Is Your Disability a Serious Health Condition Under the FMLA?

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows employees to take time off work for a "serious health condition.” Serious health conditions are defined as any illnesses, injuries, or impairments that involve either inpatient care or continuing treatment by a health care provider. (29 U.S.C. §2611(2026).) There’s no official list of FMLA-approved serious health conditions, but many chronic conditions, physical and mental, will meet this standard.

Unless your condition is incapacitating in some way, it won’t qualify for FMLA, since if you’re able to perform your job duties and complete your activities of daily living, you won’t need to take time off because of it. Before you request FMLA leave, it’s smart to look at some examples of health impairments that qualify as serious health conditions and see how the FMLA might apply in your case.

What’s on the FMLA Serious Health Conditions List?

There isn’t a specific list of serious health conditions, but many types of impairments fall within several categories that will be acceptable for FMLA leave. Each involves some form of incapacity, defined as the inability to work, attend school, or perform other daily activities due to the serious health condition (or treatment for it). (29 C.F.R. § 825.113 (2026).)

Chronic Health Conditions

Chronic conditions require periodic visits (at least twice a year) to a medical provider to treat recurring periods of incapacity. This category covers a broad range of common long-term impairments with symptoms that may come and go, such as:

• epilepsy
• diabetes
• asthma
• depression
• anxiety
• migraines, and
• COPD.

Chronic conditions can be incapacitating even if you don’t receive medical treatment during your FMLA leave and even if your leave doesn’t last for more than three days. For example, you can use FMLA to attend a one day outpatient therapy session for a mood disorder or stay at home during a multiple sclerosis flare up.

Permanent or Long-Term Conditions

These are conditions that aren’t reversible or that don’t respond to medical treatment. They can include disorders such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease). As long as you’re under the supervision of a health care provider, permanent or long-term conditions will be considered serious health conditions under the FMLA even if you’re no longer receiving active treatment.

Conditions Requiring Multiple Treatments

You have a serious health condition under the FMLA if you need time off for multiple treatments involving restorative surgery following an injury or a condition that would require you to miss more than three days of work if not treated, like dialysis for kidney disease or chemotherapy for cancer.

Incapacity Plus Treatment

Conditions that leave you incapacitated for more than three days and require follow up treatment are considered serious health conditions when the following occurs:

• you’re treated by a health care provider within the first week of your illness and you start a continuing regimen of care (like antibiotics), or
• you’re treated by a health care provider within the first week and you have another treatment within 30 days of when you became sick.

This is kind of a catch-all category intended to include conditions that aren't permanent or ongoing but might wipe you out for a while, like the flu, COVID-19, pneumonia, mononucleosis, or severe infections.

Inpatient Care

You have a serious health condition if you need to stay overnight at a hospital, residential care facility, or hospice. You can take time off under the FMLA for all of the time when you’re physically present in the health care facility (like a hospital or rehab center), including any period of incapacity or subsequent treatment connected with the original stay.

Pregnancy and Prenatal Care

If you’re unable to work or perform your other regular activities because of your pregnancy, you have a serious health condition under the FMLA. For example, if you have morning sickness or need to spend a week in bed before giving birth, you can take time off. You can also take intermittent FMLA leave for regular doctor visits during your pregnancy, even if you’re not incapacitated. Learn more in our article on taking FMLA leave for pregnancy and prenatal care.

What’s Not Considered an FMLA Serious Health Condition?

Some medical conditions are typically not severe enough to qualify you for FMLA leave. Colds, earaches, routine dental problems, and outpatient cosmetic procedures aren’t usually going to completely keep you from working, for example. But any medical condition, including seemingly minor ones, will be considered serious medical conditions under the FMLA if it results in hospitalization, incapacitation, or continuous treatment.

And seemingly mild symptoms can be indicators of very serious conditions, like a stomachache that turns out to be pancreatic cancer. This is why there are no conditions that are automatically disqualified for leave under the FMLA. Each employee’s situation must be considered individually.

Different Definitions of Disability

It’s important to keep in mind that definitions of disability aren’t the same across the board, but rather change according to which law or government agency applies. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines disability as an impairment that "substantially limits" a major life activity. (42 U.S.C. 12102(1)(A) (2026).) Major life activities include not only working but also things that are basic to daily life, such as seeing, hearing, walking, learning, and the proper functioning of bodily systems, like the respiratory or digestive systems.

Under the ADA, whether or not a condition is substantially limiting is decided without considering what your condition is like with medication or assistive devices. For example, if you have diabetes, you have a disability under the ADA because the proper functioning of your endocrine system is substantially limited, even if your condition is well controlled with blood sugar monitoring and medication.

The Social Security Administration has yet another definition of disability it uses to determine whether you qualify for SSDI or SSI benefits. Under Social Security law, a disability is a medically determinable impairment that keeps you from earning substantial gainful activity for at least one year. (Learn more about Social Security disability rules and requirements for adults.)

While these laws often overlap with each other, it’s important to keep the key differences in mind. For example, temporary conditions—like a broken bone that heals fully in six weeks—would qualify as a serious health condition under the FMLA, but wouldn’t be considered a disability under the ADA or by Social Security. (Find out more about the ADA and temporary conditions.) Or a pregnancy without complications might qualify for time off under the FMLA, but not under the ADA.

Recap and Summary on FMLA Serious Health Conditions

Whether a condition is covered by the FMLA always depends on the facts of a situation. For instance, if you need surgery to stop the progression of your hearing loss, that might qualify as a serious health condition under the FMLA. But as long as you’re able to do your job and aren’t otherwise incapacitated, your condition isn’t covered by the FMLA.

Not every ADA disability is a serious health condition for FMLA purposes. That makes sense since the purpose of the FMLA is to allow employees to take time off work when they need it, while the purpose of the ADA is to allow employees with disabilities to continue to work. Even conditions that limit major life activities, such as deafness (which would be covered under the ADA), might never be incapacitating and might never require time off work.

Lastly, whether your health condition qualifies for FMLA leave or ADA protection has no bearing on whether Social Security will approve you for disability benefits (and vice versa). If you aren’t sure whether your disability is a serious health condition, your employer refuses to provide you with FMLA leave or ADA accommodations, or you think you may be eligible for Social Security disability benefits, you may want to contact an experienced attorney to get their perspective.