California Overtime Rules Explained (2026)

California overtime has three layers that federal law does not: daily overtime at 1.5 times your regular rate after 8 hours in a workday, double time after 12 hours in a workday, and a seventh-consecutive-day rule. The federal rule, 1.5x after 40 hours in a workweek, still applies on top. The layers never pay twice for the same hour, and working out which hours fall where is the whole job. This guide walks through the rules in Labor Code section 510, shows two worked weeks, and flags the related break premiums that often appear on the same stub.

The four rules

A workday is a fixed 24-hour period and a workweek is a fixed 168-hour period, both set by the employer. They do not have to start at midnight or on Monday, but once set they cannot move around to avoid overtime. Most disputes about the seventh-day rule and about overnight shifts come down to where the employer's day and week boundaries sit, so find out what they are.

Nonexempt employees get these protections whether they are paid hourly, by salary, by piece rate or by commission. A salary does not make you exempt; your duties and pay level do.

Daily and weekly rules do not stack

The rule people get wrong most often is the interaction between daily and weekly overtime. Only hours paid at straight time count toward the 40-hour weekly threshold. Daily overtime hours are already premium hours and are set aside.

Take a worker on $20 an hour who works five 10-hour days, Monday through Friday:

• Each day: 8 regular hours and 2 hours of daily overtime.
• Week: 40 regular hours and 10 overtime hours.
• Weekly rule: 40 regular hours do not exceed 40, so it adds nothing.
• Pay: 40 × $20 = $800, plus 10 × $30 = $300. Gross $1,100.

A payroll system that applies the weekly rule to all 50 hours would pay 40 regular and 10 overtime, the same answer. But a system that applies daily overtime and then also counts those same hours toward the weekly 40 would pay overtime on 20 hours, which is wrong in the other direction. Either kind of error is worth catching.

Now change the schedule to four 9-hour days and a 6-hour Friday, 42 hours in total. Daily overtime is 1 hour on each of the four long days, 4 hours. Regular hours are 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 6 = 38, which is under 40, so the weekly rule still adds nothing. Overtime is 4 hours, not 2. The daily rule produced more overtime than a weekly-only calculation would.

The seventh-day rule

If you work all seven days of the employer's workweek, the seventh day is paid at 1.5x for the first 8 hours and 2x for every hour after that, regardless of how many hours you worked that day. This only applies when the seven days fall inside one workweek. Six days at the end of one week and the first day of the next do not trigger it.

Worked example at $20 an hour: Monday through Saturday at 6 hours each, then Sunday at 10 hours, in a Monday-start workweek.

• Monday through Saturday: 36 regular hours, no daily overtime.
• Sunday is the seventh consecutive day: 8 hours at 1.5x and 2 hours at 2x.
• Weekly check: regular hours are 36, under 40, so nothing more.
• Pay: 36 × $20 = $720, plus 8 × $30 = $240, plus 2 × $40 = $80. Gross $1,040.

Without the seventh-day rule, the same week would have paid 40 regular and 6 overtime hours for $980. The rule is worth $60 here, and it is one of the lines most often missing on a stub.

The regular rate includes more than your hourly wage

Both California and federal law calculate overtime on the regular rate of pay, not the base hourly rate. Nondiscretionary bonuses, shift differentials, piece rates and commissions for the workweek are included. A worker on $20 an hour with a $2 night differential earns overtime at 1.5 × $22 = $33 for overtime hours worked at night, and a flat production bonus for the week raises the rate on every hour.

If you work at two rates in one week, your regular rate is the weighted average. Divide total straight-time earnings by total hours before applying the multipliers. The shift differential calculator linked below does this for you.

Alternative workweek schedules

Some California workplaces have adopted an alternative workweek schedule, for example four 10-hour days, through a formal election of the affected employees. Under a properly adopted schedule, hours up to 10 in a day do not earn daily overtime. If your employer says you are on one, ask to see when it was adopted and what schedule it covers. Without a valid election, the standard 8-hour daily rule applies.

Meal and rest break premiums

California requires a 30-minute unpaid meal period for shifts longer than 5 hours and a second one for shifts longer than 10, plus a paid 10-minute rest period for every 4 hours worked or major fraction of it. When a required break is not provided, you are owed one extra hour of pay at your regular rate for that day. This is a premium, not overtime, and it is capped at one hour for meal violations and one for rest violations per workday. If your lunch is routinely cut short or skipped, these premiums can add up faster than the overtime itself.

Checking your stub

1. List each workday's hours from your own record. Split each day into regular, over 8, and over 12.
2. Mark any seventh consecutive day in the workweek and split it at 8 hours.
3. Add the regular hours across the week. Only if they exceed 40 does the weekly rule move the excess to 1.5x.
4. Work out the regular rate, including differentials and bonuses, and apply 1.5x and 2x.
5. Compare with the gross on your stub, and look for separate meal and rest premium lines.

If the numbers do not match, ask payroll to show the calculation. If that goes nowhere, the Labor Commissioner's wage claim process is the state route. A dated record of your own punches is what makes either conversation short. PunchStamp keeps that record on your iPhone with one tap per punch and exports it as a PDF when you need it.