Makeup time in California lets a non-exempt employee take a few hours off during the workday for a personal reason and work those hours later in the same workweek at the regular rate of pay, without the extra hours triggering daily overtime. The rule sits in Labor Code Section 513, and it only works if you follow every step: a signed written request from you, written approval from your employer before you work the makeup hours, both the absence and the makeup falling in the same workweek, and your total hours staying within 11 in a day and 40 in the week.1California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 513 – Make Up Work Time Miss any of those pieces and the extra hours are overtime.
Who Qualifies
Makeup time is for non-exempt employees. If you’re exempt from overtime, the provision doesn’t do anything for you, because the point of Section 513 is to carve out a narrow exception to the daily overtime rules in Sections 510 and 511. Those rules don’t apply to exempt workers in the first place.1California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 513 – Make Up Work Time
How the Arrangement Works
You miss some hours one day, you work extra hours another day, and the two happen inside the same seven-day workweek your employer has established. Take Friday afternoon off and the makeup has to be done by the end of that workweek. If your workweek ends Sunday and you try to make up Friday’s hours the following Monday, you’ve crossed into a new workweek and the overtime exception no longer applies.1California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 513 – Make Up Work Time
The reason for the time off has to be a personal obligation. The statute doesn’t define the term, which leaves room for the ordinary stuff: a doctor’s appointment, a child’s school event, a family matter, a car repair. What matters legally is that the request is yours. The arrangement has to be employee-initiated, not something the employer sets up for you.
The 11-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
Two ceilings box in the arrangement:
- Your total hours in a single workday cannot exceed 11. Hours above 11 lose the overtime exemption.
- Your total hours in the workweek cannot exceed 40. Hours above 40 trigger weekly overtime.
Inside those limits, makeup hours are paid at your regular rate. A ten-hour day built on eight scheduled hours plus two makeup hours generates no daily overtime, even though California normally pays time-and-a-half after eight hours in a day.2Department of Industrial Relations. Understanding AB 60 – Eight Hour Day Restoration and Workplace Flexibility Act of 1999
Push past the ceilings and ordinary overtime law comes right back. Hours beyond 11 in a day are paid at 1.5 times your regular rate. Hours beyond 12 in a day are paid at double your rate. Any hours above 40 for the week are overtime regardless of how the schedule was built.3Department of Industrial Relations. Overtime – California Department of Industrial Relations
The Written Request
Every occasion needs its own signed written request. A standing arrangement, a blanket month-long request, or a recurring agreement does not satisfy the statute. One request per instance.1California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 513 – Make Up Work Time
Section 513 says the request must be signed and in writing. It doesn’t prescribe a form or a list of required fields. In practice a useful request identifies the date and hours you plan to miss, the date and hours you plan to work in their place, and the personal reason. That level of detail helps everyone confirm the schedule stays within the 11-hour and 40-hour limits. Many employers have an HR form for this; if yours doesn’t, a short signed memo or letter is fine. Electronic submission generally works as long as the employer can verify the signature belongs to you.
Employer Approval, and the Line Employers Can’t Cross
Your employer must approve the request in writing before you start the makeup hours. A verbal yes is not enough. Until the approval is in writing, any extra hours you work are just extra hours, and overtime applies the usual way.1California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 513 – Make Up Work Time
Approval is discretionary. The statute says “if an employer approves,” and an employer can say no for legitimate business reasons like staffing, safety, or operations. There is no right to compel approval.
On the other side of that, the law bars the employer from encouraging or soliciting you to use makeup time. The request has to originate with you. The IWC wage orders draw the line clearly: an employer may inform employees that the makeup time option exists, but may not go further by encouraging anyone to use it.4Department of Industrial Relations. IWC Wage Order 11170 – Miscellaneous Employees A manager who routinely suggests employees leave early and stay late later in the week is violating the statute even if the employees prefer it that way.
What You Get Paid
When the paperwork, the workweek, and the hour caps all line up, your makeup hours are paid at your regular rate. That is the whole financial point of the arrangement: your weekly hours stay at 40, your pay stays whole, and nobody owes an overtime premium because the schedule shifted.
The exception is narrow. It suspends the daily overtime trigger up to 11 hours and does nothing else. Weekly overtime, double time past 12, and overtime on hours above 40 all operate normally.3Department of Industrial Relations. Overtime – California Department of Industrial Relations
Common Mistakes That Turn Makeup Time Into Overtime
Most problems come from skipping the paperwork. An employee who tells a supervisor they’re leaving at two and will stay late Wednesday hasn’t satisfied Section 513. Without a signed written request and written approval, those extra hours are overtime, full stop. Informal arrangements are where this falls apart most often, especially in smaller workplaces.
The second common mistake is letting the makeup slip into the next workweek. If you miss hours Friday and your workweek ends Sunday, you have until Sunday. Miss the window and you can’t roll the hours forward without the new week’s hours becoming overtime.
The third is treating approval as standing. Each absence is its own event with its own request and its own approval. A recurring Tuesday-afternoon arrangement doesn’t comply, even if both sides are happy with it.
If Your Employer Doesn’t Pay Overtime You’re Owed
When makeup hours spill past the 11-hour or 40-hour ceiling and the employer pays only straight time, the unpaid premium is a wage claim. Labor Code Section 558 sets a civil penalty of $50 per underpaid employee per pay period for a first violation and $100 per underpaid employee per pay period for subsequent violations, plus recovery of the wages themselves.5California Legislative Information. California Labor Code Section 558 You can file a claim with the Labor Commissioner’s office or take the matter to court.
If you file a complaint, the employer cannot retaliate. Labor Code Section 98.6 prohibits firing, demoting, cutting hours, or any other adverse action against an employee for filing a wage complaint or exercising rights under the Labor Code. If adverse action lands within 90 days of your complaint, the burden shifts to the employer to prove the action had nothing to do with it. If the employer can’t carry that burden, you’re entitled to reinstatement, lost wages, and a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation.6California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 98.6