Yes, you can get overtime on a salary. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime eligibility turns on how your job is classified, not on whether you’re paid hourly or on a salary. If your position is “non-exempt,” you’re entitled to 1.5 times your regular rate for every hour worked past 40 in a workweek, salary or not.1U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay Plenty of salaried jobs are legitimately exempt. Plenty of others are wrongly labeled that way, and the label doesn’t decide the question — the law does.
Every employee starts out presumed non-exempt. The burden falls on the employer to show that a position meets specific legal criteria for an exemption.2U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act Your job title, your offer letter, and what your manager tells you about your status don’t control the outcome. Only your pay structure and your actual daily work do.
The Three-Part Test That Decides If You’re Exempt
For a salaried position to be legally exempt from overtime, it must pass all three parts of a federal test. Fail even one and you’re non-exempt, which means you’re owed overtime for hours past 40 in a week.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 207 – Maximum Hours
Salary Basis
You must receive a fixed, predetermined amount each pay period that doesn’t shrink based on how much or how little work gets done. If you performed any work during the week, you’re owed your full salary for that week.4eCFR. 29 CFR 541.602 – Salary Basis Docking exempt pay because the office closed on Tuesday or because business was slow isn’t allowed. Narrow exceptions exist for things like full-day personal absences and unpaid disciplinary suspensions, but a pattern of improper deductions can wipe out the exemption entirely and turn the employee non-exempt.
Salary Level
You must earn at least $684 per week, which works out to $35,568 a year. The Department of Labor tried to raise this threshold in 2024, but a federal court in Texas vacated the rule in November 2024 and the minimum reverted to the 2019 level.5U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption Anyone earning less than $684 per week cannot be classified as exempt, no matter what their duties look like.
Duties
Your primary duty must fall into one of the recognized exempt categories: executive, administrative, professional, computer, or outside sales.6U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17A – Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees Under the FLSA Meeting the salary requirements alone is never enough. The work you actually perform each day is what determines your classification, and this is where most misclassification disputes live.
Which Salaried Jobs Actually Qualify as Exempt
The FLSA recognizes five main categories of exempt white-collar work. A “manager” who spends most of the day stocking shelves isn’t performing exempt duties. A “coordinator” who makes real operational decisions might be. Titles are noise; duties are signal.
Executive
Covers employees whose main job is running the business or a recognized department within it. You must regularly direct the work of at least two full-time employees (or the equivalent) and have genuine authority over hiring and firing, or your recommendations on those decisions must carry real weight.7eCFR. 29 CFR 541.100 – General Rule for Executive Employees A retail store manager who schedules, supervises, and decides who gets hired fits. A “lead” doing the same tasks as the crew with a slightly fancier title doesn’t.
Administrative
Applies to employees whose primary duty is office or non-manual work directly related to management or general business operations, and who exercise independent judgment and discretion on matters that actually matter to the company.8eCFR. 29 CFR 541.200 – General Rule for Administrative Employees An HR director shaping company policy fits. An administrative assistant processing paperwork by an established procedure does not, even if the title sounds similar. Following a manual or applying clear rules doesn’t count as discretion.
Professional
Splits into two tracks. The learned professional exemption covers work requiring advanced knowledge in a field of science or learning, typically acquired through prolonged specialized education. Licensed attorneys, physicians, engineers, and CPAs are the classic examples. The creative professional exemption covers work requiring invention, imagination, or originality in a recognized artistic or creative field.9eCFR. 29 CFR 541.300 – General Rule for Professional Employees A journalist investigating stories and writing original content could qualify; a worker producing routine creative output from a template generally would not.
Computer Employee
Covers systems analysts, programmers, software engineers, and similarly skilled workers whose primary duty involves designing, developing, testing, or analyzing computer systems and programs. It does not apply to employees who simply use computers as a tool, or to those who repair hardware.10U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17E – Exemption for Employees in Computer-Related Occupations Under the FLSA Computer employees can qualify at $684 per week on a salary or at an hourly rate of at least $27.63.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 213 – Exemptions
Outside Sales
Applies to employees whose primary duty is making sales or obtaining contracts and who regularly perform that work away from the employer’s place of business. Unlike every other white-collar exemption, outside sales employees do not need to meet any minimum salary threshold.12eCFR. 29 CFR Part 541, Subpart F – Outside Sales Employees Inside sales staff who work from the office or take orders by phone do not qualify, even if they earn commissions.
One shortcut applies at the top of the pay scale. Employees earning at least $107,432 in total annual compensation, including at least $684 per week on a salary basis, only need to regularly perform one exempt-type duty rather than meeting the full duties test for a single category.6U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17A – Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees Under the FLSA A six-figure salary alone doesn’t make someone exempt, though. If none of the duties fit, the shortcut doesn’t apply.
How Overtime Is Calculated on a Salary
When a salaried employee is non-exempt, they’re owed time-and-a-half for every hour past 40 in a workweek. To calculate it, convert the salary into an hourly “regular rate of pay” by dividing total weekly earnings by hours actually worked that week.13eCFR. 29 CFR 778.109 – The Regular Rate Is an Hourly Rate
A quick example: a non-exempt employee earning $800 per week for a 40-hour schedule has a regular rate of $20 per hour. If that employee works 45 hours, the five overtime hours are paid at $30 per hour, adding $150 in overtime to the $800 base for a total of $950 that week.
Nondiscretionary bonuses — bonuses tied to production targets, sales goals, or other predetermined benchmarks — must be factored into the regular rate when calculating overtime. Adding a bonus on top of overtime and calling it done is not compliant. The bonus has to be allocated across the period in which it was earned, and the overtime rate recalculated accordingly.14eCFR. 5 CFR 551.514 – Nondiscretionary Bonuses Truly discretionary bonuses, like a surprise holiday gift, don’t need to be included.
Some employers use an alternative called the fluctuating workweek method, which treats the salary as covering all hours worked in a given week and pays only half the regular rate as the overtime premium. It’s only permitted when hours genuinely vary week to week, both sides clearly understand the salary covers all hours, and the resulting pay still clears minimum wage even in the longest weeks.15eCFR. 29 CFR 778.114 – Fluctuating Workweek Method of Computing Overtime If your hours are fairly consistent, this method shouldn’t apply.
What to Do If You Think You’ve Been Misclassified
Misclassification is expensive for employers and costly for workers who miss out on years of overtime. An employer who violates the FLSA’s overtime provisions is liable for the full amount of unpaid overtime plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, effectively doubling the back pay, and must also cover the employee’s attorney’s fees and court costs.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties An employee owed $15,000 in unpaid overtime could recover $30,000 plus legal fees.
The clock matters. You generally have two years from when the unpaid wages were due to file a claim. If the violation was willful — meaning the employer knew or showed reckless disregard for whether it was violating the law — the deadline extends to three years.17Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 255 – Statute of Limitations Waiting past those deadlines permanently forfeits the earlier wages.
You can pursue a claim two ways. File a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division at 1-866-487-9243 or online, and the agency will investigate and can recover unpaid wages on your behalf.18U.S. Department of Labor. How to File a Complaint Or file a private lawsuit, which opens the door to liquidated damages and attorney’s fees but requires hiring your own lawyer.19U.S. Department of Labor. Back Pay You cannot pursue both routes for the same wages at the same time, so choose deliberately.
State Laws Can Give You More
The FLSA sets a floor, not a ceiling. States can pass overtime laws that are more protective than the federal standard, and when the two conflict, the employer must follow whichever rule benefits the employee more.20Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 218 – Relation to Other Laws Several states have set their own minimum salary thresholds for exemption well above the federal $684 per week, with some exceeding $1,000 per week. A handful of states also require daily overtime, paying a premium for hours worked past eight in a single day rather than only counting weekly totals. If you sit near the federal salary threshold or regularly work long shifts, your state labor department’s website is worth checking for current numbers.