciplinary action. Employees also cannot be discriminated or retaliated against for exercising their rights under the law, including using paid sick leave for such purposes. 

This amendment to the law comes on the heels of another recent expansion of the law, Senate Bill 5793, which took effect January 1, 2025. Senate Bill 5793 redefined, in part, the sick leave statute’s covered uses for school and place of care closures to include public emergencies, and “family member” to include the spouse or domestic partner of an employee’s child as well as any individual who regularly resides in the employee’s home or where the relationship creates an expectation that the employee will care for the person, and that individual depends on the employee for care.  

Employers with employees in the Evergreen State should update their paid sick leave policies and notices and train supervisors and human resources teams on this development.