California Overtime Calculator

How California overtime rules work

California does not rely on the federal 40-hour workweek rule alone. It layers a daily rule on top, so a long Tuesday can earn overtime even when the week finishes under 40 hours. The California Department of Industrial Relations sets the standard out plainly on its overtime page, and the rules come from Labor Code sections 510 and 511 and the Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders, all in force for 2026.

There are four parts, and the calculator applies all of them at once:

• Over 8 hours in a single workday, up to and including 12 hours, is paid at 1.5 times your regular rate.
• Over 12 hours in a single workday is paid at 2 times your regular rate, which is double time.
• Over 40 hours in a workweek is paid at 1.5 times, but only for hours that do not already carry a daily premium.
• The first 8 hours on the seventh consecutive day worked in a workweek are paid at 1.5 times, and everything past 8 hours on that day is paid at 2 times.

The regular rate is not always the number on your offer letter. It includes hourly pay, salary, piecework earnings and commissions. The same hour is never counted twice, so an hour that already earned a daily premium is not paid again under the weekly test. That is why 45 hours made of five 9-hour days pays the same as the federal rule, while 40 hours made of four 10-hour days pays more.

Worked example: 45 hours at $20 an hour

Take the common shape first: $20 an hour, 9 hours a day for five days, 45 hours in the week.

• Regular hours: 40 at $20 = $800.00
• Daily overtime: 5 hours, one extra hour each day, at $30 = $150.00
• Weekly overtime: none, because those 5 hours already carry a daily premium
• Gross pay: $950.00

Your effective rate for the week is $950.00 divided by 45 hours, which is $21.11. That number surprises people. Overtime does not lift the whole week to $30 an hour. It lifts only the hours past 8 each day, and then you divide by every hour you worked.

Under the federal rule alone the same week also pays $950.00, because the 5 hours over 40 land at 1.5 times anyway. The daily rule and the weekly rule agree whenever long days are the only reason you pass 40 hours. They stop agreeing when the days get long enough to hit 12, or when the week stays at 40 while the days stay long.

Worked example: 13-hour days and double time

Now push the day past the double-time line. $20 an hour, 13 hours a day for five days, 65 hours in the week.

• Regular hours: 40 at $20 = $800.00
• Daily overtime: 4 hours a day over 8, which is 20 hours, at $30 = $600.00
• Double time: 1 hour a day over 12, which is 5 hours, at $40 = $200.00
• Gross pay: $1,600.00

The federal rule pays $1,550.00 for the same week, so the daily and double-time rules add $50.00. That gap is what the hour past 12 buys you. A single 13-hour day at $20 pays 8 hours at $20, 4 hours at $30 and 1 hour at $40, which is $320.00 instead of $260.00 at a flat rate.

Run the rate up and the double-time hour scales with it. At $25 an hour, five 12-hour days is 60 hours and pays $1,750.00, with 20 of those hours carrying the 1.5 times premium. The last hour of a long day is always the most expensive hour you work, and in California it is paid at twice your rate.

The seventh consecutive day rule

The seventh straight day worked in a workweek is paid on a different scale. The first 8 hours are paid at 1.5 times, and anything past 8 hours is paid at 2 times. This is separate from the daily and weekly tests, and it can add money even when neither of those applies.

Work 8 hours a day for seven straight days at $20 an hour, 56 hours in all:

• Days one through six: 48 hours, of which 40 are at $20 and 8 are weekly overtime at $30
• Day seven: all 8 hours at $30 = $240.00
• Gross pay: $800.00 + $240.00 + $240.00 = $1,280.00

That last day is why the total does not look like simple time and a half on 16 hours. Every hour of the seventh day carries the premium from the first one, even though none of them went past 8 hours in the day. Work a ninth hour on that seventh day and it lands at $40, not $30, because the day has passed the 8-hour mark on the seventh consecutive day.

The rule only applies when you work all seven days of the employer's defined workweek. Six days of 8 hours is 48 hours and pays $1,040.00, with no seventh-day premium at all, so the seventh day is worth more than its own hours.

California against the federal 40-hour rule

Same $20 an hour, same hours, two sets of rules. The table below runs each week through both.

Read the second row closely. Four 10-hour days is exactly 40 hours, so the federal rule pays no overtime at all. California pays for the 8 hours past 8 each day and the week comes to $880.00, which is $80.00 more. A compressed schedule of four long days is the case where the daily rule earns the most, and it is common in warehouses, kitchens and clinics.

The last row is the other place the rules split. Only double time after 12 hours beats the federal figure, because the federal rule already pays 1.5 times for everything over 40. The weekly test and the federal test agree on hours over 40, so the California advantage shows up in daily overtime and double time, not in the weekly count. For a plain-language walk through the federal floor, the US Department of Labor overtime page is the reference.

Exempt or not, and how to claim unpaid overtime

Being salaried does not remove overtime by itself. California uses a two-part test: how you are paid, and what you do. The salary has to be at or above the state threshold, which is tied to twice the minimum wage for a full-time worker and sits higher than the federal $684 a week, and the job has to pass a real duties test for executive, administrative or professional work. A title is not the test, the work is.

If you think you are owed overtime, the practical steps are short. Keep your own record of the hours you work each day, keep the pay stubs, and put the question in writing. The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, the Labor Commissioner's Office, takes wage claims and can look back over several years of unpaid overtime. The wage claim page at the DIR explains how to file.

Two things an employer cannot do: average two weeks together to erase a long week, and ask you to work off the clock. Both are violations, not loopholes. If you are paid a bonus, keep the paperwork, because a non-discretionary bonus has to be folded into the regular rate before overtime is worked out. IRS Publication 15 covers how overtime is reported and withheld on the employer side, which helps if a payment was labelled wrong.

This is an arithmetic estimate from the numbers you enter. It does not know your workweek, your exemption status or your union agreement, so confirm anything that matters with your state labor office before you rely on it.