Texas Overtime Laws & Calculator

Weekly. Texas 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 Texas: four tens, five eights and three long shifts all pay the same if the week's total is the same.

No Texas 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.

Texas 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.

Overtime is owed for hours past 40 in a workweek. The Department of Labor says employees covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek at not less than one and one-half times their regular rate, unless an exemption applies. The workweek is a fixed, recurring period of 168 hours (seven consecutive 24-hour periods). It can start on any day at any hour, and hours are not averaged across two weeks. The Department's state table lists premium pay after set daily or weekly hours for states such as Alaska, with a daily line at 8 hours, and has no such line for Texas. Under the federal rule a 12-hour shift owes no premium on its own: its hours count toward that week's total.

At least one and one-half times the regular rate for each hour past 40 in the workweek. The Department of Labor gives the regular rate as the week's total compensation, apart from the statutory exclusions, divided by the hours worked that week. For someone on one hourly wage with no other pay, that wage is the regular rate: 40 hours at the wage, then every further hour at 1.5 times it. A shift differential or a bonus the employer had promised raises the regular rate before the 1.5 is applied. The worked week on this page is calculated this way.

The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor administers and enforces the FLSA for private employment and for state and local government employment. A complaint can be filed by calling 1-866-487-9243 (1-866-4-US-WAGE) or through the contact form on dol.gov. The Department says complaints are confidential and that an employer cannot retaliate against a worker for filing one or cooperating with an investigation. The FLSA allows the Department or an employee to recover back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages for overtime violations. Generally a 2-year statute of limitations applies, and 3 years where the violation was willful.

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 Texas.

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.