Should I sign my severance agreement?
Nobody can answer that for you without reading your agreement. What follows is what signing does, and what is worth checking before you decide.
Last checked against primary sources: 2026-08-09
This page does not tell you whether to sign. That depends on terms only your agreement contains, and anyone answering it confidently without reading your paperwork is guessing.
What this page does give you is what signing generally does, what is worth checking first, and how to tell whether your situation is one of the ones where an hour of professional time pays for itself.
What you are usually signing
Almost every severance agreement asks you to release legal claims against the employer. That is the trade: money for finality. It is a normal and often reasonable trade, and most layoffs end this way without incident.
What makes it worth slowing down is that the release is the part that cannot be undone. The money can be recalculated. A released claim generally cannot be un-released.
Five things worth checking before you decide
1. Whether a clock is already running in your favour
If you are 40 or over and the agreement asks you to waive age discrimination claims, federal law requires minimum periods to consider it and to revoke after signing. The statute sets at least 21 days for an individual agreement and at least 45 days where the waiver is requested in connection with a group termination programme, plus at least 7 days to revoke afterwards.
If you are under 40, there is no federal statutory review period at all, because the protections attach to the age claim. This is the most commonly misunderstood point about severance and it runs against younger workers. Detail and statutory text: how long do you have to sign.
2. Whether the deadline in your agreement matches the statutory minimum
Where the review periods above apply, an agreement offering a shorter window is a factual mismatch between two dates. That is objective, quick to check, and quick to explain to someone qualified.
3. Whether a group layoff owed you a disclosure you did not receive
Where a waiver is requested as part of a group termination programme, the employer must inform the individual in writing of:
"(i) any class, unit, or group of individuals covered by such program, any eligibility factors for such program, and any time limits applicable to such program; and (ii) the job titles and ages of all individuals eligible or selected for the program, and the ages of all individuals in the same job classification or organizational unit who are not eligible or selected for the program." 29 U.S.C. section 626(f)(1)(H)
In plain terms: the ages and job titles of everyone selected, and the ages of everyone in your unit who was not. Most people never learn this exists.
4. What the payment is called, and when it arrives
The wording and timing of the payment can change whether you can collect unemployment while you receive it. In California, severance and "wages in lieu of notice" are treated differently. In New York, eligibility can turn on whether the first payment lands more than 30 days after your last day worked. See does severance affect unemployment.
5. What else is in there besides the number
Non-compete and non-solicit scope, equity treatment and post-termination exercise windows, continued health coverage, references, and the characterisation of your departure are all terms that commonly move. The headline dollar figure is often the least flexible item in the document.
These materials are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. This is published general information about what the law generally provides. It is not legal advice, it has not been written with your facts in mind, and reading it creates no attorney client relationship.
Situations where an hour of an employment attorney tends to pay for itself: a group layoff where you did not receive the disclosure above, a deadline shorter than the statutory minimum, a non-compete, equity with a vesting cliff nearby, a large severance in a state that disqualifies you from unemployment, or any sense that the selection was related to a complaint you made or leave you took. Many employment attorneys assess that last category at no cost.
All four clocks, in one place
These pages each answer one question. The runbook puts all of them in the order the decisions actually arrive, with the state comparison table, worksheets for counting your own dates, and a section on which situations are worth an hour of an employment attorney.
32 pages. Five states covered in detail. Every legal and numeric claim cited to the statute, regulation or agency it came from, with the date it was retrieved.
Get the runbook, $49Instant PDF download. The gaps we could not verify before publication are listed inside the product rather than papered over.