Moving states, keeping your job: What women working remotely need to know

So you’ve got a remote job with a company based in one state, and you’re eyeing a move to another. Maybe it’s cheaper housing, a partner’s new job, or just wanting to be closer to family. Your paycheck stays the same, your job title doesn’t change, and your laptop works the same everywhere. Easy, right?

Not quite. Where you physically sit when you work is impacted by state laws and changes more than people expect, especially around health coverage, family and sick leave, pay transparency laws, and taxes.

Why it Matters

Health and family benefits matter to working women, who, in general, take on more family care duties and responsibilities than their husbands. It’s important for women to understand how working remotely could impact benefits they might be used to having, like contraception care, paid parental and medical leave, or salary transparency.

Most employer health plans are governed by federal law (ERISA), which means the plan’s core design tends to travel with you regardless of which state you live in. That’s the good news. But two things complicate it.

First, if your employer’s plan is “fully insured” (bought from an insurance company) rather than “self-funded,” state insurance mandates in the employer’s state can still shape what’s covered — but your new state’s rules on things like emergency care or provider networks may matter too, depending on the plan type.

Second, and more practically: your provider network. A plan built around a network in California may have thin or no in-network coverage in Ohio, meaning you could face higher out-of-pocket costs for routine care, or need to switch to telehealth or an out-of-network process. Always check the plan’s network map before you move.

Background

Women are the majority of 36 million teleworkers in the United States. A quarter of women work from home at least some hours, compared to one in five working men. Half of women who telework, more than 9 million women, are fully remote, working all their hours off-site. In addition, mothers are more likely to telework than fathers.

Jobs behind those numbers cluster heavily in white-collar, credentialed fields. Telework remains concentrated in management, professional, sales, and office/administrative occupations — categories where women make up a large share of the workforce.

That said, where you live can also limit which remote jobs are open to you in the first place. Employers sometimes refuse to hire remote workers from certain states to avoid the administrative burden of complying with that state’s tax, labor, and benefits rules, including paid leave, severance and overtime.

A handful of states are especially likely to be excluded from remote job postings.

California is widely regarded as the toughest state for multi-state compliance, thanks to its daily overtime rules, costly meal- and rest-break penalties, and its paid family leave program.

New York poses similar headaches, layering a “convenience of the employer” tax rule on top of paid sick leave and pay transparency mandates. Under that tax rule, if a remote employee works from home in one state for their own personal convenience rather than the employer's necessity, their wages are sourced—and taxed—in the state where the employer's office is located.

Colorado, along with Washington, Hawaii, and Illinois, are sometimes passed over because their pay transparency laws require salary ranges to be posted for any role a resident could fill, which some employers avoid by not hiring there at all.

Know Your Health Benefits

Family and Sick Leave
This is a big benefit that is important to understand.  Paid family and medical leave programs — where they exist — are almost always tied to where the employee works, not where the company is headquartered.

As of 2026, fourteen states plus D.C. have mandatory paid leave programs, including California, New York, Washington, Colorado, and several others, while most of the South and Midwest, including Texas and Florida, have none, leaving workers there with only the unpaid protections of the federal FMLA (and only if the employer is large enough to be covered).

So if you move from a paid-leave state to a state without one, you could lose paid parental or medical leave, even though your employer, your salary, and your job haven’t changed at all. The reverse is also true: moving into a paid-leave state can unlock benefits your employer never intentionally offered you; the state, not the company, is footing that bill through payroll taxes.

Access to Healthcare Services
Doctors and therapists are licensed state by state, and most can only treat patients who are physically located in a state where they’re licensed. If you’ve built a relationship with an OB-GYN or therapist via telehealth, moving to a new state can mean starting over, unless your provider happens to hold a license there too.

This matters especially for reproductive healthcare, mental health care, and any ongoing specialist relationship you’d rather not rebuild from scratch.

Taxes: Expect Some Homework
Generally, you owe income tax to the state where you physically perform your work, not where your employer is based. But a handful of states, including New York, apply the “convenience of the employer” rule.  

This can create the unpleasant possibility of owing tax in two states unless a reciprocity agreement or credit applies. It’s worth a conversation with a tax professional before, not after, a move.

Here's an Example

Say you work remotely for a California-based employer, and you’re weighing a move. Here is a look at the different impacts for workers who live in New York, Texas, and Florida.

Contraceptive Care
California requires plans to cover the full range of FDA-approved contraceptives, including over-the-counter options like the daily pill Opill, without cost-sharing, and even lets pharmacists furnish birth control directly.

New York is among the 31 states plus D.C. that require state-regulated plans to cover FDA-approved contraceptives.

Texas and Florida have no comparable state mandate beyond baseline federal ACA requirements, meaning your coverage would lean entirely on federal rules and whatever your specific plan chooses to offer, with none of the state-level backstops around OTC coverage or supply limits that California provides.

Abortion Access
This is where the four states diverge most sharply. California and New York both protect abortion up to fetal viability (roughly 22–24 weeks), with New York’s Reproductive Health Act removing most restrictions before that point.

Texas bans abortion at fertilization, with narrow exceptions only to save the pregnant woman’s life, and effectively has no in-state providers.

Florida bans abortion at six weeks of pregnancy under a law that took effect in 2024. Practically, this means a serious pregnancy complication, a wanted pregnancy that turns nonviable, or simply an unplanned pregnancy would be handled very differently depending on what state you live in.

Some employers offer travel benefits to cover care in another state, so it’s worth asking HR directly whether that applies to you.

Parental Leave
California and New York both have mandatory paid family leave programs funded through payroll taxes, giving eligible workers paid time to bond with a new child.

Texas and Florida have no mandatory paid leave program at all — both only permit a voluntary private-insurance option employers can choose to purchase, and most don’t, so unpaid federal FMLA leave (if you even qualify) is often the only protection on the table.

Pay Transparency
California and New York both require salary ranges in job postings for remote roles that could be filled by state residents.

Neither Texas nor Florida has such a law. If you’re job-hunting after your move, you may simply see less upfront salary information for openings based in those states, even from your current employer’s other job listings.

The Bottom Line

None of this means don’t move. It just means treat the move like a real transition, not a change of scenery: check your plan’s network, ask HR how leave eligibility and any travel benefits work based on your new location, confirm your telehealth and reproductive health providers are licensed there, and loop in a tax preparer who handles multi-state situations. A little homework up front saves a lot of surprise later.

Resources

Bipartisan Policy Center — State Paid Family Leave Laws Across the U.S.
RemoteLaws.com — Florida Paid Leave Laws (2026)
New America — Explainer: Paid and Unpaid Leave Policies in the United States
Guttmacher Institute — Insurance Coverage of Contraceptives (State Laws and Policies)
Essential Access Health — Robust Contraceptive Equity Law Goes Into Effect (California)
Essential Access Health — California Expands OTC Birth Control Access for Medi-Cal Enrollees
USA Symbol — Abortion Laws by State 2026 (Gestational Limit Map)
KFF — Policy Tracker: Exceptions to State Abortion Bans and Early Gestational Limits
Center for Reproductive Rights — After Roe Fell: U.S. Abortion Laws by State
Rippling — Pay Transparency Laws by State: A Guide for Employers
Jackson Lewis — Navigating 2026: Pay Transparency Laws and Employer Obligations
Wipfli — Understanding the Convenience of the Employer Rule
Capital Payroll Partners — Can Employers Limit Which States Their Remote Employees Work In?
FoxHire — Multi-State Hiring Compliance Burden Index
WorkLife — Why Some Companies Exclude Certain States From Remote Job Postings
Whirks — The 5 Worst States for Remote Hiring
Purdue Global - Navigating Five Key Legal Challenges of Remote Work and Return to Office