Which States Have Daily Overtime?

The five states at a glance

California also has a seventh-day rule, covered in the seventh-day guide. The overtime laws by state table has each state’s sources, exemptions and notes.

The conditions that switch daily overtime on or off

A daily rule that does not apply to you drops out completely. The weekly rule still applies. Check these before you count a long day as overtime.

Alaska: employer size. Alaska’s overtime rules do not apply to an employer with fewer than 4 employees in the regular course of business. A voluntary flexible work hour plan, written and approved by the Alaska Department of Labor or included in a collective bargaining agreement, moves the daily line to 10 hours, still with 40 a week.

California: alternative workweek schedules. Through a secret-ballot election under the wage order, employees can adopt regular days of up to 10 hours within a 40-hour week without daily overtime. Hours beyond the scheduled day still have overtime rules, and double time after 12 hours remains.

Colorado: 12 consecutive hours. Colorado pays overtime past 40 hours a week, past 12 hours a day, or past any 12 consecutive hours, whichever pays more. The consecutive-hours count can cross from one workday into the next. The site’s calculator counts each shift on the day it starts and lists this rule rather than computing it.

Nevada: three conditions. Nevada’s daily rule covers an employee paid less than 1.5 times the state minimum wage. The Labor Commissioner’s bulletin effective July 1, 2025 puts that line at $18.00 an hour, so someone paid exactly $18.00 or more gets weekly overtime only. No later bulletin had been posted when this guide was checked. The daily rule also does not apply to a mutually agreed schedule of four 10-hour days. It does not apply at a business with gross sales under $250,000 a year, which is exempt from Nevada’s overtime section. Nevada’s workday is 24 hours from the time work begins, so a shift that starts sooner than 24 hours after the last one began can add daily overtime.

Oregon: type of workplace. Oregon’s 10-hour daily rule covers mills, factories, manufacturing establishments, canneries, driers, packing plants and seafood processors. The U.S. Department of Labor’s state summary excludes sawmills, planing mills, shingle mills and logging camps. Most other Oregon workers have weekly overtime only.

Your employer applies these conditions first. If you disagree, the state labor department decides.

How daily and weekly overtime combine

Two rules keep the math fair to both sides.

1. No pyramiding. An hour paid as daily overtime is not counted again toward the 40-hour week. Weekly overtime is counted only on the straight-time hours left after the daily tiers. California’s wage order states this directly.
2. Greater of state and federal. The state result and the federal 40-hour result are both computed, and the worker gets whichever pays more. The site’s calculator always does both.

In a long week, daily overtime often changes only the label on the hours, not the total. The site’s standard example week has 48:58 (48.97 hours) of work at $24.50. Under California’s rule, 4:51 (4.85 hours) is daily overtime and 4:07 (4.12 hours) is weekly overtime. Under the federal rule, all 8:58 (8.97 hours) is weekly overtime. Gross pay is $1,309.53 either way. The overtime laws by state guide walks through it day by day.

Daily overtime changes the paycheck when long days fall in a week of 40 hours or fewer.

One long-shift week in all five states

Three 12-hour-30-minute shifts, Monday to Wednesday, 6:45 AM to 7:45 PM with a 30-minute unpaid meal: 12:30 (12.50 hours) a day and 37:30 (37.50 hours) for the week, at $24.50 an hour.

In California, each day splits into 8:00 straight, 4:00 at time and a half and 0:30 at double time. That is $588.00 straight, $441.00 at 1.5× and $73.50 at 2×. Alaska has no double time, so all 4:30 over 8 hours each day is time and a half. Colorado counts only the 0:30 past 12 hours each day.

The same week at a Nevada rate of $17.00 an hour does meet the rate condition. If the other two conditions are also met, daily overtime is then 13:30 (13.50 hours), and gross pay is $752.25.

Four 10-hour days

A 4×10 schedule, four days of 10:00 (10.00 hours) for 40:00 a week, is where the daily rules part ways most clearly. At $24.50 an hour:

Nevada at $17.00 an hour shows why the schedule agreement matters. Without a mutually agreed 4×10 schedule, each day has 2:00 over 8 hours: 8:00 (8.00 hours) of daily overtime and $748.00 gross. With the agreement, there is no daily overtime and gross pay is $680.00.

California and Alaska both have ways to run 10-hour days without daily overtime: the alternative workweek election and the approved flexible plan. Each has its own procedure. Whether one is in place is a fact your employer can show you in writing.

If your pay stub shows a long day as straight time, ask which rule your employer applied and why. If the answer doesn’t settle it, the state labor department can look into it: the agency for each state is named in its row of the state table.

Next step

Enter your days and pick your state in the overtime calculator. It asks the condition questions for Alaska, Nevada and Oregon, applies the daily tiers, computes the federal result alongside, and shows the split for each day.