California has four overtime triggers that can all fire in the same week:
• Daily OT after 8 hours in a workday (1.5×). • Daily DT after 12 hours in a workday (2×). • Weekly OT after 40 hours in a workweek (1.5×). • 7th-day rule: first 8 hours of the 7th consecutive workday are OT regardless of weekly totals, and hours 9+ are DT.
California applies daily and weekly overtime together — both can fire in the same workweek, but the same hour is never paid twice. Daily is calculated first; weekly applies to remaining regular hours that push the workweek total above 40.
The four California overtime rules
Each rule is defined in California Labor Code § 510 and the Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) Wage Orders. The default rules below apply to workers covered by Wage Order 4-2001 (professional, technical, clerical, mechanical occupations) — which captures the bulk of staffing placements. Industry-specific Wage Orders may modify these thresholds.
Hours worked in excess of 8 in any one workday must be paid at one and one-half times the regular rate. The workday is a fixed, regularly recurring 24-hour period chosen by the employer.
This applies regardless of the worker's weekly total. A worker who logs 10 hours on Monday and zero hours for the rest of the week still earns 2 hours of overtime for that Monday.
Hours worked in excess of 12 in any one workday must be paid at two times the regular rate. Hours 9 through 12 are paid at the OT rate (1.5×); hours 13 and beyond are paid at the DT rate (2×).
A 14-hour workday produces: 8 hours REG, 4 hours OT (hours 9–12), and 2 hours DT (hours 13–14).
Hours worked in excess of 40 in any one workweek must be paid at one and one-half times the regular rate. The workweek is a fixed, regularly recurring 168-hour period of seven consecutive 24-hour periods.
Under California's combined daily/weekly approach, weekly overtime is calculated on hours not already counted toward daily overtime. If a worker has 40 hours of regular plus 8 hours of daily OT in the workweek, the daily OT already triggered the premium — no additional weekly OT applies. But if a worker has 48 hours of regular with no daily OT (e.g., six 8-hour days), the 8 hours above 40 are weekly OT.
On the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek, the first 8 hours must be paid at one and one-half times the regular rate, and hours in excess of 8 must be paid at two times the regular rate.
The 7th-day rule applies regardless of the worker's hours on prior days, and regardless of whether the weekly threshold has been reached. Even a worker logging 4 hours each Monday–Sunday (28 hours total — well below 40) owes the 7th-day premium on those 4 Sunday hours, because Sunday is the 7th consecutive day worked.
The rule resets when the worker takes a day off. A worker who takes Wednesday off and works Mon–Tue, Thu–Sun has not triggered the 7th-day rule, because there is no 7-day consecutive sequence.
Worked example: the full California stack
Here's how a California worker's week classifies when daily OT, daily DT, and the 7th-day rule all fire:
| Day | Hours | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 10.00 | |
| Tue | 14.00 | |
| Wed | 8.00 | |
| Thu | 8.00 | |
| Fri | 8.00 | |
| Sat | 4.00 | |
| Sun | 10.00 |
Several rules apply on the same workweek: daily OT (hours 9+ in a workday), daily DT (hours 13+ in a workday), 7th-day OT and DT (Cal. Lab. Code § 510(a)), and the federal/state weekly 40-hour rule on whatever regular-time hours remain after the daily-rule premiums are taken out. The example above shows them composing — Sunday alone fires both 7th-day OT (hours 1–8) and 7th-day DT (hours 9+), because the 7th-day rule has its own double-time trigger on hours beyond 8.
Common mistakes
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Calculating only weekly overtime.
The most common mistake is using the federal FLSA 40-hour weekly threshold and ignoring California's daily 8-hour rule. A worker logging four 10-hour shifts in a workweek (40 total) owes 8 hours of overtime in California even though their weekly total is exactly at the federal threshold. Federal payroll software often misses this entirely.
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Double-counting hours.
Daily and weekly overtime can both apply in the same workweek, but the same hour is never paid twice. If Monday's hours 9–10 are already classified as daily OT, those 2 hours don't ALSO count as weekly OT — they count once, at the higher applicable rate. Spreadsheets that sum hours across categories often double-count, inflating gross wage liability.
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Misidentifying the 7th consecutive day.
"7th consecutive workday" means seven days worked in a row within a workweek, not literally Sunday. If your workweek starts Wednesday and the worker works Wed–Tue without a day off, Tuesday is the 7th consecutive day — not Sunday. The day off resets the count, so a worker who works Mon–Tue, Thu–Sun (Wed off) has worked 6 consecutive days max and the 7th-day rule doesn't apply.
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Treating split-week workers as having two short weeks.
If a worker is placed at a California client for part of a workweek and a different California client for the rest, all hours aggregate to the same agency-defined workweek for overtime purposes. The agency owes overtime on the total. Splitting the calculation by client produces under-classification.
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Misclassifying salaried workers as exempt.
California's exemption tests are stricter than the federal FLSA. To be properly exempt, an employee must earn at least twice the state minimum wage for full-time work and satisfy a duties test for executive, administrative, or professional categories. Calling a worker "salaried" doesn't make them exempt — and misclassification carries significant back-wages and penalty exposure.
What you get with TimeCardCruncher
California has the most layered overtime rules in the country — daily, double-time, the 7th-consecutive-day premium, and weekly all on top of each other. You don't have to decide which rule fires on which day, track which workers crossed which threshold, or remember which Labor Code provision justifies which line item. The math runs against every California timecard you submit, every batch — and invoices come back ready to defend if a wage-and-hour question comes up.
A note on scope: the default treatment is what applies to most staffing placements. If your placement is in an industry covered by a different IWC Wage Order (agriculture, healthcare alternative workweeks, motion picture, etc.), the calculations may need adjustment — flag those placements for review with counsel.