Ohio Overtime Laws & Calculator

Weekly. Ohio sets no daily threshold, so a twelve-hour day owes no premium on its own — those hours go into the week's total like any others, and the count that decides your pay is hours past 40 in a single workweek.

No. Four ten-hour days is 40 hours, and the weekly rule starts past 40 hours, not at them. Day length does not matter in Ohio: four tens, five eights and three long shifts all pay the same if the week's total is the same.

No Ohio statute sets a double-time rate. Where double time appears on a stub here it comes from a union agreement, a company policy or a holiday practice — worth having in writing, but it is an agreement rather than the law. What the statute requires is time and a half past 40 hours in a workweek, with no daily threshold.

Ohio has no seventh-day rule. Those hours count toward the workweek like any others, so a seven-day stretch usually produces overtime through the weekly total instead: seven eight-hour days is 56 hours, of which 16 are past 40.

Yes. Ohio Rev. Code § 4111.03(A) requires an employer to pay one and one-half times the employee’s wage rate for hours worked over forty in one workweek. It applies that rule in the manner and methods provided in, and subject to the exemptions of, sections 7 and 13 of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and also of sections 2 and 4 of the federal Portal-to-Portal Act. So Ohio’s weekly 40-hour threshold and 1.5× rate follow the federal rule, and the federal exemptions carry over. The same section says employees employed in agriculture are not covered by its overtime provision. Under § 4111.031, an employer generally is not required to pay the Ohio overtime rate for time an employee spends walking, riding or traveling to and from the place where the principal activity is performed, on activities preliminary or postliminary to that activity, or on activities requiring insubstantial or insignificant time beyond scheduled hours. There are exceptions. For preliminary and postliminary activities, the rule does not apply when the employee performs the activity during the regular work day or prescribed hours, or at the employer’s specific direction. For any of these activities, the rule does not apply when an express provision of a written or unwritten contract, or a workplace custom or practice, covers the activity.

It may, on the wording of the statutes. Ohio Rev. Code § 4111.03(D)(2)(a) says “employer” does not include an employer whose annual gross volume of sales made for business done is less than $150,000, not counting separately stated retail excise taxes. Federal coverage works differently. The U.S. Department of Labor says FLSA enterprise coverage applies to businesses with an annual dollar volume of sales or business done of at least $500,000 (with at least two employees), plus hospitals, schools and government agencies (see also 29 U.S.C. § 203(s)(1)), and that an employee can also be covered individually if the work regularly involves commerce between States. Ohio’s definition of “employer” does not refer to FLSA coverage, so a business with sales between those two figures that is not otherwise covered by the FLSA may still be an employer under Ohio’s overtime provision, subject to the FLSA exemptions that § 4111.03(A) incorporates. Whether a particular employer meets either figure depends on its own sales and other facts, which this page cannot tell.

The Ohio Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Wage and Hour Administration says it investigates complaints about overtime not being paid, along with minimum wage, unauthorized deductions and held last paychecks, and that there is no cost to have a valid complaint investigated. It also says it cannot provide legal advice or act as your attorney, and that its office is only able to pursue minimum wage for the hours found to be unpaid. Its instructions ask for a completed form with copies (not originals) of pay stubs and time sheets and a notarized signature. A paper form goes to the Division of Industrial Compliance, Bureau of Wage and Hour Administration, 6606 Tussing Road, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068; the page also links to an online “File a Minimum Wage Complaint” option. You can ask to stay anonymous until wages are to be paid. The Bureau says it may reject an incomplete complaint or one from an exempt employee, and that you cannot pursue the same complaint through both the Bureau and privately at the same time. Under Ohio Rev. Code § 4111.10, an employer that pays less than the overtime owed under § 4111.03 is liable for the full overtime amount less what was actually paid, plus costs and reasonable attorney’s fees as the court allows, and an agreement to work for less is no defense. The same section lets the director of commerce, at your written request, take an assignment of the wage claim and bring the legal action to collect it.

Usually, yes. The multiplier is applied to the regular rate, not to your base wage, and the regular rate takes in nondiscretionary bonuses, production and attendance bonuses, and shift differentials for the week they were earned. An overtime hour in a week with a night differential is worth more than base × 1.5. Bonuses that are genuinely discretionary — not promised in advance — stay out of it. The federal rules for building the regular rate are at 29 C.F.R. Part 778 and apply in Ohio.

Not by itself. A salary is a way of paying, not an exemption. The white-collar exemptions turn on the work actually performed together with how and how much you are paid, and the duties tests at 29 C.F.R. Part 541 do not include job titles. A salaried employee whose duties fall outside those tests is owed overtime on the same 40-hour week as anyone else.