Salaried but Working 55 Hours in California: Are You Owed Overtime?

You are paid a salary, you regularly work 55 hours a week, and you have never been paid overtime. In California, a salary alone does not make you exempt from overtime: you must also be paid at least twice the state minimum wage for full-time work and meet an executive, administrative or professional duties test, which includes spending more than half your time on that work. If you fail either test, you are likely owed overtime, though some jobs, including public employees and outside salespeople, follow different rules.

The Labor Commissioner’s Office says in its overtime guidance: “A salaried employee must be paid overtime unless they meet the test for exempt status” or a specific exemption applies.

A Salary Is Only Half the Test

California’s exemption rules sit in the Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders. Wage Order 4, quoted here, covers professional, technical, clerical and similar occupations; other industries have their own orders, and the Labor Commissioner’s exemptions chart shows the executive, administrative and professional exemption in section 1 of each.

In Wage Order 4, each exemption requires a monthly salary of at least two times the state minimum wage for full-time employment, defined as 40 hours a week. The state minimum wage is $16.90 an hour in 2026. By our arithmetic, that makes the floor $1,352 a week, or $70,304 a year. Below that, the exemption fails no matter what your duties are. Above it, the duties decide.

The Duties Test Turns on How You Spend Your Week

In summary, each exemption requires regular use of discretion and independent judgment, plus:

• Executive: managing the business or a recognized department, regularly directing two or more employees, and having hiring and firing authority or recommendations given particular weight.
• Administrative: office or non-manual work directly related to management policies or general business operations, done under only general supervision or directly assisting an executive.
• Professional: licensed practice in fields such as law, medicine, engineering, teaching or accounting, or work requiring advanced specialized learning or original creative talent.

Each exemption also requires that you be “primarily engaged” in qualifying work, and the wage order defines “primarily” as “more than one-half the employee’s work time.” The work you actually do “must, first and foremost, be examined,” along with the time spent on it and the employer’s realistic expectations of the job, according to the wage order’s exemption text. Work “directly and closely related” to exempt duties counts as exempt.

In our reading, that time-based test is where many salaried manager jobs come apart. An office manager who spends most of the week processing orders, answering phones or doing the same tasks as the clerks may not be primarily engaged in management, even with a manager’s title and a salary.

What a 55-Hour Week Could Be Worth

If you are not exempt, overtime is daily as well as weekly. Wage Order 4 requires one and one-half times the regular rate for hours over eight in a workday or 40 in a workweek, and double time for hours over 12 in a day, with special rules for a seventh consecutive day. For a nonexempt full-time salaried employee, the regular rate is one-fortieth of the weekly salary.

Our illustration: you earn $75,000 a year and work five 11-hour days. Your salary clears the $70,304 floor. If the exemption fails, your regular rate is about $36.06 an hour ($75,000 ÷ 52 ÷ 40), following the Labor Commissioner’s salary method. Your 15 overtime hours at about $54.09 come to roughly $811 a week.

What Does Not Make You Exempt, and Who Follows Different Rules

Agreeing to a salary meant to cover all hours does not matter: the Labor Commissioner says overtime cannot be waived and the difference can be recovered under Labor Code section 1194. Unapproved hours count too: overtime is owed for work the employer knew or should have known about.

Some workers fall outside the general rules. Wage Order 4’s overtime section does not apply to employees of the state, cities, counties or special districts, or to outside salespeople. Separate exemptions cover certain commissioned employees, employees under qualifying union contracts, and hourly computer software professionals paid at least an annually adjusted rate. Federal law has its own exemption tests; the Labor Commissioner’s minimum wage guidance says that when federal, state and local laws conflict, employers must follow the stricter standard.

Deadlines and What to Gather

The Labor Commissioner lists three years to file a wage claim for overtime. You can file with the Labor Commissioner’s Office or sue in court; if you have left the job, you may also claim the waiting-time penalty under Labor Code section 203. Retaliation is a separate complaint; see our guide to wage claims versus retaliation complaints.

Wage Order 4 requires time records showing when each employee starts and stops work, but an employer that treats you as exempt may not have kept them. In our reading, your own records carry weight. Gather:

• A daily log of start and stop times, as the Labor Commissioner recommends, plus calendars, badge data or emails.
• A typical week broken down by task and hours: managing or professional work versus routine production.
• Your job description, offer letter, pay stubs and any written statement that you are “exempt.”
• Who you supervised, and whether your hiring or firing recommendations were followed.