Short answer: An EAP is an employer-sponsored benefit that gives employees and their household free, confidential access to short-term help: counseling for mental health, stress, relationships, grief, and substance use, plus referrals for legal, financial, and work-life issues. It’s typically offered at no cost to the employee.
An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a confidential support benefit that employers provide to help employees (and usually their household members) deal with personal or work-related challenges before those issues affect health, wellbeing, or job performance.
A typical EAP offers a set number of free, short-term counseling sessions per issue per year, available by phone, video, or in person, covering things like stress, anxiety and depression, relationship and family concerns, grief, and substance use. Many EAPs also include work-life resources: legal consultations, financial coaching, child- and elder-care referrals, and help locating community services. Access is generally available 24/7.
EAP services are usually offered at no cost to the employee, funded entirely by the employer, and are confidential: the employer receives only aggregate, de-identified usage data, not individual details.
One compliance note for benefits professionals: an EAP that provides “medical care” (for example, more than a few counseling sessions) can be treated as an ERISA group health plan and even an ACA group health plan unless it qualifies as an excepted benefit, which generally requires that it not provide significant medical care, not be coordinated with the major-medical plan, charge no employee premium, and require no cost-sharing. Most well-designed EAPs are structured to meet the excepted-benefit test.
Sources
- DOL excepted-benefit EAP criteria (29 CFR §2590.732(c)(3)); general industry reference. Flagged research gap in the Employee Benefits KB. Verify specifics before CE use.
Content history
Originally published: June 16, 2026
Last reviewed: June 16, 2026