How Much Overtime Can You Work? Federal, State, and Industry Limits

How much overtime you can be required to work depends almost entirely on where you live and what you do, because federal law sets no ceiling at all. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employer can schedule an adult employee for 50, 60, 80, or more hours in a week as long as non-exempt workers receive at least 1.5 times their regular rate for every hour beyond 40.¹ Actual hour caps only exist in a handful of state laws, in safety-sensitive industries like trucking and aviation, and for workers under 18.

The Federal Rule: A Pay Trigger, Not a Limit

The FLSA uses 40 hours as the point at which overtime pay kicks in, not as a maximum. The Department of Labor’s regulations state plainly that there is no absolute limitation on the number of hours an employee may work as long as the required overtime compensation is paid.¹ An employer can require whatever hours the business needs. The legal question is only whether you’re being paid correctly for them.

Overtime is calculated on a workweek basis. A workweek is any fixed, recurring block of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour days that your employer designates and then sticks with. Hours cannot be averaged across two workweeks. If you work 30 hours one week and 50 the next, you’re owed overtime for the 10 extra hours in the second week, even though your two-week average is only 40.²

Federal law also doesn’t require extra pay for weekends, nights, or holidays as such. If you work a Saturday shift but your total for the week stays at 40 or below, your employer owes you only your regular rate.¹ Shift differentials and holiday premiums exist because of company policy or union contracts, not because the FLSA requires them.

Can Your Employer Require Overtime and Fire You for Refusing?

In most states, yes. Under at-will employment, an employer can terminate you for declining overtime as long as the overtime itself is lawful, and no advance notice is required. That is the reality for most workers: if there’s no law limiting the hours your employer is asking for, refusing them can cost you the job.

Several protections do carve out exceptions:

Disability accommodation: If working overtime conflicts with a medical condition, the Americans with Disabilities Act may require your employer to modify the overtime requirement as a reasonable accommodation.³
Religious observance: Title VII requires reasonable accommodation of sincerely held religious practices, which can include Sabbath or holiday conflicts with scheduled overtime.
Union contracts: A collective bargaining agreement may restrict when overtime can be required, how it’s distributed, or give you the right to decline without discipline.
Concerted activity: When two or more employees refuse overtime together to protest working conditions, that action may be protected under the National Labor Relations Act even without a union. An individual acting alone usually isn’t covered.⁴
State industry caps: Workers in states or industries with mandatory overtime restrictions — such as nurses in the states that regulate healthcare overtime — cannot be fired for declining hours that violate those caps.

State Laws That Actually Limit Hours

Because federal law is silent on hour ceilings, whatever limits you have come from state law. Rules vary, but most fall into three patterns.

Daily Overtime Thresholds

Most states track federal law and require overtime pay only after 40 hours in a week. A handful require overtime pay after 8 hours in a single day, regardless of the weekly total. In those states, four 10-hour shifts trigger two hours of daily overtime each day even though the week only totals 40 hours. One state also requires double the regular rate for hours beyond 12 in a single day. These daily rules matter most for compressed schedules and long shifts.

Mandatory Rest Days

Some states require at least one day off in every seven-day period. These “day of rest” laws don’t set an overtime cap, but they effectively limit consecutive workdays and carry their own penalties for violations, separate from overtime pay.

Healthcare Worker Protections

Roughly 18 states restrict or ban mandatory overtime for nurses and other healthcare workers. Details vary, but the common structure is that a facility cannot force a nurse to stay beyond a scheduled shift except in a genuine emergency — a declared disaster or a situation where patient safety would be immediately compromised. These laws exist because fatigue in clinical settings creates patient safety risks that extend beyond the individual worker.

Industries With Federal Hour Ceilings

When fatigue creates public safety risks, federal regulators do impose actual caps on working hours. These override the general FLSA framework in the covered industries.

Commercial Truck Drivers

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration limits driving time for commercial vehicle operators. Property-carrying drivers can drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, cannot drive past the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty, and must take a 30-minute break after 8 cumulative hours of driving. On a longer cycle, drivers cannot exceed 60 hours on duty in 7 consecutive days or 70 in 8, though 34 or more consecutive hours off resets the count.⁵ Passenger-carrying drivers get 10 hours of driving after 8 hours off, with no driving past 15 hours on duty.⁶

Airline Flight Crews

FAA rules cap a commercial pilot’s flight duty period between 9 and 14 hours depending on time of day and number of flight segments. Before any duty period, a pilot must have at least 10 consecutive hours of rest with an 8-hour sleep opportunity, and over any rolling 7-day stretch must receive at least 30 consecutive hours completely free from duty.⁷

Limits for Workers Under 18

Federal child labor rules restrict hours only for workers under 16. Teens aged 16 and 17 can work unlimited hours in non-hazardous jobs under federal law, though state law often imposes additional limits.⁸ The strictest federal rules apply to 14- and 15-year-olds:⁹

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.
Work only between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., extended to 9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day.

Where federal and state child labor rules both apply, the stricter one controls. Several states set tighter limits for 16- and 17-year-olds than federal law does, including maximum shift lengths and required rest between shifts.

Exempt Employees: No Overtime Pay and No Hour Limit

The category most likely to face unlimited hours without extra pay is exempt employees. The FLSA carves out several groups who can be required to work any number of hours with no overtime premium at all, and misclassification is where most overtime disputes begin.

The Salary and Duties Tests

An employee qualifies as exempt only by clearing two hurdles. The salary test requires at least $684 per week ($35,568 annually) paid on a salary basis.¹⁰ The 2019 threshold remains in effect as of 2026 because a federal court vacated the DOL’s 2024 attempt to raise it.¹¹

The duties test looks at what the employee actually does, not the job title:¹²

Executive: Primarily manages a department or subdivision, regularly directs at least two full-time employees, and has real authority over hiring and firing.
Administrative: Performs office or non-manual work directly related to business operations and exercises independent judgment on significant matters.
Professional: Does work requiring advanced knowledge in a specialized field like law, medicine, or engineering, typically acquired through extended education.
Outside sales: Regularly makes sales or obtains orders away from the employer’s place of business. No minimum salary applies.
Computer professional: Systems analyst, programmer, or similar role. Can be paid $684 per week salaried or at least $27.63 hourly.

Both tests must be met. A manager earning $500 a week isn’t exempt no matter how many people they supervise, and a highly paid worker doing routine data entry isn’t exempt no matter the salary.

The Highly Compensated Shortcut

A streamlined test applies to workers earning at least $107,432 per year in total compensation, with at least $684 per week paid on a salary or fee basis.¹³ These employees are exempt if they customarily perform at least one duty from the executive, administrative, or professional categories. A high salary alone is not enough; some exempt-quality work has to be in the mix.

Misclassified Contractors

Some employers avoid overtime obligations by labeling workers as independent contractors, who have no FLSA overtime rights. The label doesn’t decide the question. The legal test looks at the economic reality of the relationship: who controls how the work gets done, whether the worker can profit from their own business decisions, whether the arrangement is permanent, and how integral the work is to the employer’s core business.¹⁴ If you work set hours with company equipment for a single client and have no real ability to build an independent business, you may be an employee owed overtime regardless of what your contract says.

If Your Overtime Isn’t Being Paid

If your employer requires long hours and isn’t paying overtime you’re owed, you have two routes to recover it.

Filing a Complaint With the Department of Labor

The Wage and Hour Division investigates overtime violations and recovers back wages. You can file online or by phone at 1-866-487-9243. Have your employer’s name and address, a description of your work, your pay rate and schedule, and the details of the unpaid overtime. The nearest field office contacts you within two business days, and if the investigation confirms a violation, you receive a check for the back wages.¹⁵

Filing a Private Lawsuit

You also have the right to sue in federal or state court. A successful FLSA suit recovers the unpaid overtime plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, effectively doubling the back pay, and the court must award reasonable attorney’s fees.¹⁶ An employer avoids liquidated damages only by proving it acted in good faith and genuinely believed it was complying with the law.¹⁷

Deadlines and Retaliation

The filing deadline is two years from the violation, extended to three years if the employer’s violation was willful — meaning it knew it was breaking the law or showed reckless disregard.¹⁸ Each shortchanged paycheck starts its own clock, so older violations can expire even as newer ones stay actionable.

The FLSA prohibits retaliation for filing a complaint, participating in an investigation, or raising the issue internally. The protection applies whether or not the employer actually violated the law.¹⁹ If you’re fired or disciplined for asserting your overtime rights, that’s a separate violation supporting its own claim for reinstatement and lost wages.

1
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 778 – Overtime Compensation
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay
3
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the ADA
4
U.S. Department of Labor. What Are My Employees Rights Under the National Labor Relations Act
5
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Summary of Hours of Service Regulations
6
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 395 – Hours of Service of Drivers
7
eCFR. 14 CFR Part 117 – Flight and Duty Limitations and Rest Requirements – Flightcrew Members
8
U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA Hours Restrictions
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #43 – Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for Nonagricultural Occupations
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption from Minimum Wage and Overtime Protections Under the FLSA
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #17A – Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 213 – Exemptions
13
U.S. Department of Labor. Highly Compensated – FLSA Overtime Security Advisor
14
U.S. Department of Labor. US Department of Labor Proposes Rule Clarifying Employee Classification
15
Worker.gov. Filing a Complaint With the U.S. Department of Labors Wage and Hour Division (WHD)
16
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties
17
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 260 – Liquidated Damages
18
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 255 – Statute of Limitations
19
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #77A – Prohibiting Retaliation Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)