Overtime Calculator — Time and a Half, Double Time

The FLSA divides employees into non-exempt, who must receive overtime, and exempt, who need not. Being paid a salary does not by itself make you exempt — this is the most widespread misunderstanding in the whole area.

To be exempt under the common white-collar exemptions, an employee must generally be paid on a salary basis, be paid above a threshold amount, and perform duties that fit the executive, administrative or professional definitions. All three tests must be met.

The duties test is where most misclassification happens. A job title of "manager" means nothing on its own; the exemption requires genuinely managing a recognised unit, directing at least two other employees, and having real authority over hiring and firing. Someone who spends most of their time doing the same work as the people they nominally supervise is often not exempt.

The salary threshold has been the subject of repeated rulemaking and litigation, and the applicable figure has changed more than once in recent years. Check the current Department of Labor position rather than relying on a number you remember.

Some occupations are exempt regardless of salary — outside sales, and certain computer employees paid hourly above a set rate. Others, notably blue-collar workers and most first responders, cannot be made exempt at all.

An employer must establish a fixed, recurring seven-day period. It can start on any day, but once set it should not be changed to avoid paying overtime.

Overtime is calculated within that week and only within it. This is what makes averaging unlawful: 50 hours followed by 30 hours is 10 hours of overtime, even though the two-week total is 80.

Comp time — time off instead of overtime pay — is generally not permitted in the private sector. Public agencies may offer it under specific rules, at one and a half hours off per overtime hour. A private employer offering "a day off next week instead" is usually not complying.

Paid time off does not count toward the 40. Someone who takes a holiday on Monday and works 40 hours over the remaining four days has worked 40 hours, not 48, for overtime purposes — the FLSA counts hours actually worked.

Conversely, some time you might not think of as work does count: required training, mandatory meetings, short breaks under 20 minutes, and time spent on tasks before or after a shift that are integral to the job.

Included: non-discretionary bonuses —

production, attendance, quality and safety bonuses — anything announced in advance or expected. These must be spread across the hours worked and raise the overtime rate.

Included: shift differentials —

extra pay for nights or weekends is part of the regular rate.

Included: commissions —

must be allocated back across the period they were earned in, which is why commission-based overtime calculations are genuinely complicated.

Excluded: discretionary bonuses —

genuine gifts, not announced in advance and not tied to performance. The bar is higher than most employers assume.

Excluded: expense reimbursements —

travel, tools and similar are not earnings.

Excluded: paid leave —

holiday, vacation and sick pay are not part of the regular rate and do not count toward the 40.

Excluded: premium pay already at 1.5x —

contractual premiums for weekend or holiday work at time and a half or more can be credited against overtime owed rather than added into the rate.

Federal law is a floor. Where a state rule is more generous to the employee, the state rule applies.

California is the significant outlier: overtime after 8 hours in a day as well as after 40 in a week, double time after 12 hours in a day, and time and a half for the first 8 hours of a seventh consecutive workday with double time beyond that. A California employee working four 10-hour days is owed 8 hours of daily overtime despite working only 40 in the week.

Alaska, Nevada and Colorado also have daily overtime rules, with their own thresholds and conditions. Several states have adopted salary thresholds for exemption that are higher than the federal one.

Double time is not a federal concept at all. Where it appears outside California, it is usually a contractual or collective bargaining term rather than a statutory one.

Because the interaction between federal and state rules can be intricate, an employee who believes they are owed overtime is generally better served by contacting their state labour department or the federal Wage and Hour Division than by working it out alone.