In Texas, overtime kicks in after 40 hours in a workweek, not after 8 hours in a day. Texas has no state overtime law, so the federal Fair Labor Standards Act controls, and the FLSA measures overtime by the week. A 12-hour shift on its own does not create overtime. What matters is whether your total hours for that workweek go past 40.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 207 – Maximum Hours
Some states do it differently. California, for example, requires overtime after eight hours in a single day. Texas does not have that rule, and there is no legal basis in Texas for claiming overtime based on the length of one shift. Whether you work four 10-hour days or five 8-hour days, the question is the same: did you cross 40 hours that week?
How the Workweek Is Defined
Under the FLSA, a workweek is any fixed, recurring period of 168 hours, meaning seven consecutive 24-hour periods.2U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay Your employer chooses the start day and start time. It does not have to line up with a Monday-through-Friday calendar. Once picked, the workweek stays fixed unless the employer permanently changes it for a legitimate business reason.
Each workweek stands alone, and that is the part payroll departments sometimes try to bend. Your employer cannot average hours across two weeks to avoid overtime. Work 50 hours one week and 30 the next, and you are owed 10 hours of overtime for the first week, even though the two-week average is exactly 40.2U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay The average is irrelevant. Only the individual week counts.
What Your Overtime Rate Is
Overtime pays one and a half times your regular rate for every hour over 40.3U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 23 – Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA If you earn $20 an hour, overtime pays $30 an hour. Straight hourly wages make the math easy.
Your regular rate is not always your base hourly wage, though. The FLSA requires employers to fold in most of the compensation you receive during that workweek, including non-discretionary bonuses, commissions, shift differentials, and standby pay.3U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 23 – Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA Night-shift premiums and on-call pay count too.4U.S. Department of Commerce. Calculating Overtime Entitlements Under FLSA Discretionary bonuses (a surprise holiday gift, for instance), expense reimbursements, and premium pay already paid at an overtime rate are excluded. For salaried employees, the regular rate is the weekly salary divided by the hours the salary is meant to cover: $800 a week for a 40-hour schedule works out to $20 an hour regular, $30 an hour overtime.
Who Actually Qualifies
The FLSA covers most workers in Texas, but not everyone. Two things must be true: the law has to apply to you or your employer, and you must not fall into an exempt category.
The FLSA applies to any business with at least $500,000 in annual gross revenue, plus hospitals, schools, nursing facilities, and government agencies regardless of size.5U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act Even if your employer is smaller than that, you can be individually covered if your work touches interstate commerce in any meaningful way, such as making out-of-state phone calls, handling shipments, or processing card transactions.
Common Exemptions
Exempt employees get no overtime, no matter how many hours they work. Job title does not decide the question. What decides it is what you actually do and how you are paid.
For the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions, you must earn at least $684 per week on a salary basis, which is $35,568 a year.6U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption The Department of Labor tried to raise that threshold in 2024, but a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas vacated the rule in November 2024, reverting enforcement to the earlier amount.7U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17G – Salary Basis Requirement and the Part 541 Exemptions Under the FLSA Salary alone is not enough; you also have to meet the duties test for the specific exemption.
The executive exemption covers employees whose primary duty is managing the business or a recognized department, who regularly direct at least two full-time employees, and whose input on hiring and firing carries real weight.8eCFR. Part 541 – Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees The administrative exemption covers office or non-manual work directly related to running the business, involving independent judgment on matters that actually affect operations. Routine data entry does not count, even if the job is skilled. This is the exemption employers misapply most often. The learned professional exemption covers work requiring advanced knowledge in a field of science or learning, typically gained through a prolonged course of specialized education (doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, and the like).9U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17D – Exemption for Professional Employees Under the FLSA
Two exemptions carry particular weight in Texas. Outside sales employees whose primary duty is making sales away from the employer’s place of business are exempt with no minimum salary requirement; inside sales reps working by phone do not qualify.10U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17F – Exemption for Outside Sales Employees Under the FLSA The motor carrier exemption removes overtime rights from drivers, driver’s helpers, loaders responsible for safe loading, and mechanics whose duties affect the safety of vehicles operating in interstate commerce.11U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 19 – The Motor Carrier Exemption Under the FLSA Dispatchers, office staff, and workers who only unload trucks are not covered by that exemption and stay eligible for overtime.
Highly compensated employees earning at least $107,432 a year, including at least $684 per week in salary, face a relaxed duties test and only need to regularly perform one exempt duty to be exempt.6U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption
Hours That Count Toward 40
Because the 40-hour threshold is the whole game, employers sometimes try to keep you under it by leaving out hours that legally count as work.
Your normal commute is not compensable, but travel between job sites during the workday always is. If your employer sends you to another city for a one-day assignment, the travel time beyond your normal commute counts too.12U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 22 – Hours Worked Under the FLSA For overnight travel, time spent traveling during your normal working hours counts as work time even on days you would not otherwise be working.
Mandatory training, meetings, and lectures generally count. Training time can be excluded only if all four of these are true: attendance is outside regular hours, attendance is voluntary, the training is not directly related to your job, and you do no productive work during it. Miss any one condition and the time counts.
Work your employer “suffers or permits” also counts, even if it was never formally requested. Answering emails after hours, finishing paperwork before clocking in, taking work calls during lunch: all compensable if your employer knows or should know the work is happening. Telling you not to record the time does not let the employer keep the benefit for free.
Comp Time Is Not a Legal Substitute in the Private Sector
A common Texas workplace myth is that an employer can hand out paid time off instead of overtime pay. Private employers cannot. The FLSA allows compensatory time in place of overtime only for state and local government employees.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 207 – Maximum Hours If a private employer offers “comp time” for weeks over 40 hours, that arrangement violates federal law. You are owed cash. For government workers who can use comp time, it accrues at one and a half hours per overtime hour, capped at 480 hours for public safety and emergency response employees and 240 hours for other government workers.
If You Were Not Paid Overtime You Earned
Texas workers have two paths for recovering unpaid overtime.
The federal route is a confidential complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division at 1-866-487-9243 or online. The WHD investigates and can order back wages. You do not need a lawyer.13U.S. Department of Labor. How to File a Complaint The statute of limitations is two years from the date the wages were due, or three years if the violation was willful.14eCFR. 5 CFR 551.702 – Time Limits
The state route is a wage claim with the Texas Workforce Commission under the Texas Payday Law. You must file within 180 days of when the wages were originally due.15Texas Workforce Commission. Texas Payday Law – Wage Claim TWC notifies your employer, gives them 14 days to respond, and issues a preliminary determination. If the employer will not pay, TWC collections pursues the balance. The process is free and requires no attorney, but the 180-day window is much shorter than the federal statute.
Under federal law, a successful claim gets you the unpaid overtime plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, effectively doubling the recovery.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties A court can reduce or eliminate the liquidated damages if the employer proves it acted in good faith and had reasonable grounds for believing its pay practices were legal.17Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 260 – Liquidated Damages The court must also award reasonable attorney’s fees and costs to a prevailing employee.
Your employer cannot fire you, cut your hours, or otherwise punish you for filing a complaint or cooperating with an investigation. The FLSA prohibits retaliation, and an employer who retaliates faces separate liability for reinstatement, lost wages, and additional damages.18U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 77A – Prohibiting Retaliation Under the Fair Labor Standards Act Report suspected retaliation to the Wage and Hour Division right away; the retaliation claim sometimes ends up worth more than the underlying overtime dispute.