Which States Have Daily Overtime? The 2026 List and the Math

01

How the federal weekly rule works

Under federal law, overtime is a weekly number. Hours over 40 in the workweek are paid at 1.5 times the regular rate, and the length of any single day doesn't matter. A crew member who works 14 hours on Monday and then 8, 8, and 8 has worked 38 hours, all of them straight time. Texas, Florida, Arizona, Washington, and the other states on our state pages stop there. Our Texas time tracking page walks through the weekly math, and the overtime pay calculator runs it for any rate.

A daily overtime rule adds a second line. Once one workday passes the state's threshold, the hours past it are overtime no matter how the rest of the week turns out.

02

The four states with daily overtime in 2026

All four sources were read on September 8, 2026. The wording below is theirs.

California

The state's overtime FAQ sets 1.5x "for all hours worked in excess of eight hours up to and including 12 hours in any workday" and 2x "for all hours worked in excess of 12 hours in any workday". The seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek pays 1.5x "for the first eight hours worked" and 2x beyond eight. The weekly 40 applies on top. Our California overtime rules for trades post covers the meal break rule and the rest.

Alaska

The Alaska Department of Labor states it in one sentence: "If you work more than 8 hours in a single day and/or more than 40 hours in a single week, you must be paid time-and-one-half". The exception is size: "An employer who has a total of only three (3) employees, or less, can pay his/her employees straight-time for all hours worked."

Nevada

NRS 608.018 splits the crew by wage. Daily overtime at 1.5x after 8 hours applies only to an employee paid "at a rate less than 1 1/2 times the minimum rate". Even for that employee it does not apply "unless by mutual agreement the employee works a scheduled 10 hours per day for 4 calendar days within any scheduled week of work". A worker paid at or above 1.5 times the minimum wage gets weekly overtime after 40 only. The line moves when the minimum wage moves, so check the current figure with the Nevada Labor Commissioner.

Colorado

Colorado's 2026 COMPS Order poster states the rule as "1½ regular rate after 40 weekly hours, or 12 daily or consecutive". A 10-hour day does not trigger daily overtime in Colorado. Hour 13 and beyond is overtime, and so is anything past 12 hours worked in a row.

03

The same 4 × 10 schedule in five states

Take one crew member at $25 an hour who works Monday through Thursday, 10 hours a day, with Friday off. That is 40 hours, and under the weekly rule alone none of it is overtime.

California and Alaska each turn two hours of every 10-hour day into overtime: 8 × $25 × 1.5 = $300, so the week costs $100 more than the same 40 hours in Texas. Alaska's three-or-fewer-employees exception would put a very small employer back at $1,000. Nevada at the higher wage and Colorado match Texas, because Nevada's daily rule doesn't reach this worker and Colorado's line is 12 hours.

Suppose a Nevada helper is paid $16 an hour and that rate falls below 1.5 times the state minimum wage in the year you read this. Without an agreement, the same four 10-hour days are 32 regular hours ($512.00) plus 8 overtime hours at $24.00 ($192.00), for $704.00. With a mutual agreement to a scheduled 4-day, 10-hour week, all 40 hours are straight time: $640.00. The agreement is worth $64.00 a week on this one worker, so get it in writing first.

04

A 13-hour pour day in a 37-hour week

A pour runs long on Monday, 13 hours from the first truck to the last finish, and the rest of the week is three 8-hour days with Friday off. That is 37 hours, three short of the weekly line, so under the federal rule it is all straight time. Same $25 rate.

California: 32 regular hours ($800.00), plus hours 9 through 12 on Monday at $37.50 ($150.00), plus hour 13 at $50.00. Alaska: the same 32 regular hours plus all 5 extra Monday hours at $37.50 ($187.50). Colorado: 36 regular hours ($900.00) plus hour 13 at $37.50. The week never reached 40, and it still costs $12.50 to $75.00 more than the same hours in Texas, which is the case a weekly-only habit misses.

05

The storm week

A roofing crew after a hail storm works Monday through Saturday, 12 hours a day, 72 hours in all. Under the federal rule that is 40 regular and 32 overtime hours: $1,000.00 plus $1,200.00, or $2,200.00. In California the hours get different labels and the total stays the same. Monday through Friday are 8 regular and 4 daily-overtime hours each. All 12 Saturday hours are overtime, the first 8 because the week is past 40 and the last 4 because the day is past 8.

That is still 40 regular and 32 overtime hours, $2,200.00. In these tables each hour is counted once, at the highest rate that applies to it.

The daily rule changes the total in two situations. The first is a day that runs past 12 hours: California pays 2x for hour 13 and beyond, Colorado pays 1.5x for it, and Alaska stays at 1.5x. The second is California's seventh consecutive day. Add a 10-hour Sunday to that storm week. The weekly rule pays all 10 Sunday hours at 1.5x, while California pays the first 8 at 1.5x and the last 2 at 2x, a $25.00 difference at this rate.

So the daily rule costs the most in weeks that stay near or below 40 with one or two long days. That is the ordinary shape of a trades week: a pour, a crane day, a service call that runs late.

06

What this looks like in Clox

Clox sets overtime per person: on the Team page, each employee has a daily threshold, a weekly threshold, and a multiplier that defaults to 1.5x and can be set anywhere from 1x to 3x. The daily threshold works under the Standard rule set. A crew in Alaska sets it to 8 on every person and a crew in Colorado sets it to 12. A Nevada shop sets it to 8 only on the people paid below the line and leaves the others on the weekly 40. The overtime and break rules article lists every setting and its default.

The org-wide rule set is one switch in Settings, Standard or California. Switching to California adds the double-time columns and marks a meal-break review on any shift over 5 hours with no single break of at least 30 minutes, so keep Standard unless you need double time. Reports then carry Regular, Overtime, and Double-time hours as separate columns in CSV, Excel, and PDF. The settings are a daily threshold, a weekly threshold, and the multiplier, so check a seventh-consecutive-day week or a shift that crosses midnight against the state rule on the approval screen before you export.

The state pages carry the same rules with a calculator each: California for the daily rule, and Arizona or Washington for two states on the weekly 40.

07

FAQ

This is general information, not legal advice.

The Clox trial runs 14 days with no credit card, and the first paid subscription has a 30-day money-back guarantee. Start a free trial, set each person's daily and weekly thresholds, and run one real week through the Reports page.