The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: Accommodation Requests and Employer Duties

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires a covered employer to provide a reasonable accommodation for a worker's known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, unless doing so would cause undue hardship. It took effect in June 2023 and is a federal law that applies in every state. To ask for an accommodation, an employee simply has to tell the employer about the limitation and the change they need. There is no form, no magic phrase and no requirement that the condition be serious.

Who the Act covers

The PWFA reaches employers with at least 15 employees, including private companies, state and local governments, federal agencies, employment agencies and labor organizations. That threshold matches Title VII, and the enforcement machinery is borrowed from it too: a charge is filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or a partner state agency before a lawsuit, with the short federal charge-filing deadline that Title VII imposes.

Employees below the 15-employee threshold are not without options. Many states have their own pregnancy accommodation statutes, and several of those apply to much smaller employers or impose broader duties. State law here supplements the federal floor rather than replacing it, so a worker may hold rights under both at once.

Note: Applicants are covered, not just current employees. An employer may not refuse to hire someone to avoid providing an accommodation the PWFA would require.

What a "known limitation" means

This is the phrase that makes the PWFA different from the Americans with Disabilities Act. A known limitation is a physical or mental condition related to pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition that the employee or their representative has communicated to the employer.

Three features of that definition matter in practice. The limitation may be modest, minor or episodic — it does not have to rise to the level of an ADA disability. It includes the need to seek or receive care for a related condition, not only an inability to work. And it becomes "known" through ordinary communication, which can be a conversation with a supervisor, not a formal filing.

Related medical conditions are read broadly and include things like lactation, morning sickness, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, postpartum depression, miscarriage, stillbirth and recovery from childbirth. The EEOC's laws and guidance library is where the agency's current interpretation and its question-and-answer material live.

How a request moves

1. The employee says something. A statement that a pregnancy-related condition is making part of the job hard, plus what would help, is enough to start the process.
2. The employer opens the interactive process. This is a two-way conversation about the limitation, the job's requirements and possible adjustments. Unreasonable delay is itself a problem under the Act.
3. Documentation is requested only if reasonable. For obvious or self-evident needs, the regulation treats a documentation demand as unreasonable.
4. Options are considered. The employer need not grant the exact accommodation requested, but must consider effective alternatives rather than defaulting to refusal.
5. An accommodation is provided or hardship is shown. Refusal requires a real undue-hardship analysis — significant difficulty or expense measured against the employer's size and resources.
6. The arrangement is revisited. Pregnancy-related needs change, so accommodations are often temporary and adjusted as the pregnancy or recovery progresses.

Watch out: An employer cannot force an employee onto leave when another reasonable accommodation would let them keep working. Pushing someone out on unpaid leave as the default response is one of the specific practices the Act prohibits.

Suspending an essential function

Under the ADA, an employee who cannot perform the essential functions of a job even with accommodation generally is not qualified for it. The PWFA changes that in one important way. An employee is still qualified even if they cannot perform an essential function, provided the inability is temporary, they could perform it in the near future, and the inability can be reasonably accommodated.

A labelled hypothetical shows the difference. Imagine a warehouse role whose essential functions include lifting heavy cartons. A worker with a lifting restriction for the last months of pregnancy may, under the PWFA, be entitled to have that function reassigned or paused rather than being removed from the job — assuming no undue hardship. Under the ADA alone, the analysis would often stop at "cannot perform an essential function."

Separately, the PUMP Act extended federal break time and private-space protections for nursing employees, and it is enforced by the Wage and Hour Division rather than the EEOC. Job-protected time away from work runs on its own track under the Family and Medical Leave Act, and paid wage replacement, where it exists at all, comes from the state programs described in our explainer on state paid family and medical leave alongside federal leave.

The regulation and its litigation, as of mid-2026

The EEOC issued an implementing regulation that took effect in June 2024. It filled in the statutory terms, listed examples of accommodations, and identified four adjustments — water, extra restroom breaks, sitting or standing as needed, and breaks to eat or drink — that will virtually always be granted without undue hardship.

Parts of that regulation were challenged in court almost immediately. In 2024 a federal court in Louisiana limited enforcement of the abortion-related portion for certain employers and states, and in 2025 the same court vacated that portion of the rule, holding that the agency had exceeded its statutory authority. Appeals and related challenges were still moving through the federal courts of appeals as of mid-2026.

Two points survive all of that. The statute itself was never struck down and remains in force nationwide. And the vacated material concerned one narrow definitional question, not the core accommodation duty, which continues to apply to limitations arising from pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions. Because this area is genuinely unsettled, check the EEOC's current guidance page rather than relying on any secondary summary.

Common questions

Do I have to use the words "reasonable accommodation"?

No. The Act deliberately avoids a formal trigger. Telling a supervisor that a pregnancy-related condition is making a task difficult, and describing what would help, is enough to put the employer on notice. Employers that insist on a specific form or phrase before responding risk an unlawful delay claim. Putting the request in writing afterwards is still worth doing, because it creates a record of when the employer learned of the limitation.

Can my employer demand a doctor's note for everything?

No. The regulation permits documentation only when it is reasonable to require it. For visible pregnancy, for the four common adjustments the rule treats as almost always reasonable, and for lactation needs, a note is generally not a reasonable requirement. Where documentation is appropriate, the employer may seek confirmation of the condition and the need for an adjustment, not an unrestricted release for the entire medical file.

Is the employer required to give me the accommodation I asked for?

Not necessarily. The employer may choose among effective options, so a different adjustment that actually resolves the limitation can satisfy the duty. What it may not do is refuse outright without exploring alternatives, impose leave when work is possible, or drag the process out. If the alternative offered does not address the limitation, say so specifically and in writing, and explain why.

Does the PWFA give me paid time off?

It does not. The PWFA is an accommodation statute, not a leave-pay statute. Where leave is the accommodation, it may be unpaid unless another policy or law supplies pay. Federal job protection for leave comes from the FMLA, and wage replacement comes from state paid leave programs, a short-term disability policy, or accrued paid time off under the employer's own rules.

Putting it in order

An employee planning a request should start by writing down the limitation in concrete terms — what task, what difficulty, what would fix it — and then raising it with whoever handles accommodations, keeping a dated copy. Ask what the employer's process is, respond promptly to any reasonable documentation request, and follow up in writing if nothing happens within a couple of weeks.

An employer receiving a request should log the date, assign a single owner, open the conversation quickly, and document the options considered rather than only the decision. Where the accommodation involves modified duty, coordinate it with any parallel injury process, since the return-to-work mechanics described in our guide to workers' compensation claims and return to work often use the same light-duty inventory. Written policy should be reviewed at the same time, because a stale accommodation section is a recurring problem discussed in our guide to what an employee handbook creates. If a request is denied and the conversation stalls, the next step is a charge with the EEOC or the state fair employment agency within the applicable deadline. Workers weighing a departure while an accommodation dispute is open should also read our explainer on continuation coverage after employment ends, because health coverage timing is easy to lose track of in that situation.