There is no single answer to how many hours between shifts you’re legally entitled to. Federal law does not set a general minimum rest period for adult workers, so the real answer depends on where you live, what industry you work in, how old you are, and whether a union contract covers your job. In some states and cities, the required gap is 10 or 11 hours. In safety-sensitive industries like trucking and aviation, federal regulations impose their own hard floors. Everywhere else, the practical minimum is whatever your employer chooses to schedule.
Why Federal Law Sets No General Minimum
The Fair Labor Standards Act is the main federal wage-and-hour law, and it says nothing about how much time must pass between shifts. It also does not cap the number of hours an adult can work in a single day. The FLSA’s focus is pay: at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked, and time-and-a-half beyond 40 hours in a workweek.1U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act The Department of Labor has separately confirmed that federal law does not require meal or coffee breaks either.2U.S. Department of Labor. Breaks and Meal Periods
So under federal law alone, an employer can legally schedule you to close at midnight and open again at 6 a.m. Overtime pay may kick in if your weekly total exceeds 40 hours, but the schedule itself is not blocked. For most workers, the rest-between-shifts question is answered at the state or local level, or not at all.
State and Local Scheduling Laws
A growing number of states and cities have passed predictive scheduling or fair workweek laws that directly address the gap between shifts. These laws typically guarantee a right to rest of 10 or 11 hours between the end of one shift and the start of the next, and they most often apply to retail, food service, and hospitality workers. Roughly a dozen jurisdictions now have some version of the rule, with required rest periods ranging from 9 to 11 hours.
The framework is consistent across jurisdictions. Your employer cannot schedule you for a shift that begins less than the required number of hours after your previous shift ended, unless you agree to it in writing. If you do agree, the employer owes you premium pay for working during what should have been your rest window. That premium is usually time-and-a-half, though at least one city uses a flat-dollar penalty instead.
These rules exist because of “clopening” — closing a store or restaurant late at night and opening it early the next morning with only a handful of hours between. The scheduling laws don’t ban the practice outright in most places, but they make it costly enough that employers have an incentive to leave a real gap.
If you are not in a jurisdiction with a scheduling law and not in a covered industry, no state minimum applies. Checking with your state’s department of labor is the fastest way to confirm whether local protections cover your job.
Industries With Federal Rest Requirements
Where public safety is at stake, federal agencies impose strict off-duty minimums that apply regardless of state law. These rules set hard floors that are far more protective than anything in general labor law.
Commercial Truck Drivers
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration requires commercial truck drivers hauling property to take at least 10 consecutive hours off duty before starting a new driving window.3eCFR. 49 CFR 395.3 – Maximum Driving Time for Property-Carrying Vehicles Once back on duty, the driver can operate the vehicle for a maximum of 11 hours and must stop driving after the 14th consecutive hour on duty.4Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Summary of Hours of Service Regulations Electronic logging devices track compliance automatically.
Flight Attendants and Pilots
The FAA requires flight attendants assigned to duty periods of 14 hours or less to receive at least 10 consecutive hours of rest before their next duty period. That floor cannot be reduced. For duty periods over 14 hours, the minimum rest jumps to 12 consecutive hours.5eCFR. 14 CFR 121.467 – Flight Attendant Duty Period Limitations and Rest Requirements Airline pilots operate under separate regulations that require a minimum rest opportunity of 10 consecutive hours between duty periods, with enough time to allow for 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Railroad Workers
Federal hours-of-service law prohibits a railroad carrier from allowing a train employee to go on duty unless that employee has had at least 10 consecutive hours off duty in the previous 24 hours.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 21103 – Limitations on Duty Hours of Train Employees After 12 consecutive hours of service, a train crew member must be relieved.
Healthcare Workers
Healthcare is the outlier. No federal statute mandates minimum rest between shifts for nurses or other hospital staff. Roughly 18 states have passed their own laws restricting mandatory overtime for nurses, but the specifics vary widely, and many states still allow hospitals to require back-to-back shifts during staffing shortages.
Medical residents are covered by work-hour standards set by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which caps resident work at 80 hours per week averaged over four weeks and recommends at least 8 hours off between scheduled clinical work periods. After a 24-hour in-house call shift, residents must receive at least 14 hours free of clinical duties. These standards are enforced through accreditation rather than by a government agency.
Stronger Rules for Workers Under 18
Federal and state law treat minors very differently from adults. The FLSA does not set a mandatory rest period between shifts even for young workers, but it restricts their hours so tightly that long gaps are built into the math.7U.S. Department of Labor. Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act
Under federal rules, 14- and 15-year-olds may only work:
- No more than 3 hours on a school day, and only outside school hours
- No more than 8 hours on a non-school day
- No more than 18 hours in a school week
- No more than 40 hours in a non-school week
- Between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., extended to 9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day
The time-of-day cap effectively forces a 12-hour overnight break during the school year, since a minor cannot work at all between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. the next morning.8U.S. Department of Labor. Non-Agricultural Jobs – 14-15
For 16- and 17-year-olds, the FLSA sets no hour limits at all, treating them the same as adults for scheduling. State law often fills this gap. Some states require that 16- and 17-year-old workers receive at least 8 consecutive hours of non-work, non-school time in every 24-hour period.9U.S. Department of Labor. Selected State Child Labor Standards Affecting Minors Under 18 in Non-Farm Employment Where the state rule is stricter, the state rule applies.
When On-Call Time Cuts Into Your Rest
Being off the clock on paper doesn’t always mean you’re actually resting. If your employer requires you to stay on the premises or remain so close that you can’t use the time for your own purposes, that on-call time counts as hours worked under the FLSA.10U.S. Department of Labor. Engaged to Wait – FLSA Hours Worked Advisor Time spent waiting at work is not rest, even if you’re sitting in a break room doing nothing.
On-call time spent at home is less clear-cut. If you can go about your normal life and just need to answer a phone, that generally doesn’t count as work. But if the restrictions are so tight that you can’t realistically do anything else — for example, you must report within 15 minutes or you’re called in so frequently that your evening is constantly interrupted — the Department of Labor may treat that time as compensable. For workers with mandatory rest requirements, this can determine whether the required off-duty gap was actually satisfied or only satisfied on paper.
Union Contracts and Employment Agreements
Even where no statute requires rest between shifts, a contract might. Collective bargaining agreements often include scheduling provisions that go beyond the legal minimum: guaranteed hours between shifts, caps on consecutive workdays, and premium pay for schedule changes on short notice. These terms are legally enforceable, and a violation is grounds for a grievance or lawsuit.
Individual employment contracts can contain similar protections. If your offer letter or employment agreement specifies minimum rest between shifts, that provision binds the employer whether or not any statute requires it. Most hourly workers don’t have individual contracts with scheduling terms, so these protections show up more often in union jobs, executive agreements, and some healthcare staffing contracts.
What to Do If Your Rest Period Is Violated
Start with documentation. Save your schedules, your clock-in and clock-out records, and any messages telling you when to report. Written evidence of the hours you actually worked, compared to the rest you were supposed to receive, is the foundation of any complaint.
For violations of a state or local scheduling law, file a complaint with your state’s department of labor or the local agency that enforces the ordinance. Many jurisdictions let you recover unpaid premium pay that should have been triggered when you worked during a rest period. For violations of federal industry rules, complaints go to the relevant agency: FMCSA for trucking, FAA for aviation, the Federal Railroad Administration for rail.
If your rights come from a union contract, the enforcement path runs through the grievance procedure in your collective bargaining agreement. Most CBAs require you to file within a specific window, often 30 days or less, and waiting too long can forfeit the claim. If the grievance process fails or the union declines to pursue it, individual legal action against the employer may still be available.