How to track China's statutory medical period for illness or non-work injury

Prove both service measures before choosing the matrix row

Create two evidence folders. The first supports total actual working years across employers, using prior labor contracts, termination certificates, personnel records, social-insurance history and other reliable evidence. The second supports years with the current employing unit, including the current start date, transfers, mergers, continuity arrangements and any period the employer disputes. Do not treat contribution years as automatically identical to actual working years, and do not use current-employer service alone. Record the legal and factual basis for any continuity conclusion.

Apply the threshold language precisely. Under ten total years is different from at least ten. Current-employer service under five differs from at least five; later bands are five to under ten, ten to under fifteen, fifteen to under twenty and at least twenty. Preserve the calculation date and the evidence version. If the employee crosses a threshold during a long chronology, obtain qualified advice on the correct reference point rather than silently changing the entitlement midway.

Open the observation window on the first sick-rest day

Record the first day the employee stopped work for treatment and rest and use it to open the corresponding observation window under the national implementation approach. For a three-month entitlement, review accumulation in six months; six in twelve; nine in fifteen; twelve in eighteen; eighteen in twenty-four; and twenty-four in thirty. Store exact dates, not only month names. If a certificate recommends rest from an earlier date than it was issued, record the discrepancy and the employer's lawful decision rather than backdating the ledger.

A new certificate does not automatically open a fresh window or reset accumulated absence. The ledger should show each interval, source document, employer leave state, included weekend or public-holiday dates, return-to-work date and unresolved gap. Use one consistent day-count method and retain the underlying calendar. If the employee worked part of a day or returned intermittently, record the facts and seek the controlling interpretation rather than inventing a fraction rule.

Reconcile intermittent absence, holidays and overlapping records

For every sick-rest interval, expand the dates to a calendar and mark rest days, public holidays and statutory holidays within that interval as included. Do not exclude them simply because the employee was not scheduled to work. At the same time, do not add holidays outside an approved or supported sick-rest interval. Reconcile the provider's recommendation, employee request, employer approval and actual attendance. Where they differ, preserve each version and identify which one the employer used for the medical-period ledger.

Avoid double counting overlapping certificates, hospitalisation and home rest. If one certificate replaces another, keep both and state the relationship. If the employee takes annual leave or another category between sick-rest intervals, do not relabel it without evidence. The medical-period ledger and payroll ledger may use different units and purposes, so compare them without forcing them to match line by line. The final ledger should be reproducible from source documents by someone who did not manage the original absence.

Treat special-disease extension as a verified exception

The 1995 implementation notice refers to certain special diseases, including examples such as cancer, mental illness and paralysis, where the employee has not recovered within twenty-four months and an extension may be approved by the enterprise and labor authority. That wording does not say every listed diagnosis begins with twenty-four months, and national sources do not create an automatic diagnosis-based extension. Local rules and court treatment can differ materially.

If extension may matter, identify the employee's ordinary matrix entitlement, full accumulation ledger, current clinical evidence, local implementing text, responsible labor authority, employer decision and application timing. Ask for written confirmation. Do not tell the employee that a diagnosis guarantees extension and do not tell the employer that extension is impossible merely because the ordinary matrix row is shorter. This is a high-consequence legal question requiring current local verification and, where disputed, qualified advice.

Separate urgent treatment from the date-audit process

A worker with alarming symptoms should call 120 or obtain emergency care before anyone calculates a statutory medical period. The clinical team determines treatment, and the employee or representative can give the employer a short notice that evidence will follow. Preserve actual encounter, admission and discharge dates. Do not ask a provider to backdate a medical certificate merely to produce a cleaner ledger, and do not delay care because HR has not confirmed how the absence will be counted.

Once the employee is safe, collect the provider document, employee sick-leave request, employer response and actual attendance. The first sick-rest day used for the national observation window should be tied to reliable facts and the applicable implementation approach, not chosen for convenience. An emergency encounter does not automatically establish employer approval, sick-leave pay or work causation. This guide explains administrative tracking, not clinical advice or a binding legal result.

Write the complete matrix into the case file

The six possible national outcomes are 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, 18 months and 24 months. Where total actual working years are under ten, current-employer service under five years maps to a three-month medical period and service of at least five years maps to six months. Where total actual working years are at least ten, current-employer service under five maps to six months; five to under ten maps to nine; ten to under fifteen maps to twelve; fifteen to under twenty maps to eighteen; and at least twenty maps to twenty-four months. Record the selected row in words and numbers.

Attach the evidence supporting both axes and state any disputed period. Do not use age, nationality, diagnosis, hospital tier, salary, social-insurance balance or the number written on a certificate as a substitute for the matrix. If continuity after a transfer, merger or prior arrangement is uncertain, show both possible results and obtain responsible-authority or qualified legal guidance. A transparent fork is safer than an unexplained final date that conceals a contested service assumption.

Pair each tier with its correct accumulation window

The paired observation windows are a 6-month window for the three-month entitlement, a 12-month window for six months, a 15-month window for nine months, an 18-month window for twelve months, a 24-month window for eighteen months and a 30-month window for twenty-four months. Store the pair together in the ledger header. A common error is selecting the correct entitlement but applying the wrong observation window, which can make intermittent absence appear exhausted too early or too late.

Record the window start, calculated end and method used for inclusive dates. If the first supported rest date is disputed, preserve the employee, provider, attendance and employer versions instead of silently choosing one. When an absence continues across the window boundary, do not invent a rolling formula from a spreadsheet template. Apply the controlling national and local interpretation and seek qualified advice where the result affects employment protection.

Build a day-level ledger that another reviewer can reproduce

Use one row for every continuous interval and columns for source document, employee request, employer approval, actual attendance, start and end dates, calendar-day count, included rest days, public holidays, statutory holidays, overlap, return date and comments. Preserve the original calendar behind any monthly summary. A result stated only as “two months used” is too opaque for an intermittent or disputed history.

Mark overlapping certificates once, not twice. Identify gaps where the employee worked, used annual leave or lacked accepted evidence. If a certificate is corrected, retain the original row and add a linked adjustment. The ledger can reference payroll, but it should not simply import paid workdays because the protection calculation has a different purpose. Version the file and require a reason for each manual change.

Design access around a specific tracking purpose and the minimum necessary fields. The working calendar normally needs supported absence dates, source references and status; it does not need a diagnosis narrative, test result or unrelated treatment history. Medical and health information is sensitive personal information, so keep source documents in a restricted clinical-evidence folder, give payroll only the approved category it needs and prevent managers from exporting the medical-period ledger into general scheduling tools.

Manage returns, recurrences and alleged resets

Record each actual return to work, even if brief, and identify whether the employee resumed full duties, worked with restrictions or remained on another leave category. When illness recurs, link the new evidence to the existing observation window before deciding whether a new period applies. A different diagnosis, hospital or physician does not automatically reset accumulated sick rest. Likewise, a payroll year-end or new calendar year is not itself a statutory reset rule.

If the employee works intermittently during a day or disputes whether attendance was substantive, preserve schedules, access records and manager communications and seek the controlling interpretation. Avoid converting unclear partial days without authority. The objective is a defensible chronology, not a number engineered to reach a preferred termination or benefit date. Keep return-to-work decisions separate from the mathematical ledger.

Reconcile pay without importing payroll counting into protection

During the prescribed medical period, the national sick-pay floor is eighty percent of the applicable local minimum wage, but the full formula comes from the city or province and any more favourable contract, collective agreement or employer rule. Payroll may use a calculation base, service rate and divisor that do not mirror calendar-day medical-period counting. Maintain a separate worksheet and reconcile only the shared source dates.

A paid sick-leave day does not automatically prove that the employer counted the medical period correctly, and inclusion in the medical-period ledger does not automatically make each calendar day a separate payroll unit. If the records diverge, ask whether the cause is employer approval, local wage method, holidays, deductions or an error. Correct the responsible ledger rather than forcing one total to match the other.

Exclude work-injury clocks and document foreign-worker evidence

A possible work injury or occupational disease should be placed outside the ordinary illness calculation while recognition is investigated. Suspension-of-work-with-pay has its own duration and wage rules, and a statutory occupational-disease diagnosis follows a qualified route. Preserve the employer's thirty-day recognition application and the worker-side one-year route where relevant. An ordinary diagnosis certificate does not automatically choose between systems.

For a foreign employee, identify the China employer, work permit, residence permit, labor or assignment document, social-insurance registration and service evidence from each employer relied on. The foreign-employment rules place rest, leave and social insurance within the national framework for persons in scope, but they do not decide how every overseas service document will be treated. Illness also does not automatically extend or renew immigration status, which must be handled separately.

Use the ledger for protection without making the end date self-executing

Article 42 restricts Article 40 and Article 41 termination while the employee remains within the prescribed medical period, and Article 45 generally extends fixed-term contract expiry until the protected circumstance ends. The ledger therefore matters, but protection is not absolute and the calculation should not be manipulated to answer every employment question. Give the employee the dates, inputs and correction route before relying on a material result.

When the period appears exhausted, assess current clinical evidence, return-to-work capacity, the original job and genuine other work arranged by the employer. Article 40 does not create automatic termination on the last counted day; thirty days' notice or one additional month's wage and economic compensation are later issues only if substantive conditions are met. Preserve the file for labor dispute review and obtain qualified legal advice on a contested expiry.