Jury Duty Leave: Do You Have to Use PTO?
Jury duty leave rules for employers: whether you can require PTO, when the time must be paid, the salary basis rule for exempt staff, and a sample policy.
Do you have to use PTO for jury duty? As the employer, you generally may require it under federal law, but at least eleven states specifically forbid it. For anyone on your payroll paid as exempt, a second rule applies: you cannot dock their salary for a partial-week jury absence.
That answer surprises most small employers, because the instinct is to treat a summons like any other absence and let the balance absorb it. Jury duty is not like any other absence. It is a court order, it carries its own protective statutes, and the rules land differently on a salaried manager than on somebody paid by the hour.
I run FirstHR, which builds people and records tooling for businesses without a dedicated HR person, and jury summonses are one of those small events that reliably produce a bad improvised decision.
This guide covers the pay question, the PTO question, the state rules with statutes attached, the fee offset, and a policy you can adopt this week. It is general information rather than legal advice.
Can You Require PTO for Jury Duty?
No federal statute prevents it, and in the states with no rule on the point an employer may lawfully charge jury service to an accrued PTO balance. In at least eleven states that same decision is a statutory violation, and for a salaried exempt employee in any state the salary cannot be docked for a partial-week absence.
The confusion usually starts with a single sentence somebody read online saying jury duty is unpaid. That sentence describes federal wage law and hourly employees. It says nothing about the state statutes, and it is wrong about exempt employees.
Does Jury Duty Have to Be Paid?
For hourly employees, federal law says no. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires payment for hours worked, and jury service is not hours worked, which the Department of Labor states directly in its guidance on jury duty. Nine jurisdictions override that with their own pay requirement, and exempt employees follow a completely different rule.
| Employee type | Federal rule | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly, nonexempt | No pay required for time not worked | You may leave the absence unpaid unless your state requires pay |
| Salaried, exempt | No deduction permitted for a jury duty absence | Full salary is due for any week in which the employee performs any work |
| Salaried, nonexempt | Pay follows hours worked | Treat as hourly for the missed time unless your pay agreement or state law says otherwise |
| Exempt, full week absent | No salary due for a week with zero work | The only situation where an exempt employee can go unpaid |
| Any type, in a paid-leave state | State requirement controls | Pay per the state statute for the days it covers |
The practical effect is that a single unpaid policy applied across your whole team is almost certainly wrong somewhere. Most small employers I talk to end up paying the first few days for everybody, which costs little and removes most of the problem.
The Salary Basis Rule Settles It for Exempt Staff
An employer cannot make deductions from an exempt employee’s salary for absences caused by jury duty, attendance as a witness or temporary military leave. That is the text of the salary basis regulation at 29 CFR 541.602, and it is the single most useful thing to know here.
Run it through a real week. Your operations lead is summoned Monday, seated on a jury, and sits Monday through Thursday. She answers email Friday morning. That is a partial-week absence, she performed work, and full salary is due for the week.
Charging those four days to her PTO balance is a separate question. In opinion letter FLSA2005-7 (January 2005), the Department of Labor says an employer may reduce the accrued leave of an exempt employee for a full or partial day without affecting the salary basis, as long as the guaranteed salary is paid. The state PTO bans below still apply.
The one exception to the full-salary rule is a workweek in which the employee performs no work at all. Exempt employees need not be paid for such a week, which is why a long trial can eventually become unpaid. In practice that requires genuinely zero work, and one answered message during the week ends the argument.
States That Require Paid Jury Leave
Nine jurisdictions require an employer to pay something for jury service, and no two of them require the same thing. The covered period ranges from a single day of regular wages in Louisiana to five days in Connecticut and the entire period of service in Alabama, Nebraska and Tennessee.
| Jurisdiction | What the employer must pay | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Usual compensation for full-time employees, for the days of service | Ala. Code 12-16-8 |
| Colorado | Regular wages up to $50 per day for the first three days of service | C.R.S. 13-71-126 |
| Connecticut | Regular wages for the first five days, full-time employed jurors | Conn. Gen. Stat. 51-247(a) |
| District of Columbia | Usual compensation less the jury fee, service of five days or less | D.C. Code 15-718 |
| Louisiana | Regular wages for a leave of absence of up to one day | La. R.S. 23:965 |
| Massachusetts | Regular wages for the first three days of juror service | G.L. c. 234A, s. 48 |
| Nebraska | Normal wages, which the employer may reduce by court compensation other than expenses | Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1674 |
| New York | Regular wages up to $72 per day for the first three days, employers with more than ten employees | N.Y. Judiciary Law 519 |
| Tennessee | Usual compensation for time actually spent serving and traveling | Tenn. Code Ann. 22-4-106 |
Several of these carry conditions worth reading before you rely on the summary. Colorado extends its requirement to part-time, temporary and casual employment where the hours can be determined from a schedule or established practice, and Massachusetts does the same.
Three of these jurisdictions exempt the smallest employers. New York, Tennessee and the District of Columbia each set a threshold below which the payment obligation does not apply, so a very small team may fall outside the requirement entirely. Connecticut defines a full-time employed juror by weekly hours rather than by job title, which catches people employers assume are part-time.
New York deserves a closer look, because its dollar amount was raised. Under New York Judiciary Law 519, an employer with more than ten employees may not withhold the first $72 of the daily wages a juror-employee earns during the first three days of service. That protected floor rose from $40 to $72 effective June 8, 2025.
States That Ban Requiring PTO
At least eleven states prohibit an employer from making an employee use accrued leave for jury service, and six of them prohibit requesting it too. The wording matters: asking nicely is also barred in the states that use the phrase require or request.
| State | Statute | What the statute prohibits |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Ala. Code 12-16-8 | Requiring or requesting use of annual, vacation, unpaid or sick leave |
| Arizona | A.R.S. 21-236 | Requiring or requesting use of annual, vacation or sick leave |
| Louisiana | La. R.S. 23:965 | Any loss of sick, emergency or personal leave for the protected day |
| Mississippi | Miss. Code 13-5-35 | Requiring or requesting use of annual, vacation or sick leave |
| Nebraska | Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1674 | Loss of sick leave or vacation time as a penalty for service |
| Nevada | NRS 6.190 | Requiring the person to use sick leave or vacation time |
| Ohio | Ohio Rev. Code 2313.19 | Requiring or requesting use of annual, vacation or sick leave |
| Oklahoma | 38 Okla. Stat. 34 | Requiring or requesting use of annual, vacation or sick leave |
| Oregon | ORS 10.090 | Requiring use of vacation, sick or annual leave for time spent responding to a summons |
| Utah | Utah Code 78B-1-116 | Requiring or requesting use of annual, vacation or sick leave |
| Virginia | Va. Code 18.2-465.1 | Requiring use of sick leave or vacation as a result of the absence |
None of these statutes forces you to create a PTO benefit you do not otherwise offer. Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah all include the same saving clause: nothing in the section requires an employer to provide leave to employees who are not otherwise entitled to it under company policy.
The penalties are real rather than theoretical. Oklahoma makes requiring the use of leave a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, and Mississippi treats a violation as interference with the administration of justice punishable as contempt of court.
Three more states attach criminal consequences. Arizona and Virginia each treat a violation of the jury duty section as a class 3 misdemeanor, and Nevada grades firing or threatening to fire somebody over a summons as a gross misdemeanor.
An employee may still volunteer to use PTO, and in a state with no pay requirement some will prefer that to an unpaid day. The distinction is who initiates it. Offering the option in writing is fine; putting it in the policy as the default is what gets employers into trouble.
The Jury Fee Offset
If you pay wages for a day the court also pays a fee for, most rules let you subtract the court fee from the wages you owe, so the employee is not paid twice for the same day. The salary basis regulation says so explicitly for exempt employees, and several state statutes say so for everybody.
Federal petit jurors receive $50 a day, rising to as much as $60 a day after ten days of service if the presiding judge orders it, according to the federal judiciary. Grand jurors follow the same $50 rate with the increase available after forty-five days. State courts pay their own rates.
| Situation | Can you offset the fee? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Exempt employee, salary paid in full | Yes | 29 CFR 541.602(b)(3) permits offsetting jury fees against that week’s salary |
| Nebraska, employer pays normal wages | Yes | Statute allows reducing pay by court compensation other than expenses |
| Tennessee, employer pays usual compensation | Yes | Employer may deduct the fee the employee receives for serving |
| District of Columbia | Yes | Statute sets pay as usual compensation less the jury fee |
| Mileage and expense reimbursement | No | Expense reimbursements are not a fee and belong to the employee |
| State requiring pay with no deduction stated | Check the statute | Do not assume an offset where the text does not provide one |
Honestly, for a small team the administrative cost of collecting a $50 check usually exceeds the $50. I stopped bothering. If you do collect it, say so in the policy in advance, because a surprise deduction on a later paycheck reads as a punishment for serving.
What Federal Law Actually Protects
Federal law protects the job, not the paycheck. Under 28 U.S.C. 1875, no employer may discharge, threaten to discharge, intimidate or coerce any permanent employee by reason of that employee serving or being summoned to serve on a federal grand or petit jury.
The remedies are the part employers underestimate. A court may award lost wages and benefits, order reinstatement, grant injunctive relief, award attorney fees, impose a civil penalty of not more than $5,000 for each violation as to each employee, and order the employer to perform community service.
Note the word threaten. You do not have to fire anybody to violate the statute. Telling a supervisor to make it clear that a summons would be inconvenient is enough to create exposure, and it is the version of this that actually happens at small companies under deadline pressure.
State jury service sits outside 28 U.S.C. 1875 and is covered by state statutes instead, which is why nearly every state has its own protective provision. An employee can be summoned by a federal court or a state court, so in practice both layers apply across your workforce.
Dwight SchruteSales3 people
Darryl PhilbinWarehouse1 person
Kelly KapoorCustomer Service1 personWriting a Jury Duty Pay Policy
A usable policy answers five questions in under a page: notice, pay, PTO, the court fee and partial days. Write it once at the most generous standard that applies anywhere you operate, and you will never have to maintain a per-state matrix.
Store the summons copy and the attendance certificate with the employee record rather than in a manager inbox. If your employee handbook is where this policy lives, make sure the version employees can actually reach matches the one payroll is working from.
The policy states the rule. What goes wrong in practice is the individual summons, months later, handled by whoever happens to be doing payroll that week. Run each one through a short record that forces the three decisions in the right order: the classification first, then the pay, then the fee.
Two lines on that form exist to stop the two expensive mistakes. The exempt question comes before the pay calculation, because for a salaried exempt employee there is nothing to calculate. And the PTO line asks whether a balance was charged, because that decision is usually made quietly by whoever entered the timesheet.
Scheduling and Coverage
Several states restrict how you may schedule around jury service, and the restrictions are more specific than most employers expect. They govern the hours immediately before and after a court appearance rather than the absence itself.
Nevada bars scheduling work within eight hours before a jury appearance, and where service lasted four hours or more, bars work between 5 p.m. that day and 3 a.m. the following morning. Virginia has a similar restriction for appearances of four or more hours. Michigan prohibits requiring hours that, combined with jury service, exceed what the employee normally works.
For coverage, the honest planning assumption is a short absence, because only a fraction of any panel is seated and the rest are released once selection ends. Plan for the short case as the norm and treat a seated multi-week trial as the exception that needs a real conversation about temporary cover rather than an absence policy.
Where the absence does run long and turns unpaid, it becomes a form of unpaid time off with statutory job protection attached. Weighed against that coverage problem, a policy that pays the first few days for everybody comes out like this.
Where Small Employers Get This Wrong
Five patterns, and the first two account for most of the actual liability.
Docking an exempt employee for a partial-week jury absence is first, and it is the one that can cost the most, because a pattern of improper deductions can defeat the exemption for a whole job classification rather than just refunding one paycheck.
Charging the time to PTO in a state that prohibits it is second. Employers rarely check, because the decision feels administrative rather than legal, and in at least eleven states it is a statutory violation, with most of those states attaching a misdemeanor charge or contempt of court to it.
Treating the summons as negotiable is third. Asking an employee to seek a postponement because the quarter is busy can amount to the intimidation or coercion that 28 U.S.C. 1875 prohibits when the summons is for federal jury service, even when nobody intends it that way.
Applying a single unpaid rule nationwide is fourth. It is wrong in nine jurisdictions on the pay side, wrong in at least eleven on the PTO side, and wrong for every exempt employee anywhere.
And keeping the court fee without saying so in advance is last. It is often lawful and always resented when it appears as an unexplained line on a paycheck weeks later.
Nick Anisimov, FirstHR founder
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have to use PTO for jury duty?
Under federal law an employer may require it, but a large group of states forbid it. Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah and Virginia all bar an employer from charging jury service to an employee’s accrued leave. Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah go further and bar requesting it as well, not just requiring it. In those states, charging the absence to a PTO balance is a statutory violation, and most of them attach a penalty ranging from a misdemeanor charge to contempt of court. Even where it is legal, it is a poor policy choice for a small employer, because the employee ends up paying personally for a civic obligation the court imposed on them.
Does an employer have to pay for jury duty?
Federal law does not require it. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires pay only for hours actually worked, and a day at the courthouse does not count as hours worked, so an hourly employee can go unpaid for it as far as federal law is concerned. State law changes the picture. Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York and Tennessee each require some level of employer-paid jury leave, though the amount and duration vary widely. Exempt salaried employees are the separate case: the salary basis rule bars any deduction for a jury duty absence in a week where the employee performs any work.
Can you dock an exempt employee for jury duty?
No, not for a partial-week absence. Under the federal salary basis regulation, 29 CFR 541.602(b)(3), a jury duty absence, time spent as a witness and temporary military leave are all off limits as reasons to take money out of an exempt employee’s pay. If an exempt employee serves on a jury Monday through Thursday and answers a few emails on Friday, the full week’s salary is still owed. The one exception is a workweek with no work at all, because the rule does not require pay for a week in which the employee did nothing for the company. Improper deductions put the exemption itself at risk, not just that paycheck.
Can an employer keep the jury duty check?
In many states an employer that pays wages for the same days may offset the court fee against those wages, which in practice means the employee signs the fee over. Nebraska allows an employer to reduce pay by any court compensation other than expenses, Tennessee lets an employer deduct the fee the juror receives, and the District of Columbia sets the employer obligation as usual compensation less the jury fee. The federal salary basis rule at 29 CFR 541.602(b)(3) separately permits offsetting jury fees against the salary due for that week without losing the exemption. The rule differs where a state requires paid leave without stating any deduction, so read the statute before assuming an offset. Mileage and expense reimbursements are a separate matter and belong to the employee in every case.
What law protects employees who serve on a federal jury?
28 U.S.C. 1875 protects federal jury service specifically. Under that section an employer may not fire a permanent employee, threaten to fire one, or intimidate or coerce one because the employee was summoned for, or is serving on, a federal grand or petit jury. A court can order lost wages and benefits, reinstatement, an injunction and attorney fees, and it can also impose a civil penalty of up to $5,000 per violation per employee plus community service for the employer. The statute protects the job rather than the paycheck: it does not require the employer to pay for the time, only to leave the employment relationship undamaged. State court jury service falls outside this section and is covered by separate state statutes, so a typical employer has to satisfy both layers.
How much does a federal juror get paid?
Federal petit jurors are paid a $50 daily attendance fee. If the presiding judge orders it, the fee can rise to as much as $60 a day once a juror passes ten days of service. Grand jurors also start at $50 a day, and the same increase, to as much as $60, becomes available after forty-five days. Jurors are separately reimbursed for reasonable transportation costs and, in some courts, parking, with subsistence allowances for meals and lodging where an overnight stay is necessary. State courts set their own rates. Those figures explain why an unpaid jury duty policy hits hourly employees hard: the fee replaces only a fraction of a normal day of wages.
Can you require an employee to work after jury duty?
Sometimes, and several states limit it sharply. Nevada bars work in the eight hours before a jury appearance and, after service of four hours or more, from 5 p.m. that day until 3 a.m. the next morning. Virginia imposes a comparable limit after an appearance of four hours or more. Michigan does not let an employer require hours that, added to the time spent on jury service, go beyond what the employee normally works. Connecticut treats eight hours of jury duty in a day as a full legal day of work and bars requiring more. Where nothing prohibits it, asking somebody to close out a shift after a half day at the courthouse is legal but corrosive, and worth reserving for genuine coverage emergencies.
What should a jury duty policy include?
Six things: a statement that jury service is protected and postponement is never requested for company convenience, a notice requirement with a copy of the summons, a pay rule stated separately for salaried and hourly staff, an explicit line that PTO is not required or requested, the treatment of the court fee and any offset, and a partial-day return rule. Set the pay rule at the level of the most demanding state where you have staff instead of keeping a different rule for each location, because one clear sentence beats a matrix nobody reads. Then brief your managers on it, since in practice a policy breaks down when a supervisor improvises, not because of what the document says.
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