Missouri Governor Signs Bill Repealing Earned Paid Sick Time Statute

Quick Hits

• On July 10, 2025, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe signed HB-567 into law, which repeals the paid sick time statute effective August 28, 2025.
• The Missouri paid sick time statute requires Missouri employers to provide earned paid sick time from May 1, 2025, to August 27, 2025.

Proposition A, which Missouri voters passed via a ballot measure on November 5, 2024, raises the state’s minimum wage as of January 1, 2025, and requires employers to provide earned paid sick time (PST) as of May 1, 2025. HB-567 repeals the paid sick time statute and amends the minimum wage statute to eliminate the cost-of-living increase built into future years.

The Missouri Paid Sick Time Law

As of May 1, 2025, the Missouri Paid Sick Time statute requires most Missouri employers to start providing earned paid sick time to employees working in Missouri. The law exempts employers that are federal, state, or local governments or political subdivisions of the state and excludes some categories of workers, such as volunteers, camp counselors, babysitters, golf caddies, some rail carrier employees, and retail employees of businesses with annual gross volume sales of less than $500,000. The law does not apply to employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that was in effect on November 5, 2024, until the CBA is amended, extended, or renewed.

Under the PST law, Missouri employees can:

• earn one hour of earned paid sick time for every thirty hours worked;
• use PST for an employee’s own illness or medical reasons, illness/medical reasons of an immediate family member, closure of the employer’s business or the employee’s child’s school, and absences due to sexual assault or domestic violence;
• use PST in increments of one hour;
• use up to fifty-six hours of PST for covered reasons;
• carry over up to eighty hours of unused PST at year-end; and
• use PST without discipline or retaliation for covered use.

The Repeal of the Missouri PST Statute

With the governor’s signature, HB-567 repeals the Missouri PST law effective August 28, 2025. Accordingly, Missouri employers must provide paid sick time to eligible employees for a seventeen-week period from May 1, 2025, to August 28, 2025. For employers that have a paid-time-off (PTO) policy that meets all the requirements of the statute, no additional PTO policy is necessary. Employers that do not have a compliant policy can implement a short-term policy to cover the seventeen-week period when the PST law is in effect.

The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DOLIR) is expected to issue guidance for employers about how to phase out paid sick time policies, particularly whether employers must allow employees to continue to use PST that they earned but did not use under a short-term policy that ends with the repeal of the law. For example, it is likely employees will be given an opportunity to use earned paid sick time beyond the date of repeal. In the meantime, employers that will phase out paid sick time as of the effective date of the repeal may want to consider providing notice to employees about the repeal, and their intentions for phasing out their policy that provides paid sick time to employees.

The Future of Paid Sick Time in Missouri

Missouri voters will have another opportunity to consider the issue of paid sick time in the November 2026 election. A ballot initiative has been filed that would provide a similar paid sick time benefit to Missouri employees with a few key changes such as allowing an employer to avoid the carryover mandate by frontloading the required PST at the beginning of the year. The proposed new paid sick time law would take effect on February 1, 2027, if it is passed by voters in the 2026 election.

Key Takeaways

Missouri employers must provide earned paid sick time to eligible Missouri employees from May 1, 2025, to August 27, 2025. Employers may want to consider how to use an existing PTO policy for short-term compliance and address what will happen to earned PST upon repeal of the law.

Ogletree Deakins’ Leaves of Absence/Reasonable Accommodation Practice Group and Kansas City and St. Louis offices will continue to monitor developments and will provide updates on the Leaves of Absence and Missouri blogs as additional information becomes available.

In addition, the Ogletree Deakins Client Portal provides subscribers with timely updates on state paid sick leave requirements. Premium-level subscribers have access to updated state policy templates. Snapshots and Updates are complimentary for all registered client users. For more information on the Client Portal or a Client Portal subscription, please reach out to clientportal@ogletree.com.

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