Yes, if you are non-exempt. A salary on its own never makes you exempt. For the white-collar exemptions you also have to be paid at least $684 a week ($35,568 a year) and do exempt work. Miss either and you are owed at least 1.5 times your regular rate for every hour worked over 40 in a workweek (DOL Fact Sheet #23).
Exempt means your employer does not have to pay you overtime, however many hours you work. For white-collar salaried jobs that status rests on the tests below. The FLSA also has industry-specific exemptions, which the DOL lists separately in its Handy Reference Guide to the FLSA.
Thresholds and rules below checked October 2026.
What makes an employee exempt
The Department of Labor generally requires all three tests to be met. Miss one and you are non-exempt, unless you are in one of the groups described below the table (Federal Register, 91 FR 27833).
| Test | What it asks | If you fail it |
|---|---|---|
| Duties | Is your main job executive, administrative, professional, computer or outside sales work? | You are non-exempt, whatever you are paid. |
| Salary basis | Are you paid a fixed, predetermined amount that is not cut when your work varies in quality or quantity? | You are non-exempt. |
| Salary level | Does your pay reach the federal minimum salary for exemption? | You are non-exempt. |
The highly compensated employee route replaces the full duties test with a reduced one: the employee still has to perform at least one exempt duty, but not all of them (91 FR 27833). Three groups skip the salary tests entirely and are judged on duties alone: outside sales employees, teachers, and employees practicing law or medicine. And computer employees can be paid hourly at $27.63 instead of on a salary (Fact Sheet #17G).
Exempt means exempt from the overtime requirement: you can work 50 hours and your pay stays the same. Your job title decides nothing, and the DOL says so outright: “Job titles do not determine exempt status” (Fact Sheet #17A).
The federal salary threshold in 2026
As of October 2026, the federal thresholds are (DOL earnings thresholds):
| Requirement | Current amount |
|---|---|
| Standard salary level | $684 per week ($35,568 per year) |
| Highly compensated employee (HCE) | $107,432 per year, including at least $684 per week on a salary or fee basis |
| Computer employees paid hourly | $27.63 per hour |
A $50,000 salary clears that $35,568 bar, so pay alone will not make you non-exempt. If a page tells you a $50,000 salary fails because it sits under $58,656, it is applying a rule that is not in force.
That $58,656 figure came from a Department of Labor rule published in April 2024. It raised the level to $844 per week ($43,888) on July 1, 2024, and would have raised it again to $1,128 per week ($58,656) on January 1, 2025, with the HCE threshold going to $132,964 and then $151,164. The first increase did take effect and stood for about four and a half months. Then a federal court in Texas vacated the rule on November 15, 2024, so the second increase never took effect. The DOL removed the 2024 text from the regulations effective May 15, 2026, restoring the 2019 figures (91 FR 27833).
Details that change the answer:
- Nondiscretionary bonuses, incentives and commissions paid at least annually can cover up to 10% of the standard salary level, so a salary slightly under $684 a week is not automatically disqualifying. The employer has to make up any shortfall by the next pay period after the year ends (Fact Sheet #17G), and the allowance does not apply to the HCE test (91 FR 27833).
- The figures move. The DOL tried to raise them in 2024, and states set their own. Check the date on any page that quotes a threshold.
The duties test: the five white-collar categories
| Exemption | The core of your main duty |
|---|---|
| Executive | Managing the business or a recognized department, regularly directing the work of two or more other employees, and having authority to hire or fire, or whose recommendations on hiring, firing, advancement or promotion are given particular weight (29 CFR 541.100) |
| Administrative | Office or non-manual work tied to the management or general business operations, exercising discretion and independent judgment on significant matters |
| Professional | Work needing advanced knowledge in a field of science or learning, usually gained through a prolonged course of specialized instruction |
| Computer | Systems analysis, programming, software design or a closely related computer function |
| Outside sales | Making sales or obtaining orders or contracts, regularly working away from the employer’s place of business |
Sources: DOL Fact Sheet #17A; 29 CFR 541.100.
“Primary duty” is the part people guess at. It means the main duty the job exists to perform, and the regulation weighs four things: how important the exempt duties are compared with your other duties, how much time you spend on them, how free you are from direct supervision, and how your salary compares with what other employees are paid for the same non-exempt work (29 CFR 541.700). Time is one factor, not the test.
Here is how the tests combine on three salaries. These show the reasoning; they are not rulings on your job:
- A salaried clerk on $30,000 fails the salary level test on pay alone, so the duties question never arises. Non-exempt.
- An “assistant manager” on $40,000 who supervises nobody and has no say in hiring or firing clears the salary level but fails the duties test. The title does not save it. Non-exempt.
- A manager on $50,000 who runs a department of three full-time staff, with authority to hire and fire, and whose main job is managing: likely passes all three, if managing is the primary duty. Exempt.
Salaried and non-exempt: how your overtime is calculated
If you are non-exempt, your salary is the starting point. How you convert it to an hourly figure depends on what the salary is understood to cover. Method A applies unless your pay arrangement meets all of Method B’s conditions.
Method A: your salary is pay for a set number of hours. The regular rate is your salary divided by the number of hours the salary is intended to compensate. If your agreement does not say, 40 is the usual starting point (29 CFR 778.113). The hours past 40 are then paid at 1.5 times that rate, in full, because the salary did not cover them.
If your pay agreement says the salary covers a set week longer than 40 hours, divide by that agreed number instead. The DOL’s example: a $405 salary for a 45-hour week gives a regular rate of $9.00, and because the salary already pays straight time for all 45 hours, the 5 hours past 40 earn only the extra half, 5 × $4.50 = $22.50 (Fact Sheet #23). Hours you work beyond that agreed week, which the salary does not cover at all, generally earn the full 1.5 times the rate.
Method B: your salary is understood to cover all hours worked. This is the fluctuating workweek. Because the salary already pays straight time for every hour including the overtime hours, the rate is your weekly salary divided by the hours you actually worked that week, and each overtime hour attracts only the extra half (Fact Sheet #82; 29 CFR 778.114). The conditions are specific: your hours have to genuinely vary week to week, you still receive the agreed salary in a short week, there must be an understanding that the salary covers all hours worked, and the salary has to be high enough to pay at least the minimum wage even in your longest week.
Take a $52,000 salary, which is $1,000 a week, and a week in which you work 46 hours.
| Method A (salary for 40 hrs) | Method B (fluctuating workweek) | |
|---|---|---|
| Regular rate | $1,000 ÷ 40 = $25.00 | $1,000 ÷ 46 = $21.74 |
| Overtime owed | 6 hrs × $25.00 × 1.5 = $225.00 | 6 hrs × $21.74 × 0.5 = $65.22 |
| Total for the week | $1,225.00 | $1,065.22 |
The difference is what your salary was agreed to cover, and the arrangement has to be a clear, mutual understanding in place beforehand.
One warning about that table. It shows what you are owed going forward, in a job that is properly classified. If an employer treated you as exempt and should not have, the method used to measure back pay is contested: the federal appeals courts that have decided the question have allowed the half-time method in misclassification cases, while some district courts have awarded the full 1.5 times (Boyce v. Independent Brewers United Corp., N.D. Cal. 2016). Treat that figure as something to take to the Wage and Hour Division or an attorney, not as a number the table settles.
Method B is also not available everywhere. California provides by statute that a fixed salary to a non-exempt employee compensates only the regular, non-overtime hours, notwithstanding any private agreement to the contrary, and that the regular hourly rate is one-fortieth of the weekly salary (Cal. Lab. Code § 515). So a California salaried non-exempt worker gets Method A.
For Method A, set the Salary to Hourly Calculator to 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year with no unpaid weeks off, which reproduces $52,000 ÷ 2,080 = $25.00 an hour for the example above. Then enter that rate and your hours in the Overtime Calculator, where you pick the multiplier and can switch to a daily (8/12-hour) rule. It has no half-time fluctuating-workweek mode, so for Method B use the arithmetic in the table above.
The arithmetic rests on two rules:
- Hours are counted per workweek. “Averaging of hours over two or more weeks is not permitted” (Fact Sheet #23). Work 48 hours one week and 32 the next and you are owed 8 overtime hours, even though the two weeks total 80.
- More than your base salary counts toward the regular rate. It includes “all remuneration for employment” except a listed set of exclusions, so non-discretionary bonuses and commissions usually have to be folded in before you multiply (Fact Sheet #56A). Discretionary bonuses, expense reimbursements and paid time off are among the exclusions.
If you do not know your hours in the first place, our Time Card Calculator totals a week with breaks and overtime, and the Biweekly Time Card Calculator keeps the two weeks separate so the per-workweek rule does not get lost.
The salary basis rules: what your employer may and may not deduct
Being paid a salary means receiving “a predetermined amount of compensation each pay period” that “cannot be reduced because of variations in the quality or quantity of the employee’s work” (Fact Sheet #17G).
If you are exempt, you must receive your full salary for any week in which you perform any work, however few days or hours you worked. The condition is that you are ready, willing and able to work: “If the employee is ready, willing and able to work, deductions may not be made for time when work is not available” (Fact Sheet #17G). A week when the work is not there is therefore a full-salary week.
Deductions are allowed in a set of specific cases, and an employer that persists in deducting outside them can forfeit the exemption. The permitted ones include full-day absences for personal reasons other than sickness or disability; full-day sickness absences under a bona fide plan that compensates for salary lost to illness; offsetting jury, witness or military pay; good-faith penalties for infractions of major safety rules; unpaid disciplinary suspensions of a full day or more for workplace conduct rule infractions; and the first and last week of employment, or weeks of unpaid FMLA leave (Fact Sheet #17G; 29 CFR 541.602).
Isolated or inadvertent improper deductions that the employer reimburses will not cost the exemption, but an “actual practice” of them will (29 CFR 541.603).
Questions that come up next
My salary is below $684 a week. Am I always non-exempt? For the white-collar exemptions, yes, because you fail the salary level test. The exception is the three groups with no salary test at all: outside sales employees, teachers, and employees practicing law or medicine (Fact Sheet #17G).
I am salaried and I worked 35 hours this week. What am I owed? If you are exempt, your full salary, because an exempt employee is paid for any week in which they perform any work. If you are non-exempt, your salary is only a method of payment: you are still owed at least the minimum wage for every hour worked, but the FLSA does not require your full weekly salary for a short week. Whether your employer must pay it is a matter of your agreement and state law, and some states do provide a way to claim promised wages (Handy Reference Guide).
Can my employer make me work 60 hours? Federal law sets no limit on the hours in a day or a week you can be required or scheduled to work, including overtime hours, if you are at least 16 (Handy Reference Guide). If you are exempt, the extra hours bring no extra pay. If you are non-exempt, they are all payable at 1.5 times your regular rate.
Can my employer give me time off instead of overtime pay? A private employer cannot. The FLSA limits comp time in place of cash overtime to public agencies (DOL elaws).
Is there a deadline to claim back overtime? There is one, and it is short. An FLSA claim for unpaid overtime generally must be brought within two years of the violation, or three years if the violation was willful (29 U.S.C. § 255(a)). That is a reason to sort out your hours and pay records sooner rather than later.
Your state can change the answer
The FLSA sets a minimum. A state law that gives employees more applies on top of it, and federal law does not excuse an employer from a state law that sets a higher minimum wage or a shorter maximum workweek (29 U.S.C. § 218(a)). Where the two differ, the more protective one applies.
California adds two things the federal rule does not have. It requires overtime after eight hours in a day, not just 40 in a week, and double time for hours over 12 in a day (DIR). Its white-collar exemption also requires a monthly salary equivalent to no less than twice the state minimum wage for full-time employment (Cal. Lab. Code § 515). With the state minimum wage at $16.90 an hour in 2026, the Labor Commissioner’s Office puts the resulting annual salary floor at $70,304 (DIR). So a California employee earning $50,000 can be exempt under federal law and non-exempt in California.
Washington shows how far a state can move the salary bar. Its minimum wage is $17.13 an hour in 2026, and the exemption threshold for all employers is 2.25 times that: $1,541.70 a week, or $80,168.40 a year (L&I). L&I states the overlap rule as directly as it can be put: businesses must meet the state threshold because it is higher than the federal one, and where the two conflict they must meet the threshold most favorable to employees (L&I).
These figures tend to move every year. The DOL keeps a directory of state labor offices with a contact for each state, which is the fastest way to check your own.
If you think you have been misclassified
Overtime cannot be waived by agreement. An employer’s announcement that overtime is not permitted, or that it will not be paid unless approved in advance, does not remove the right to be paid for hours actually worked (Fact Sheet #23).
Keep your own record of hours worked, even if your employer says none is needed. The calculation above needs your actual hours, and so does any claim.
You can raise it more than one way: ask payroll or HR in writing, file with the federal Wage and Hour Division, or contact your state labor office. The WHD takes complaints by phone at 1-866-487-9243 and keeps them confidential, and federal law prohibits an employer from retaliating against a worker who files a complaint (29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3); DOL Wage and Hour Division). In California, the Labor Commissioner’s Office handles wage claims and retaliation complaints (DIR).
For a specific dispute, an employment attorney who works in your state is the right call.
Calculations here are estimates for your own records, not legal, tax or payroll advice. Exemption turns on the facts of your job, and state law may differ. Check the official sources linked above and your employer’s records before relying on any figure.