Nevada’s overtime laws use a 24-hour period that starts when you clock in, not at midnight. If you earn less than $18.00 an hour and work more than eight hours inside that rolling 24 hours, every hour past eight is owed at one and a half times your regular rate under NRS 608.018.1Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 608.018 – Compensation for Overtime: Requirement; Exceptions That daily trigger sits on top of the federal 40-hour weekly rule, so Nevada workers get whichever protection kicks in first.
How the 24-Hour Workday Is Measured
NRS 608.0126 defines a workday as 24 consecutive hours beginning when the employee starts work.2Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code Chapter 608 – Compensation, Wages and Hours The clock does not reset at midnight. It resets 24 hours after you clocked in for your shift.
The consequences show up in back-to-back schedules. Suppose you start at 2:00 PM and finish at 8:00 PM. Your workday runs until 2:00 PM the next day. If your employer calls you back at 6:00 AM and you work eight more hours until 2:00 PM, all eight of those morning hours fall inside the same workday as the previous evening’s shift. You’ve worked 14 hours in one workday, and six of them are owed at the overtime rate. An employer cannot avoid daily overtime by splitting hours across two calendar dates.3Office of the Labor Commissioner. Nevada Department of Business and Industry Advisory Opinion – AO-2025-07 Interpretation of Workday
This is also where Nevada goes beyond federal law. The Fair Labor Standards Act only requires overtime after 40 hours in a workweek and sets no daily limit.4U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay When state law is more protective, the state rule applies, and Nevada layers its daily trigger on top of the federal weekly one.
Who Qualifies: The $18.00 Wage Threshold
Not every Nevada employee gets daily overtime. Coverage depends on your hourly rate. Only workers earning less than 1.5 times the state minimum wage are covered by the eight-hour daily trigger.5Office of the Labor Commissioner. Nevada Daily Overtime 2025 Annual Bulletin
Nevada’s minimum wage is $12.00 per hour after the two-tier system ended on July 1, 2024.6Office of the Labor Commissioner. Welcome to the Office of the Labor Commissioner That puts the threshold at $18.00 per hour. Earn less than $18.00, and you qualify for daily overtime after eight hours. Earn $18.00 or more, and the daily rule doesn’t apply to you.5Office of the Labor Commissioner. Nevada Daily Overtime 2025 Annual Bulletin
The rate that matters is your gross hourly pay before deductions for taxes, insurance, or retirement. If you sit close to the boundary, a raise or a rate change can move you from one rule to the other.
What Higher Earners Get
At $18.00 an hour or more, you fall under the standard weekly overtime framework. Long individual shifts don’t trigger overtime on their own. Your employer owes you time-and-a-half only once your workweek total passes 40 hours. A 12-hour Monday followed by short shifts the rest of the week produces no overtime for a worker at this pay level.1Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 608.018 – Compensation for Overtime: Requirement; Exceptions
The employer sets when the workweek begins, but once fixed, it has to stay consistent.7U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act
The 4/10 Schedule Exception
Nevada’s overtime statute carves out an important exception for compressed schedules. If you and your employer mutually agree to a four-day, ten-hour workweek, the extra two hours per day do not trigger daily overtime.1Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 608.018 – Compensation for Overtime: Requirement; Exceptions The agreement has to be real. An employer cannot decide after the fact that you were on a 4/10 schedule to dodge overtime already earned.
The exception only covers hours nine and ten on those four scheduled days. Anything past ten in a workday, or past 40 in a workweek, still triggers overtime.
What Hours Count Toward Eight
Every hour your employer “suffers or permits” you to work counts. That includes primary duties, but it also captures activities workers often assume are unpaid: mandatory pre-shift meetings, required training, time putting on and taking off safety equipment when the employer requires it on-site, and travel between job sites during the workday.
Off-the-clock work is where disputes commonly arise. Answering emails before your shift, setting up equipment before clocking in, or staying late to clean up all count as work time even if the minutes aren’t recorded. If those hidden minutes push your day past eight hours, you’re owed overtime for the excess.
Who Is Exempt Entirely
NRS 608.018(3) excludes several categories of workers from Nevada’s overtime protections regardless of pay rate:
- Agricultural employees.1Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 608.018 – Compensation for Overtime: Requirement; Exceptions
- Live-in domestic workers, when the exemption is agreed to in writing. Domestic workers who don’t live in the home stay covered.
- Employees of businesses with gross annual sales under $250,000.
- Motor carrier drivers, loaders, and mechanics subject to the federal Motor Carrier Act, along with local delivery drivers paid on a trip-rate basis and taxi or limousine drivers.8Nevada Department of Health and Human Services. Nevada Code NRS 608.018 – Compensation for Overtime: Requirement; Exceptions
- Retail or service commission workers whose regular rate exceeds 1.5 times minimum wage and whose pay is more than half commission, and salespeople or mechanics who mainly sell or service cars, trucks, or farm equipment.
Federal white-collar exemptions apply as well. Executive, administrative, and professional employees paid at least $684 per week on a salary basis and performing qualifying duties are exempt from overtime under the FLSA.9U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Employee Exemptions Misclassifying a non-exempt employee as exempt is one of the more common wage violations, and it carries penalties.
If You Aren’t Being Paid Daily Overtime
Start by asking your employer. Nevada’s Office of the Labor Commissioner will not accept a wage claim unless you’ve first requested the unpaid wages directly.
After that, you can file a wage claim through the Labor Commissioner’s online portal at no cost.10Office of the Labor Commissioner. Forms for Employees The deadline is two years from the violation. A few conditions cut off that route: if you’ve already sued to recover the same wages, the Labor Commissioner won’t take the case, and workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement have to go through their union grievance process instead.
You can also file a federal complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division for FLSA violations. The federal deadline is two years, or three if the employer’s conduct was willful. Successful federal claims can recover liquidated damages equal to the unpaid wages, effectively doubling the amount owed, plus attorneys’ fees.
Retaliation for raising these issues is illegal. Section 15(a)(3) of the FLSA prohibits firing, demoting, cutting hours, or otherwise punishing an employee for filing a wage complaint, taking part in an investigation, or raising the issue internally.11U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 77A: Prohibiting Retaliation Under the Fair Labor Standards Act Protection extends to former employees, and you don’t have to be right about the underlying claim to be shielded. Good faith is enough. Remedies for retaliation include reinstatement, back pay, and liquidated damages.