A cashier asks her manager if she can keep a water bottle at her register during pregnancy. A warehouse worker tells her supervisor she can’t lift more than 20 pounds for the next few months and asks for lighter duty instead. Until 2023, neither request came with any real guarantee. An employer could say no and offer nothing in its place. The worker had little federal recourse without proof that a coworker with a similar limitation received better treatment. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) closed that gap. It doesn’t replace the laws that already ban pregnancy discrimination. It adds something those laws didn’t require: an actual duty to accommodate. This guide covers what that duty requires today, who it covers, and how the request process actually works. It also covers what has changed since the law took effect.
What the PWFA Actually Requires
The PWFA requires covered employers to provide a “reasonable accommodation” for a qualified employee’s or applicant’s known limitation. That limitation has to relate to pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition. The only exception is when the accommodation would cause the employer “undue hardship.” That’s the entire core of the law in one sentence. Everything else is detail about what those terms mean in practice.
It applies to private employers, state and local government employers, and Congress and federal agencies. It also covers employment agencies and labor organizations with 15 or more employees. The federal law doesn’t cover smaller employers, though a number of states set the bar lower.
The EEOC enforces the law and has accepted charges under the PWFA since it took effect in June 2023.
What Employers Cannot Do
Under the PWFA, a covered employer cannot:
- Fail to provide a reasonable accommodation for a known limitation, unless it would cause undue hardship
- Force an employee to accept a different accommodation than the one they worked out through the interactive process
- Deny a job or other employment opportunity because someone needs a reasonable accommodation
- Require an employee to take leave if another accommodation would let them keep working
- Retaliate against someone for requesting or using an accommodation, reporting a PWFA violation, or participating in a PWFA investigation
- Interfere with someone exercising these rights, or with someone helping them do so
What Counts as a “Known Limitation”
A limitation, under the PWFA, is a physical or mental condition tied to pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition. It doesn’t have to be serious or constant. Migraines that come and go, morning sickness, and the need to avoid certain chemicals or heat all qualify. So does needing to limit lifting, bending, or standing, or needing time off for prenatal appointments.
“Related medical conditions” is broader than most people assume. It includes uncomplicated pregnancies, vaginal deliveries and C-sections, miscarriage, postpartum depression, edema, placenta previa, and lactation, among others. One thing changed here: the EEOC’s original 2024 rule also listed abortion as a covered condition. A federal court vacated that part of the rule in 2025. The PWFA itself no longer requires accommodation for an elective abortion, though other laws might, depending on the circumstances. More on that below.
A limitation becomes “known” once the employee, or someone acting on her behalf, tells the employer about it. There’s no required script or form. Saying “I’m having trouble making it to work on time because of morning sickness” is enough to start the process.
What Reasonable Accommodations Actually Look Like
The PWFA doesn’t hand employers a checklist, and it doesn’t need to. Most requests are small. Real examples the EEOC points to include:
- Extra or longer breaks for water, food, or the restroom
- Permission to keep water or a snack at a workstation where that isn’t normally allowed
- A stool, a modified workstation, or the option to sit or stand as needed
- A uniform, dress code exception, or properly fitted safety equipment
- A shorter or later schedule, part-time hours, or telework
- Temporary reassignment or the temporary suspension of one or more job duties
- Light duty, or help with lifting and other physical tasks
- Leave for medical appointments or to recover from childbirth
None of this is exhaustive. What someone needs at eight weeks pregnant often differs from what she needs at thirty-two, or during recovery afterward. The law expects that to change over time.
Who Actually Qualifies
Someone is “qualified” under the PWFA if she can do the job’s essential functions, with or without an accommodation. That covers most requests: the cashier who needs a stool, the line worker who needs more bathroom breaks. But the law goes further. Even someone who temporarily can’t perform an essential function may still qualify. Three things have to line up: the inability is temporary, and she could perform the function again soon. On top of that, light duty or a temporary reassignment has to be able to close the gap.
How the Request Actually Works
An employee doesn’t need legal language to start this process. Telling a manager “I need more bathroom breaks because of my pregnancy” or “I need time off for a medical appointment” is enough. From there, the law expects the employer to engage in what it calls the interactive process. That just means a conversation, not a form, about what she needs and what will actually work. The EEOC says a short conversation, or a couple of emails, usually solves this, not a formal review.
Most explanations of this law leave out one detail: an employer’s ability to demand medical documentation has real limits. In a lot of common situations, employers can’t require any documentation at all. That covers a few common situations:
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- The limitation and the need for it are obvious
- The employer already has enough information
- The request is something like extra bathroom breaks, water, or the option to sit or stand, which the PWFA treats as automatic
When documentation is appropriate, it has to confirm three things. Those are that the condition exists, that it connects to pregnancy or childbirth, and what change the employee needs. It isn’t a license to request a full diagnosis or a worker’s entire medical history.
Where the Rule Stands Right Now
The core duty to accommodate has been in effect since 2023 and isn’t going anywhere. The details underneath it have moved, and are likely to keep moving for a while.
In May 2025, a federal court vacated the part of the EEOC’s final rule that required accommodation for elective abortions. The court ruled that the agency had exceeded its authority, and that change applies nationwide. Separately, the EEOC spent most of 2025 without enough commissioners to change its own rules. It now has a new, Republican-majority commission. That commission has said it intends to revisit other parts of the rule, including how it treats infertility and menopause. None of that has happened yet as of this writing. The accommodation duty itself remains fully enforceable in the meantime.
There’s also a separate, unrelated court challenge over whether Congress passed the PWFA constitutionally in the first place. It centers on how the House counted votes during the pandemic. That case doesn’t change how the law applies day to day right now. It’s a reminder, though, to keep checking on this area of law rather than assume it won’t change.
How It Overlaps With Other Protections
The PWFA doesn’t operate alone. Title VII already prohibits firing or otherwise discriminating against someone because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a related condition. It’s the same law behind the protections in our guide to preventing sexual harassment in the workplace. The ADA can apply when a pregnancy-related condition rises to the level of a disability. The FMLA and the PUMP Act cover unpaid leave and lactation accommodations. The Department of Labor enforces both, separate from the EEOC.
State and local laws add another layer. More than 30 states and cities have their own pregnancy accommodation requirements, some broader than the federal floor. Employers have to comply with whichever standard is more protective. The Department of Labor tracks these requirements state by state. If that sounds familiar, it’s the same patchwork problem we’ve covered with pay transparency laws by state. A federal law sets the minimum, and a lot of the real detail depends on where you actually work.
Getting Help
Workers or employers trying to figure out what a specific accommodation should look like don’t have to guess. The Job Accommodation Network is a free service that helps identify accommodations for specific jobs and conditions. Employers building out inclusive hiring and workplace practices more broadly might also find our guide to addressing unconscious bias useful. The goal is the same either way: don’t let something outside a person’s control push them out of a job.
The cashier and the warehouse worker from the start of this guide get something new under the PWFA. Their request is no longer a favor for a manager to grant or deny on a whim. They’re a legal process with an expected answer. That’s a different starting point than the one workers had before 2023, even while regulators keep sorting out the details. If you’re evaluating employers on how seriously they take this, Diversity Employment is a good place to start.
