Dismissal During Non-Work-Related Illness Leave (Arts. 208 to 213 LCT)

Firing you while you are on paid leave for a non-work-related illness or accident is unlawful under Art. 208 LCT: your employer has to keep paying your salary, not cut it off. If they fire you anyway, they owe more than ordinary severance — they also owe wages for the entire time left on your leave or until your medical discharge, whichever comes first (Art. 213 LCT).

1. The protection period: how long it lasts and what you're paid

The law does not ask you to prove anything extraordinary to trigger this protection: a medical certificate confirming an illness or accident unrelated to your job is enough. From that moment, Art. 208 LCT guarantees your salary even though you are not working, for a period that depends on your seniority and whether you have dependents.

Each new illness resets the clock. The one exception is a relapse of a chronic condition: if it recurs within two years of the earlier episode, the law treats it as the same illness and does not open a new period. Throughout your paid leave you are owed the salary you were earning when you fell ill, plus any raises applied to your category while you were out.

If that paid period expires and you still cannot return to work, you do not lose your job: Art. 211 LCT requires your employer to hold your position for one more year, counted from the end of the paid period. You are not paid during that extra year, but your seniority keeps accruing and your job is still waiting for you. We cover this protection in depth in Job Preservation After Illness (Art. 211 LCT).

What you have to do to keep the protection

The protection is not automatic — it depends on you meeting two obligations. Since the reform enacted by Law 27,802 (in force since March 2026), the requirements are stricter than before:

• Report it the same day: you have to notify your employer of the illness or accident, and where you are, during the first working day you miss. If you do not, you lose pay for those days, unless you later prove beyond doubt that you were ill and unable to give notice (Art. 209 LCT).
• File a complete medical certificate: since 2026 it must state the diagnosis, treatment, and days of rest ordered, and be digitally signed by a licensed physician through the platforms authorized under Law 27,553 (Art. 210 LCT).
• Submit to a medical exam: your employer can send a doctor to examine you. If that diagnosis conflicts with yours, either side can request an official medical board or a ruling from a reputable public or private institute — and if a private institution is used, your employer pays the cost.

2. If you're fired during paid leave

While you are within the Art. 208 paid period, your employment contract stays fully in force, just as if you were working. A dismissal at that point does not take away any right — it adds one.

Art. 213 LCT states that if your employer fires you during that paid period, they have to pay you, on top of ordinary unlawful-dismissal severance (seniority indemnity, notice pay, and pay through month-end — we calculate that in Severance Pay & Dismissal), wages for the entire time remaining on the paid period or until your medical discharge date, whichever comes first.

A simple example: if your seniority entitled you to 6 months of paid leave and you are fired in month 2, on top of full severance you are owed 4 months of back pay, unless you were medically discharged before those 4 months were up.

3. Job preservation and dismissal after the one-year period

Once the paid period ends, you enter the one-year job-preservation period under Art. 211. You are no longer paid, but your employer still has to hold your position while you remain unable to return because of the same illness. Firing you during that stretch breaches that duty early: the law does not add the aggravated back pay of Art. 213 there —that is exclusive to the paid period— but a dismissal while you are still unable to return is treated as an ordinary unlawful dismissal, with seniority indemnity and notice pay.

Only once the full year of job preservation has run, and only if you still cannot return to work, does the picture change: the employment relationship survives only until you or your employer decide to end it and formally notify the other side. Once both periods have fully run, the law releases both sides from paying severance for that particular termination. It is not an ordinary dismissal: it is a mechanism specific to Art. 211, designed for a disability that has already gone unresolved for well over a year.

Watch out for the most common trick here: an employer claiming the preservation period "expired" without having honored the full Art. 208 paid period first, or counting the Art. 211 year from the wrong date. Always count the deadlines from your first medical certificate, not from whatever date your employer states.

4. If the illness leaves you with a permanent disability

Sometimes the illness does not stop you from working altogether, but it does permanently limit you from doing the tasks you did before. Art. 212 LCT governs that scenario, as long as you are still within the Art. 211 job-preservation year:

• If you can do other work: your employer has to reassign you to a position compatible with your capacity, without cutting your pay.
• If they cannot reassign you for a reason beyond their control: they owe you a reduced indemnity, equal to half of the amount under Art. 245.
• If they could reassign you and did not: they owe you the full Art. 245 indemnity.
• If the disability is total: they always owe you the full Art. 245 indemnity, and that amount is added to — not replaced by — anything owed under your collective bargaining agreement or special statute.

5. Step by step: how to file a claim

1. Gather proof of your illness: medical certificates, proof you notified your employer (email, WhatsApp, telegram), appointments, and test results. Without a firm start date, you cannot calculate the deadlines.
2. Calculate your two deadlines: count from your first day of rest how many months of paid leave you were entitled to (Art. 208), and, if that period already expired, how far you are into the one-year preservation period (Art. 211).
3. Reject the dismissal by telegram: use a free labor telegram to demand payment of the aggravated Art. 213 back pay and put the discharge date or the deadline on the record.
4. Add up the back pay day by day: if you were discharged before the paid period expired, the calculation runs to that date; if you were never discharged, it runs through the end of the Art. 208 period.
5. File for mandatory SECLO conciliation: it is the mandatory step before filing suit in the City of Buenos Aires. We cover it in Mandatory SECLO Conciliation.
6. Sue if there is no settlement: once the conciliation file is closed, your attorney can file a lawsuit for the full amount owed.

Frequently Asked Questions