Overtime and state rules · rules read October 11, 2026
Which states pay overtime by the day
Pick a state in the calculator and enter a week: the same hours are split under that state’s daily rule or under the federal weekly one.
Written by Radif Partners · How the hours are counted · Editorial policy
Overtime pay this week
$135.00
5.00 h at 1.5x · gross $855.00
| Total hours | 45.00 h |
| Regular hours | 40.00 h × $18.00 |
| Overtime hours | 5.00 h × $27.00 |
| Gross pay before taxes | $855.00 |
Overtime after 40 hours in the workweek (FLSA). Days are in workweek order. How this is calculated.
Four states require overtime by the day: California, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado. California, Alaska and Nevada start time and a half after 8 hours in a day, and Colorado after 12 hours in a workday or 12 consecutive hours. The rules are not equal. Only California adds double time, after 12 hours and on the seventh consecutive day; Alaska limits its daily rule to employers with 4 or more employees; Nevada applies it only to workers paid under $18.00 an hour. Every other state follows the federal rule of overtime after 40 hours in the workweek, with a few variations listed by the Department of Labor, such as Kentucky’s seventh-day provision and Minnesota’s 48-hour week. Three twelve-hour shifts at $17 show the spread: $714.00 in California, $714.00 in Alaska and Nevada, $612.00 in Colorado, the same as the $612.00 owed anywhere else.
The same day in four daily overtime states
Best paid: California
$272.00
| California | $272.00 (5.00 h premium) |
| Alaska | $263.50 (5.00 h premium) |
| Nevada | $263.50 (5.00 h premium) |
| Colorado | $229.50 (1.00 h premium) |
Federal rule alone: $221.00, as one day cannot reach the weekly threshold.
The four state rules in one table
The table below is built straight from the parameters the calculator uses, read on the Department of Labor’s table of state premium-pay laws and on each state's own text: the California Labor Commissioner, the Alaska Wage and Hour Act and Colorado's COMPS Order #40. Nevada's figures come from the federal table alone.
| State | Daily overtime after | Double time | Seventh day | Weekly | Who is covered | Minimum wage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 8 h | past 12 h a day | yes, 2x past 8 h | 40 h | nonexempt employees | $16.90 |
| Alaska | 8 h (10 h on a flex plan) | no | no | 40 h | employers of 4+ employees | $14.00 |
| Nevada | 8 h | no | no | 40 h | rates under $18.00 | $12.00 |
| Colorado | 12 h, or 12 in a row | no | no | 40 h | nonexempt employees | $15.16 |
| Other states (FLSA) | none | no | no | 40 h | covered nonexempt employees | $7.25 federal floor |
The columns hide how differently the four rules behave. California's is the widest: every nonexempt worker, every day, two levels of premium, and a seventh-day rule that can create overtime in a week of thirty hours. Alaska's matches California's first level but stops there, and its flexible work hour plan lets a four-day rotation run to 10 hours before the premium. Nevada's is a wage test before it is an hours test. Colorado's starts later in the day but adds the consecutive-hours trigger, built for shifts that cross the workday boundary.
Which schedules feel the difference? Regular five-day weeks of eight hours never trigger a daily rule anywhere, so office staff rarely notice it. The rules matter for compressed schedules (four tens, three twelves), for split shifts that run long on a busy day, and for part-time workers who pick up one double shift in an otherwise light week. In those cases the state line on the map changes the paycheck more than the hourly wage does, and the payroll software has to be set to the right state for each day worked.
The same week in each state
Take three twelve-hour shifts at $17, the pattern of many hospital and plant rotations: 36 hours in all and well under the weekly line. The calculator splits them as follows.
| Rule | Straight | At 1.5x | At 2x | Gross pay | One 14-hour day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 24 | 12 | 0 | $714.00 | $306.00 |
| Alaska | 24 | 12 | 0 | $714.00 | $289.00 |
| Nevada | 24 | 12 | 0 | $714.00 | $289.00 |
| Colorado | 36 | 0 | 0 | $612.00 | $255.00 |
| FLSA only | 36 | 0 | 0 | $612.00 | $238.00 |
California comes first at $714.00, because each shift has 8 straight hours and 4 at time and a half, and none reaches double time. Alaska and Nevada land on the same figure: $17 is under the Nevada cutoff, so the daily rule is on. Colorado pays nothing extra, since no shift passes 12 hours, and matches every FLSA state. A single fourteen-hour day, in the last column, keeps the same order, with California adding double time and Colorado paying two premium hours. The full comparison by state, with your own hours, is in the overtime calculator above and on the pages for California, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado.
Seventh-day and other variations in the federal table
A handful of other jurisdictions appear in the federal table with rules that go beyond a plain 40-hour week, and they are quoted here as the table words them. Kentucky: "Weekly - 40, 7th day". Puerto Rico: "Daily - 8, Weekly - 40, statutory rest day". The U.S. Virgin Islands: "Daily 8; Weekly - 40; 6th or 7th consecutive day". Minnesota: "Weekly - 48", which is a weekly threshold above the federal one and does not lower federal rights for workers the FLSA covers. This site does not model those rules, because their full conditions sit in local statutes that were not read for this page; the calculator offers the four states whose texts were checked, plus the federal rule. For workers anywhere, the federal floor still applies, as Fact Sheet #23 sets out.