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Federal Overtime Basics (FLSA)

Last updated June 10, 2026

Under federal law — the Fair Labor Standards Act — non-exempt employees must be paid overtime at one and a half times their regular rate for every hour worked beyond 40 in a single workweek. The trigger is hours over 40 in one fixed week, not weekends, holidays, or long individual days.

The rule itself: time and a half over 40

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets one federal overtime trigger, and only one: when a covered, non-exempt employee works more than 40 hours in a workweek, every hour past 40 must be paid at no less than 1.5 times the employee's regular rate of pay. The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division administers the rule and keeps the authoritative reference at dol.gov/agencies/whd/overtime.

Two details in that sentence do most of the work. First, the threshold is weekly: federal law says nothing about long days. An employee who works four 10-hour days has worked 40 hours and is owed no federal overtime, while one who works six 7-hour days has worked 42 and is owed two hours at time and a half. (Some states add their own daily triggers on top — this guide covers only the federal floor.) Second, the multiplier applies to the regular rate, which is not always the bare hourly wage: it is total pay for the week divided by hours worked, and it has to fold in most non-discretionary extras such as shift differentials, commissions, and production bonuses. For a straight hourly employee with no extras, the regular rate and the hourly wage are the same number, and the math is simply hours over 40 times wage times 1.5.

What a workweek actually is

The FLSA workweek is a fixed, regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods. It does not have to be a calendar week, does not have to start on Monday, and does not have to start at midnight. An employer may run its workweek from Wednesday 6:00 AM to the following Wednesday 6:00 AM if that suits its schedule, and may use different workweeks for different groups of employees.

What the workweek may not be is flexible after the fact. Once established, it stays fixed; an employer cannot slide the boundary around from week to week to keep hours under 40. Changes are allowed only when they are intended to be permanent and are not designed to dodge overtime that has already been earned. Each workweek also stands alone: hours cannot be averaged across two or more weeks, even on a bi-weekly payroll. A 48-hour week followed by a 32-hour week is 8 overtime hours, not an 80-hour wash — more on that in the myths below.

What counts as hours worked

Overtime only makes sense once you know which minutes count, and the federal concept is broader than "time on the clock." In general, hours worked include all time an employee is required to be on duty, on the employer's premises, or at a prescribed workplace, plus any time the employee is "suffered or permitted" to work — meaning work the employer knows about and accepts the benefit of, even if it never asked for it. A few conceptual buckets cover most situations:

One consequence surprises people: unauthorized overtime still counts. If an employee keeps working through lunch or answers email at night and the employer knows about it, those hours go into the weekly total. The employer may discipline the employee for breaking the rules, but it must still pay for the time.

Exempt vs. non-exempt, at the concept level

The overtime requirement applies to non-exempt employees. An exempt employee — most commonly under the executive, administrative, or professional ("white collar") exemptions — is outside the rule entirely and has no federal right to overtime pay, no matter how many hours they work.

Exemption is not a label the employer picks; it is a set of tests. The white-collar exemptions generally require all three of: payment on a salary basis (a fixed amount that doesn't shrink with the quantity or quality of work), a salary at or above a minimum level the Department of Labor sets and updates from time to time, and — the part most often overlooked — job duties that actually match the exemption, such as managing other employees or exercising independent judgment on significant matters. Job titles prove nothing: a "manager" who mostly runs a register is likely non-exempt, and being paid a salary, by itself, does not make anyone exempt. Because the salary threshold is a dollar figure that changes, check the current numbers directly at the DOL's overtime page rather than relying on any article with a date on it.

Worked example

Maya is non-exempt and earns $20 per hour with no bonuses, so her regular rate is $20. Her employer's workweek runs Sunday through Saturday. This week she works five 8-hour weekday shifts plus a 6-hour Saturday shift: 46 hours total.

Note what did not matter: the Saturday shift is overtime only because it pushed the weekly total past 40, not because it fell on a weekend. If Maya had taken Wednesday off and worked the same Saturday, the week would total 38 hours and pay $760 with no overtime at all. You can run any combination of hours and rates through our overtime pay calculator, or build the whole week from punch times in the time card calculator.

Overtime at a glance

Hours in the workweek Regular hours Overtime hours Pay at $20/hr regular rate
38380$760.00
40400$800.00
43403$890.00
46406$980.00
504010$1,100.00
604020$1,400.00

Common overtime myths

Myth: weekend and night work automatically pays overtime

Federal law attaches no premium to weekends, nights, or any particular day. Saturday hours pay time and a half only if they take the workweek past 40 hours. Many employers do offer weekend or night differentials voluntarily or by contract — but that is policy, not federal law (and any such differential does get folded into the regular rate when overtime is computed).

Myth: working on a holiday means time and a half

The FLSA does not require premium pay for holidays, nor does it require paid holidays at all. Holiday premiums are a matter of employer policy or a union contract. The flip side also holds: a paid holiday on which no work is performed does not count as hours worked, so it does not help push the week past 40.

Myth: hours can be averaged across two weeks on a bi-weekly payroll

No. Each workweek stands alone. An employee who works 48 hours one week and 32 the next is owed 8 hours of overtime for the first week, even though the two-week total is exactly 80. Pay frequency (bi-weekly, semi-monthly) never changes how overtime is measured.

Myth: a private employer can give comp time instead of overtime pay

Private-sector employers cannot substitute compensatory time off in a later week for overtime pay owed; the premium must be paid in money for the week it was earned. Paid comp-time arrangements exist for state and local government employees under specific statutory conditions, which is where the confusion usually comes from. Rearranging hours within the same workweek so the total never exceeds 40 is fine — that's just scheduling.

Myth: salaried employees never get overtime

Being paid a salary is only one part of the exemption tests. A salaried employee whose pay is below the current threshold, or whose actual duties don't meet an exemption's duties test, is non-exempt and earns overtime like any hourly worker — the regular rate is just derived from the salary instead of an hourly wage.

Myth: unapproved overtime doesn't have to be paid

If the employer knew or should have known the work was being performed, the hours count and must be paid. An employer's remedy for an employee who works overtime without approval is discipline, not withholding pay.

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