How Many Hours Can You Legally Work a Day in Washington?

In Washington, there is no general legal limit on how many hours you can work in a day. If you are 18 or older and in a standard non-exempt job, your employer can schedule you for 10, 12, or 16 hours in a single shift without violating state or federal law. What Washington does require is overtime pay past 40 hours in a workweek, paid rest and meal breaks inside long shifts, and stricter protections for healthcare workers, minors, public works crews, and certain transportation employees.¹

No Daily Cap for Most Adult Workers

Washington’s overtime statute is triggered by weekly hours, not daily hours. It kicks in only after you work more than 40 hours in a workweek.² That puts Washington in a different camp from the handful of states that require daily overtime after eight hours.

Federal law works the same way. The Fair Labor Standards Act places no limit on the number of hours employees aged 16 and older can work in a workweek.³ So a 14-hour shift is legal. What holds long shifts in check for most people is the cost of overtime pay to the employer and Washington’s mandatory break rules.

Overtime Pay After 40 Hours a Week

For non-exempt workers, Washington requires overtime pay of at least 1.5 times your regular hourly rate for every hour worked beyond 40 in a workweek.¹ You cannot waive this right, and it applies regardless of employer size.

A workweek is any fixed period of seven consecutive days, or 168 hours. Your employer picks when it starts; if none is designated, it defaults to Sunday through Saturday. Hours cannot be averaged across two or more weeks, so a light week doesn’t cancel out a heavy one.¹

Private-sector employers in Washington cannot substitute compensatory time off (“comp time”) for overtime pay. Only public employees are eligible for comp time under federal law, and even then it must be credited at 1.5 hours off per overtime hour and taken at the employee’s request. If a private employer offers you time off in place of overtime pay, that arrangement violates the law.¹

Required Rest and Meal Breaks During Long Shifts

Even without a daily hour cap, Washington’s break laws put a practical floor under conditions during a long day. These are state protections; federal law does not require employers to offer any lunch or rest breaks at all.⁴

Rest Breaks

You are entitled to a paid rest break of at least 10 minutes for every four hours of work, and your employer cannot make you go longer than three consecutive hours without one. These breaks must be free from all duties, and neither you nor your employer can waive them.⁵ A 12-hour shift means at least three paid rest breaks.

Meal Periods

Any shift longer than five hours triggers a meal period of at least 30 minutes, which must fall between the second and fifth hour of your shift. You must be fully relieved of duties; if your employer keeps you on-call or working, the break counts as paid time. Another 30-minute meal period is required within five hours after the first ends, and again for each additional five hours worked. So an 11-hour shift means a second meal break. Unlike rest breaks, you and your employer can mutually agree to waive meal periods.⁵

Healthcare Workers Cannot Be Forced Into Overtime

The largest carve-out from the “no daily cap” rule applies to healthcare facilities. Under Washington law, no employee of a healthcare facility can be required to work overtime. Any contract or agreement mandating overtime is “void” and “contrary to public policy,” and refusing overtime cannot be used as grounds for discipline, termination, or other adverse action.⁶

Employers can still ask you to stay past your scheduled shift, and you can agree voluntarily. The statute allows mandatory overtime in four narrow situations:

An unforeseeable emergency that no one could have planned for.
Prescheduled on-call time, but the employer cannot use on-call rotations as a substitute for scheduling enough staff or to cover predictable shortages like chronic vacancies.
Documented reasonable efforts to find coverage. Using overtime to fill long-standing vacancies does not qualify.
Patient care already in progress, where leaving mid-procedure would harm the patient.

If a healthcare worker voluntarily accepts overtime and ends up working more than 12 consecutive hours, the employer must offer at least eight consecutive hours of uninterrupted time off afterward.⁶ This is one of the few places in Washington law that functions as a daily hours protection.

Public Works Projects: Eight-Hour Day

Workers on state, county, or municipal construction and infrastructure projects have an extra protection most private-sector employees don’t. Under a statute dating back to 1899, eight hours constitutes a day’s work on any public works project. Hours beyond eight in a single calendar day must be paid at 1.5 times the regular rate, and this requirement is treated as automatically part of every public works contract and subcontract.⁷

This is the only situation in which daily overtime exists for adult workers in Washington. Employers on public works projects who violate the rule face criminal misdemeanor charges carrying fines and potential jail time.⁷

Daily Hour Limits for Workers Under 18

Washington sets firm caps on both daily hours and time-of-day windows for minors. Every employer hiring a minor must have a minor work permit on file.⁸

Ages 14 and 15

During school weeks, 14- and 15-year-olds can work a maximum of three hours on a school day and 16 hours total for the week, all between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. During non-school weeks, the limits rise to eight hours per day and 40 hours per week. From June 1 through Labor Day, the evening cutoff extends to 9 p.m. on days with no school the next day. No more than six days of work per week are allowed.⁹

Ages 16 and 17

During school weeks, 16- and 17-year-olds can work up to four hours on a day followed by a school day and eight hours on other days, capped at 20 hours for the week. Work must end by 10 p.m. before school days, extending to midnight on Friday and Saturday nights or nights before school holidays. During non-school weeks, they can work up to eight hours per day and 48 hours per week, with an allowed window of 5 a.m. to midnight and the same six-day maximum. Minors emancipated by court order are not subject to these hour-of-work limitations, though the employer must still obtain a work permit and comply with other child labor rules.⁹

Federal Daily Limits in Transportation Jobs

If you work in certain transportation industries, federal safety rules impose hard daily caps that apply on top of Washington law.

Commercial Truck and Bus Drivers

Property-carrying commercial drivers can drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, and cannot drive past the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty. Passenger-carrying drivers face a 10-hour driving limit after eight consecutive hours off duty and cannot drive after 15 hours on duty. Both groups are also subject to a 60- or 70-hour cumulative limit over seven or eight consecutive days.¹⁰

Railroad Workers

Train and engine service employees cannot work more than 12 consecutive hours and must receive at least 10 consecutive hours off duty before returning to work. They must also get at least eight consecutive hours off within any 24-hour period.¹¹

Commercial Pilots

A commercial pilot on a standard two-person crew can be scheduled for up to eight hours of flight time in a 24-hour period without an intervening rest period. Anything beyond eight hours requires a rest break during the duty period, and pilots who exceed eight flight hours in 24 hours must receive at least 18 hours of rest before their next assignment.¹²

If Your Employer Breaks the Rules

If your employer is denying you overtime pay, skipping required breaks, or forcing mandatory overtime in a healthcare facility, you can file a complaint with the Washington Department of Labor & Industries. You have three years from the date of the violation to file a wage-related complaint. Retaliation claims have a shorter window of 180 days.¹³

You can file online, mail a complaint form, visit your nearest L&I office, or call 1-866-219-7321. You can file even if you no longer work for the employer. During the investigation, L&I will share your name and complaint with the employer, but the law prohibits retaliation for filing.¹³

Investigations typically wrap up within 60 days. If L&I finds a violation, it can order corrective action and payment of wages owed. Either side has 30 days to appeal a determination to the state Office of Administrative Hearings.¹³ Federal penalties for willful overtime violations can include liquidated damages equal to the full amount of unpaid wages, meaning you may recover double what you are owed.¹⁴

1
Lni.wa.gov. Overtime and Exemptions
2
Washington State Legislature. Washington Code RCW 49.46.130 – Minimum Rate of Compensation for Employment in Excess of Forty Hour Workweek
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Breaks and Meal Periods
5
Lni.wa.gov. Rest Breaks, Meal Periods and Schedules
6
Washington State Legislature. Washington Code RCW 49.28.140 – Hours of Health Care Facility Employees, Mandatory Overtime Prohibited
7
Washington State Legislature. Washington Code RCW 49.28.010 – Eight Hour Day, Public Works Contracts
8
Lni.wa.gov. Hours of Work
9
Department of Labor and Industries. ES.C.4.1 School Week and Work Week for Minors
10
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Summary of Hours of Service Regulations
11
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 228 – Passenger Train Employee Hours of Service
12
eCFR. 14 CFR Part 121 Subpart R – Flight Time Limitations, Flag Operations
13
Lni.wa.gov. Worker Rights Complaints
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties