What the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act Requires Employers to Do

Key takeaways

• Employers with 15 or more workers must accommodate pregnancy-related limitations unless it causes undue hardship, even if the condition would not qualify as a disability under the ADA.
• Four accommodations — water, restroom breaks, sitting or standing as needed, and food breaks — are presumed reasonable in virtually all cases under EEOC rules.
• Workers file complaints with the EEOC within 180 days of the incident (300 days in many states); a federal court has since narrowed the rule’s coverage of abortion-related accommodations.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act took effect in June 2023, giving millions of employees a legal right to workplace changes for pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has since issued final rules explaining exactly what that means in practice, and the agency has already fielded thousands of complaints under the law.

The rules answer questions that come up repeatedly: which employers must comply, what counts as a covered condition, how much paperwork a worker can be asked to produce, and what happens when a request is denied. A federal court has also narrowed part of the EEOC’s rule, so the picture is not entirely settled.

Who the Law Covers and What It Requires

The PWFA was enacted December 29, 2022, and is codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000gg. It took effect June 27, 2023, and applies to private and public-sector employers with 15 or more employees, as well as Congress, federal agencies, employment agencies and labor organizations, using coverage definitions drawn from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related federal employment statutes.

The statute makes it unlawful for a covered employer to deny a reasonable accommodation for an employee’s or applicant’s known limitation related to, affected by, or arising out of pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, unless the employer can show the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on its operations.

By the Numbers
The EEOC received 2,729 charges alleging Pregnant Workers Fairness Act violations in fiscal year 2024, its first full year of enforcement, according to Ogletree Deakins; the agency’s own general counsel report shows it filed five PWFA-related lawsuits that year out of 111 total merits suits.

Who Qualifies, and Which Conditions Count

A worker is “qualified” under the law if they can perform the essential functions of their job with or without an accommodation, or if they are temporarily unable to perform those functions but could resume them in the near future with an accommodation in place. For a current pregnancy, the EEOC’s final rule treats “in the near future” as roughly 40 weeks from when a function is suspended; for other conditions, no fixed timeframe applies, though indefinite leave does not qualify.

A “known limitation” is any physical or mental condition connected to pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition that the employee has communicated to the employer. It does not have to be severe or permanent, and it does not need to meet the disability standard used under the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the National Women’s Law Center, conditions the law reaches include morning sickness, gestational diabetes, lactation needs, postpartum depression, and pregnancy loss including miscarriage and stillbirth.

The Accommodations Employers Must Consider

The EEOC’s final rule, published in the Federal Register on April 19, 2024, identifies four accommodations — often called “predictable assessments” — that are presumed to cause no undue hardship in virtually all cases: letting an employee carry and drink water, take additional restroom breaks, sit or stand as the job allows, and take breaks to eat and drink.

Beyond those, the rule and EEOC guidance list other accommodations employers should consider, including schedule changes, part-time hours, telework, time off for medical appointments, temporary reassignment of duties, light duty, modified equipment or uniforms, and leave to recover from childbirth or pregnancy loss. Employers cannot require an employee to take leave if another reasonable accommodation would let her keep working, effectively making leave an accommodation of last resort.

Employers are expected to engage in an interactive process — two-way communication with the employee to identify the limitation and work out an accommodation — and cannot require documentation as a matter of routine. Under the rule, documentation may be sought only when “reasonable under the circumstances,” and even then it must be minimal: confirming the condition exists, connecting it to pregnancy or childbirth, and describing the needed adjustment. Self-confirmation by the employee is sufficient for the four predictable-assessment accommodations or when the need is obvious.

Where Employers Can Push Back

Employers do not have to grant every request. “Undue hardship” is defined, as under the ADA, as significant difficulty or expense to the business. For requests involving the temporary suspension of an essential job function, the rule adds further factors employers may weigh: how long the employee will need the change, whether other work is available, how often the function comes up, whether similar accommodations have been granted before, whether temporary help is available, and whether the function can simply go undone for a period.

The rule is explicit that pregnancy alone does not automatically entitle a worker to a full 40 weeks of modified duty; the length of any accommodation still depends on the individual’s circumstances.

Pregnancy alone does not automatically entitle a worker to a full 40 weeks of modified duty; the length of any accommodation still depends on the individual’s circumstances.

How to Enforce a Complaint

A worker who believes an employer has denied a required accommodation, or retaliated for requesting one, can file a charge with the EEOC through its online public portal, in person at one of the agency’s field offices, or by mail; the EEOC does not accept charges by phone, though a phone call can start the process. As with other EEOC charges, the deadline is 180 days from the discriminatory act, extended to 300 days in places where a state or local law also bars the same conduct. Federal employees follow a separate track, contacting an agency EEO counselor within 45 days.

The PWFA borrows its enforcement machinery from Title VII, meaning the EEOC can investigate and attempt conciliation, and a worker who receives a right-to-sue letter can take the case to federal court. Retaliation against an employee for requesting an accommodation or filing a charge is separately prohibited. The EEOC’s fiscal year 2024 general counsel report shows the agency filed five PWFA-related lawsuits that year, among 111 total merits lawsuits it brought.

A Provision Still Being Litigated

Part of the EEOC’s rule has already been rolled back. The agency’s April 2024 rule had defined “related medical conditions” to include termination of pregnancy by abortion. Louisiana, Mississippi and Catholic organizations led by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sued, and a federal judge in the Western District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction in June 2024 blocking that piece of the rule for employees in the two states and for the Catholic plaintiffs, just before it took effect.

On May 21, 2025, the same court vacated the abortion-accommodation provision nationwide and sent it back to the EEOC, finding the agency had exceeded its authority. The rest of the final rule remains in force, and employers must still accommodate abortions needed to treat a pregnancy-related medical condition. The EEOC had not signaled an appeal as of the ruling.

According to Ogletree Deakins, the EEOC received 2,729 charges alleging PWFA violations in fiscal year 2024, the law’s first full year of enforcement.

Photo: Martin Falbisoner · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons