Overtime Laws by State in 2026: Daily Rules vs. FLSA

Every overtime answer in the United States starts in the same place: the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires covered, nonexempt employees to be paid one and a half times their regular rate for every hour worked over 40 in a workweek. There is no federal daily limit, so an employee who works a single 12 hour shift and stays under 40 hours for the week is owed nothing extra under federal law alone.

That is only the federal floor. 10 states in the table below add something on top of it, either a daily trigger that pays overtime on a long shift regardless of the weekly total, or a different rule entirely, a lower weekly threshold, a seventh consecutive day premium, or a carve out for one industry or one class of worker. 40 states add nothing, so the FLSA is the complete answer there. The distinction only matters for a payroll system that is trying to get every state right at once, which is exactly where a flat, federal-only default fails.

Overtime rules by state in 2026

Ordered alphabetically. The rule column is read directly from the wage data behind the 50 state payroll pages on this site. Where the column reads federal FLSA applies, that state has no overtime statute beyond the 40 hour weekly rule.

Overtime rule text is the same data set behind each state's payroll page on this site, so the two can never disagree. The federal baseline is the U.S. Department of Labor overtime pay page. Wage and hour information here is general, not legal advice.

5 states with a daily overtime trigger

A daily trigger pays overtime on hours worked past a single-day threshold, independent of the weekly total. These are the only states in the table where that mechanism exists:

• Alaska. Daily over 8 and weekly over 40.
• California. Daily over 8 (1.5x), over 12 (2x), weekly over 40, plus 7th-day rules.
• Colorado. Daily over 12 and weekly over 40.
• Nevada. Daily over 8 for employees earning under 1.5x minimum wage; weekly over 40 otherwise.
• Oregon. Weekly over 40, plus daily rules in some mills and factories.

California carries the widest daily structure of the group, with both a time and a half and a double time threshold in the same day, plus a seventh consecutive day rule. Nevada is the only state where the daily trigger is conditional, it applies only to employees earning under one and a half times the state minimum wage, so the same job can be in or out of daily overtime depending on pay rate alone.

5 states with a different rule, no daily trigger

These states depart from the plain federal standard without adding a daily hour count. The mechanism differs state to state:

• Kentucky. Weekly over 40, plus a 7th-day overtime rule.
• Minnesota. Weekly over 48 under state law.
• New York. Weekly over 40 (44 for residential workers).
• North Carolina. Weekly over 40 (45 in seasonal amusement).
• Rhode Island. Weekly over 40, plus Sunday and holiday premium rules in retail.

Minnesota is the one state in this table that raises the weekly threshold itself, to 48 hours under state law, rather than adding a new trigger. Kentucky and Rhode Island both add a premium tied to a specific day or day count, a seventh consecutive workday in Kentucky and Sunday or holiday work in Rhode Island retail. New York and North Carolina each carve out one class of worker or one industry, residential employees in New York and seasonal amusement work in North Carolina, rather than changing the rule for every employee in the state.

Who is exempt from overtime under federal law

The FLSA exempts bona fide executive, administrative, professional, computer and outside sales employees under Section 13(a)(1), and separately exempts highly compensated employees who regularly perform at least one exempt duty. Every category requires two things at once, a duties test and a salary test, and job titles carry no weight in the determination. That is the rule cited on the U.S. Department of Labor Fact Sheet #17A.

Two groups are carved out of the exemptions entirely, no matter how much they are paid. Blue collar and manual workers, tradespeople, mechanics, construction workers and similar occupations, are never exempt under the Section 13(a)(1) white collar test. Police, firefighters, paramedics and other first responders are exempt from neither the white collar test nor the highly compensated employee test, regardless of rank or pay.

How the workweek rule actually works

Overtime is calculated against a workweek, not a pay period and not a calendar week. A workweek is a fixed, regularly recurring period of 168 hours, seven consecutive 24 hour periods, that can start on any day and at any hour an employer chooses, and different groups of employees can run on different workweeks. Averaging hours across two or more workweeks to avoid overtime is not permitted under federal law, and overtime pay is normally due on the regular payday for the period in which it was earned.

That single definition is why a daily-trigger state and a federal-only state can produce two different paychecks for an employee who works the exact same 45 hour week: one state pays extra on the day the shift ran long, the other pays extra only once the weekly total crosses 40.

What this means for payroll operations

• Store the overtime rule against the work location. With 10 states running something other than the plain federal rule, an employer-level default is not granular enough for a multi-state workforce.
• Check pay rate, not just job title, in Nevada. Its daily trigger applies only under a wage threshold, so the same title can be treated two different ways.
• Re-test exempt classifications on duties, not salary. A high salary alone never satisfies the FLSA exemption tests; the actual work has to qualify.
• Watch industry carve outs separately. Oregon mills and factories, Rhode Island retail, and seasonal amusement work in North Carolina each run their own rule inside an otherwise standard state.
• Default to the more generous rule when in doubt. Federal law is a floor. A state or local rule can require more, never less, for a covered employer.

Getting this right across every state where a client has employees is exactly what BEG managed payroll handles as part of the standard service, not as a separate compliance product.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, overtime pay; U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #17A, white collar exemptions. Per-state overtime figures are the same data set behind each state's payroll page on this site. This is general wage and hour information, not legal advice.