New Hampshire Overtime Laws: Exemptions, Claims, and Retaliation

New Hampshire overtime laws require your employer to pay you one and a half times your regular hourly rate for every hour you work beyond 40 in a single workweek. That rule sits in state statute at RSA 279:21, but most New Hampshire workers actually get their overtime protection through the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The practical result is usually identical. What changes is where you look when something goes wrong.

The 40-Hour Rule and What Counts as Your Regular Rate

The threshold is weekly, not daily. Working ten hours on a Monday does not by itself trigger overtime; working more than 40 hours across a seven-day workweek does. Your employer picks which seven consecutive days make up that workweek, and it does not have to run Monday through Sunday, but once set it has to stay consistent. An employer cannot shift the workweek around to dodge the overtime trigger.

Your overtime rate builds on your “regular rate of pay,” which is broader than your base hourly wage. Under federal rules, the regular rate includes nearly all compensation you receive for work, including shift differentials, production bonuses, and commissions. Those extras get folded in before the time-and-a-half multiplier is applied.¹ If your employer runs overtime math on your base wage alone and ignores a shift premium or a monthly bonus, you are being underpaid even if the 1.5× multiplier looks correct on the stub.

State Law or Federal Law?

RSA 279:21 actually exempts any employee whose employer is already covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.² The FLSA covers virtually every business with annual revenue of at least $500,000, plus hospitals, schools, and government agencies regardless of revenue. So most New Hampshire workers get overtime from federal law. The state rule catches workers whose employers fall outside FLSA coverage, such as some small businesses.

New Hampshire does add one protection that goes beyond federal law. Employers paying delivery drivers or sales merchandisers cannot use the “fluctuating workweek” method of calculating overtime, a federal formula that can shrink overtime pay by averaging hours across weeks with uneven schedules.² If you drive deliveries or merchandise sales in New Hampshire, your overtime has to be calculated at the standard time-and-a-half rate regardless of how your hours fluctuate.

Who Is Exempt From Overtime

Not every worker qualifies. Certain salaried employees in executive, administrative, and professional roles are exempt, but only if they meet both a salary test and a duties test. A job title alone does not control the question. What you actually do and what you are paid both matter.

The salary threshold is $684 per week, or $35,568 per year. The U.S. Department of Labor attempted to raise this amount in 2024, but a federal court vacated the new rule, leaving the 2019 threshold in place.³ If you earn less than $684 per week on salary, you are entitled to overtime regardless of your job duties.

Even above the salary floor, you only lose overtime if your actual work fits one of these categories:

Executive employees who primarily manage the business or a recognized department and regularly direct at least two full-time workers or the part-time equivalent.⁴
Administrative employees whose primary duty is office or non-manual work directly related to management or general business operations, and who exercise independent judgment on matters of significance.
Professional employees whose work requires advanced knowledge in a field typically acquired through prolonged, specialized education, such as licensed engineers, attorneys, or physicians.
Computer professionals doing systems analysis, programming, software engineering, or similar high-level work. Hourly computer professionals must earn at least $27.63 per hour. Help desk technicians and hardware repair workers generally do not qualify.⁵
Outside salespeople who regularly work away from the employer’s premises making sales or obtaining contracts. No minimum salary applies to this exemption.

New Hampshire’s statute adds a state-specific overtime exemption for employees of seasonal or recreational establishments that operate for seven months or fewer per year, or that earn at least 75% of their annual revenue within a six-month window.²

If You’ve Been Classified as an Independent Contractor

Overtime protections apply only to employees, so some employers try to sidestep the rules by labeling workers as independent contractors. Signing a contract that calls you one does not settle the question. Under RSA 281-A:2 VI(b), a worker must satisfy every criterion on a multi-factor checklist to be considered an independent contractor. Fail even one, and you are legally an employee.⁶

For unemployment insurance purposes, New Hampshire uses the “ABC test.” You are presumed to be an employee unless the employer proves all three of the following: you are free from the employer’s control over how you perform the work, the service you provide is outside the employer’s usual business or performed away from all of its locations, and you are independently established in your own trade or business.⁶ If you suspect you have been misclassified, you can still file a wage claim for unpaid overtime.

How to File an Overtime Wage Claim

If your employer owes you overtime, the New Hampshire Department of Labor handles wage claims through its Hearings Bureau. You have 36 months from the date wages were due to file.⁷ Before filing, gather what you have: pay stubs, time records, schedules, text messages about hours, anything that shows what you worked and what you were paid.

The Department provides a Wage Claim Form. Mail submissions go to the Hearings Bureau at 95 Pleasant Street, Concord, NH 03301. Email goes to dolhearings@dol.nh.gov.⁸

After you file, the Department serves a copy on your employer, who has 10 days to object. If no objection comes in, the commissioner can order payment. If the employer disputes the claim, the Department schedules a hearing where both sides present evidence and can bring witnesses or an attorney. A written decision follows within 30 days of the hearing, and either side can appeal to superior court within 20 days, though the court reviews only questions of law.⁷ You do not need a lawyer to file. Complex misclassification cases or large back-pay claims may be worth getting one.

Liquidated Damages When Nonpayment Is Willful

When an employer willfully and without good cause fails to pay wages you are owed, New Hampshire adds liquidated damages on top of the unpaid amount. The damages run at 10 percent of the unpaid wages for each day the violation continues, excluding Sundays and legal holidays, capped at the total unpaid wages, whichever figure is smaller.⁹ If your employer delays long enough, you can recover up to double the original amount.

The “willfully and without good cause” phrase does real work. An honest accounting error has a defense. An employer who knows the overtime is owed and refuses to pay does not. A pattern of paying straight time for hours over 40, or quietly rounding down weekly totals, is the kind of conduct these damages target.

Retaliation Is Illegal

Your employer cannot fire, demote, or otherwise punish you for exercising your wage rights. Under RSA 275:38-a, retaliation is prohibited against workers who file a wage complaint, participate in an investigation, testify at a hearing, or discuss their wages with coworkers.¹⁰ If your employer cuts your hours or shifts you to worse schedules after you raise an overtime concern, that conduct can be a separate violation.

One narrow exception: employees whose jobs give them access to other workers’ pay information, such as payroll staff, cannot disclose that information to people who would not otherwise have it, unless the disclosure is part of a formal complaint or investigation.

Keep Your Own Records

You have three years from discovering an overtime violation to file a state wage claim, and no claim can reach back more than four years before the filing date.¹¹ The federal FLSA clock is two years for ordinary violations and three for willful ones, so the two timelines roughly align when the conduct is willful.

Employers must keep accurate records of hours worked and wages paid for at least three years, and those records must be available for inspection by the labor commissioner.¹² If your employer has been sloppy about tracking hours or has lost the records, that tends to cut in your favor at a hearing. Still, keeping your own log is one of the strongest things you can do to protect yourself. A notes app, a pocket calendar, or saved text messages confirming your schedule can decide a case when an employer claims you worked 38 hours in a week you know ran to 45.

1
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 56A: Overview of the Regular Rate of Pay Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
2
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 279:21 – Minimum Hourly Rate
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption From Minimum Wage and Overtime Protections Under the FLSA
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17A: Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17E: Exemption for Employees in Computer-Related Occupations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
6
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Employee Misclassification
7
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 275:51 – Enforcement
8
New Hampshire Department of Labor. File an Online Wage Claim
9
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 275:44 – Employees Separated From Payroll Before Pay Day
10
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Equal Pay Poster – RSA 275:38-a Non-Retaliation Provision
11
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 275:41 – Limitation of Actions
12
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 279:27 – Records of Hours and Wages