If you run a staffing agency with workers in Minnesota, your effective weekly overtime threshold is 40 hours, not 48. Hours 41–48 are overtime under federal law, even though Minnesota state statute says they aren't.
This is how the Fair Labor Standards Act has always worked — federal law preempts state law when federal is more protective of workers. TimeCardCruncher handles the Minnesota preemption so your invoices ship correct under the rule that actually applies — without your team having to research it on every payroll run.
What the laws actually say
There are two laws in play. They disagree, and you need to know how the disagreement resolves.
The Minnesota Fair Labor Standards Act (Minn. Stat. §§ 177.21 – 177.35) requires overtime at one and one-half times the regular rate for hours worked in excess of 48 in any workweek. There is no daily overtime requirement under Minnesota state law.
This is the state-law floor. Workers whose employment is also covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act get the more protective of the two thresholds — which, as we'll see, is the federal one.
The federal Fair Labor Standards Act requires overtime at one and one-half times the regular rate for hours worked in excess of 40 in any workweek, for any non-exempt employee covered by the Act.
FLSA Section 18 (29 U.S.C. § 218(a)) is explicit: states may set more protective standards than the federal floor, but a state cannot set a less protective standard for FLSA-covered workers. Where federal and state conflict, the worker-favorable rule applies.
For Minnesota, federal is more protective (40 < 48). So FLSA wins for FLSA-covered workers.
Why this matters for staffing agencies specifically
Staffing agency workers are almost universally FLSA-covered, for two reasons:
- Enterprise coverage. Under 29 U.S.C. § 203(s)(1), any business with at least two employees and at least $500,000 in annual gross volume of sales is FLSA-covered as an "enterprise engaged in commerce." Almost every staffing agency clears this threshold.
- Individual coverage. Even at agencies below the enterprise threshold, individual workers are FLSA-covered if they are engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce — which includes things as routine as making calls or sending emails across state lines, handling goods that came from out of state, or processing payments routed interstate. In modern staffing, this captures essentially every worker.
That means the FLSA 40-hour weekly overtime requirement applies to your Minnesota workers regardless of what Minnesota state law says. The 48-hour Minnesota threshold is, in practice, a footnote — it never overrides the federal floor for the staffing-worker population.
The two thresholds side-by-side
To make the preemption concrete, here's how a single worker logging 46 hours in a Minnesota workweek classifies under each rule. The FLSA result on the right is what applies to FLSA-covered staffing workers — which is essentially all of them.
| Day | Hours | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 9.00 | |
| Tue | 9.00 | |
| Wed | 9.00 | |
| Thu | 9.00 | |
| Fri | 10.00 |
| Day | Hours | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 9.00 | |
| Tue | 9.00 | |
| Wed | 9.00 | |
| Thu | 9.00 | |
| Fri | 10.00 |
The difference is hours 41–48. Under Minnesota state law alone, those hours sit below the weekly threshold and pay at the regular rate. Under FLSA, they cross the 40-hour line and pay at one and one-half times the regular rate. For FLSA-covered workers, the federal rule controls — the state threshold is a statutory dead letter for the staffing-worker population.
Common mistakes
-
Reading Minn. Stat. § 177.25 and stopping there.
The statute says 48 hours, and that's true at the state-law level — but FLSA Section 18 (29 U.S.C. § 218(a)) preserves the more protective standard, and the FLSA's own 40-hour rule is more protective. Reading the state threshold without checking the federal floor produces the wrong answer for staffing.
-
Assuming you're FLSA-exempt because the agency is small.
The $500,000 enterprise threshold is total revenue, not profit, and includes all sources. Even agencies below that threshold typically have workers under individual FLSA coverage through interstate commerce — which captures phone calls, emails, payment processing, and handling goods that crossed state lines.
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Confusing the city minimum-wage ordinances with overtime.
Minneapolis and Saint Paul each have local minimum-wage ordinances that raise the hourly pay floor above the state minimum. Those ordinances do not change the overtime threshold — overtime in Minnesota is still calculated against the FLSA 40-hour weekly floor for FLSA-covered workers, anywhere in the state.
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Confusing this with a daily overtime rule.
Neither Minnesota nor federal law imposes daily overtime in Minnesota. A worker can log 14 hours in one day with no overtime triggered, as long as their weekly total stays under 40. The only Minnesota overtime threshold is weekly.
What you get with TimeCardCruncher
Minnesota state law and federal FLSA disagree on the weekly overtime threshold. You don't have to remember which one wins for your workers, or worry about hours slipping into the wrong category at the state-versus-federal boundary — the math runs against every Minnesota timecard with the right rule applied. Invoices come back ready to defend if a wage-and-hour question comes up.