New In 2019: Illinois Employers Must Reimburse Business Expenses

Illinois amended the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act, effective Jan. 1, 2019. The new amendment requires employers to reimburse employees for certain expenses and losses.

The law states that employers are required to reimburse employees for “all necessary expenditures or losses incurred within the employee’s scope of employment and directly related to the services performed for the employer.” This includes, but is not limited to, business travel, customer entertainment, home office supplies, cell phone expenses and more.

Employees must submit reimbursement requests, along with supporting documentation, to employers within 30 days of incurring the expense unless a different time period is specified by the employer.

Lastly, the amendment excludes certain types of losses from those an employer is required to reimburse, including losses due to an employee’s own negligence and losses due to regular wear.

Illinois now joins several other states such as CA, IA AND NH with this requirement. IL law is different in that the law permits employers to maintain written expense reimbursement policies that reimburse employees for less than the full cost of the expense.

The act provides that an employer will not be liable for the portion of the expenditure that exceeds the specifications or guidelines of the employers policy, so long as the policy does not provide for no reimbursement or a de minimis reimbursement. Employers may reimburse at less than 100% of the expenditure amount as long as the employer provides some real reimbursement based on a written policy that provides some real reimbursement.