California Daily Overtime Calculator

How California daily overtime is calculated

Most of the country has one overtime rule: hours over 40 in a week. California has four triggers, and three of them can fire in a week where you never reach 40 hours at all. The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement states them like this:

• Over 8 hours in a workday: one and a half times the regular rate, up to and including 12 hours.
• Over 12 hours in a workday: double the regular rate.
• Over 40 hours in a workweek: one and a half times the regular rate.
• Seventh consecutive day of the workweek: one and a half times for the first 8 hours, double for anything past 8.

Labor Code section 510(a) is the source: "Eight hours of labor constitutes a day's work. Any work in excess of eight hours in one workday and any work in excess of 40 hours in any one workweek and the first eight hours worked on the seventh day of work in any one workweek shall be compensated at the rate of no less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay for an employee. Any work in excess of 12 hours in one day shall be compensated at the rate of no less than twice the regular rate of pay for an employee."

The daily rule stands on its own. Work one 14-hour day and four 4-hour days, and you have worked 30 hours in the week, well under 40, and you are still owed 4 hours at time and a half plus 2 hours at double time from that long day. A calculator that only asks for weekly totals cannot see that, which is why this one asks day by day.

The pyramiding rule most calculators get wrong

Here is where it goes wrong. Four 12-hour days at $20 an hour, nothing the rest of the week. That is 48 hours worked.

Each of those days gives 8 straight-time hours and 4 hours at time and a half, so the week holds 32 straight-time hours and 16 premium hours. Now run the weekly test. The 40-hour threshold is measured against straight-time hours only, and 32 is under 40, so no weekly overtime is owed. Total gross is 32 x $20 plus 16 x $30, which is $1,120.00.

A naive tool tests total hours instead: 48 minus 40 is 8, so it adds 8 more hours at time and a half on top of the 16 already paid. It has now paid for 56 hours in a 48-hour week and overstated the gross by $240. That is pyramiding, and it is prohibited. Wage Order 4-2001 section 3(B)(1) puts it plainly: "No hours paid at either one and one-half (1 1/2) or double the regular rate of pay shall be included in determining when 40 hours have been worked for the purpose of computing overtime compensation." (One caveat about where that sentence sits: it appears in the alternative workweek subsection of the wage order, not in the general provisions. DLSE applies the principle generally, and section 510(a) carries the same idea in its own words: "Nothing in this section requires an employer to combine more than one rate of overtime compensation in order to calculate the amount to be paid to an employee for any hour of overtime work.")

The short version: every hour is paid at the highest single premium that applies to it, and premiums never stack. That is why the calculator above prints the straight-time subtotal on its own line, with the comparison against 40 sitting right next to it. That subtotal is the number the weekly test actually runs on, so you can check the answer instead of taking it on faith.

The seventh day, and why your workweek matters more than your calendar

Seven 10-hour days at $20 an hour, 70 hours total. Days one through six each give 8 straight-time hours and 2 hours at time and a half. The seventh day is different: because all seven days of the workweek were worked, its first 8 hours are time and a half and its last 2 hours are double time, and it contributes zero straight-time hours. The 12-hour rule does not apply on a qualifying seventh day, because every hour of it is already a premium hour.

That leaves 48 straight-time hours, which is 8 over the weekly threshold, so 8 of them move to time and a half. The week finishes at 40 hours straight, 28 hours at 1.5x, and 2 hours at 2x, which is $800 plus $840 plus $80, or $1,720.00. The three buckets add back to 70 hours, which is the check worth running on any overtime calculation you are handed.

The trap is the word "consecutive". It means seven days inside one designated workweek, not seven days on a calendar. DLSE's Enforcement Manual walks through it: "If an employee's workweek begins on Monday morning, but she is not called in to work until Wednesday to work seven consecutive 8-hour days, until Tuesday, she is not due any overtime. His or her workweek ends Sunday night and she has only worked 40 hours with no daily overtime Wednesday through Sunday. Monday begins a new workweek, and she could work 8-hour days through Friday without any overtime due, thus having worked 10 consecutive days without overtime."

So the workweek setting above is not decoration. A workweek is seven consecutive 24-hour periods starting on the same day every week, fixed and regularly recurring, and your employer picks it. Different employees can have different workweeks. An employer can change one only if the change is permanent and is not made to avoid paying overtime. If nothing is documented, DLSE treats the workweek as 12:01 a.m. Sunday through midnight Saturday.

Putting the hours on a pay stub

Once the split is settled, it has to appear on the wage statement as separate lines. A California stub shows each rate paid and the hours worked at it, so the four 12-hour week reads as three rows: Regular at 32.00 hours and $20.00 for $640.00, Overtime at 16.00 hours and $30.00 for $480.00, and Double time at 0.00 hours. Rolling them into a single "wages" line hides the rate an employee is entitled to check.

A few limits worth naming. This page uses one hourly rate for the week; if you were paid two rates, the premium is owed on a weighted-average regular rate, and the shift differential pay calculator handles that case. It does not model alternative workweek schedules, or the healthcare, agricultural, and other carve-outs listed in the DIR's exceptions guidance. And it stops at gross: nothing is withheld here. For the employer-side cost of a 12-hour-day schedule, see the employer payroll cost calculator, and if the overtime in question sits in a last check, the final paycheck calculator covers the timing rules.

Once you have the split, Payslip44 builds the stub itself. Every earnings line keeps its own hours, rate, and amount. Employer and employee details save as reusable templates, YTD figures track per line, there are six layouts to pick from, and the money math is decimal-precise, so nothing drifts by a cent. It all runs on-device, and finished stubs export to PDF, PNG, CSV, or plain text. Download Payslip44 and build the stub.