Overtime Exempt Salary Threshold Calculator

The 2026 Federal Overtime Exempt Salary Threshold Is $35,568, Not $58,656

If you searched for this in 2026, you probably saw $58,656. That number is not the law. Here is the sequence in four beats.

In April 2024 the Department of Labor published a final rule (89 FR 32842) raising the standard salary level for the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions to $844 per week ($43,888 a year) on July 1, 2024, and to $1,128 per week ($58,656 a year) on January 1, 2025. On November 15, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated that rule nationwide in State of Texas v. U.S. Department of Labor, which reverted the operative levels to the 2019 figures. DOL appealed to the Fifth Circuit, then dropped the appeals, and the court dismissed them. Finally, on May 15, 2026, DOL published a technical amendment (91 FR 27833) that struck the 2024 text from the Code of Federal Regulations and republished the pre-2024 language.

So the current federal numbers, verified against the live regulation text on 2026-08-28, are:

The regulation also gives equivalents for other pay cycles: $1,368 biweekly, $1,482 semimonthly, and $2,964 monthly (29 CFR 541.600(b)). Lower levels apply in the U.S. territories ($455 per week in CNMI, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands for non-federal employers, and $380 per week in American Samoa). DOL has signaled it may revisit Part 541 through new notice-and-comment rulemaking, so the figure is worth re-checking each year.

Salary Is Only One of Three Tests

Exemption from overtime under FLSA section 13(a)(1) requires all three of the following, and failing any one of them makes you non-exempt:

1. Salary basis (29 CFR 541.602): a predetermined amount each pay period that is not reduced because of variations in the quality or quantity of your work.
2. Salary level (29 CFR 541.600): not less than $684 per week, or the higher state figure if one applies.
3. Duties (29 CFR 541.100, 541.200, 541.300): your primary duty fits the executive, administrative, or professional definition.

The third one is where most misclassification cases are won and lost. A job title has no legal weight. Being called a manager or a coordinator proves nothing on its own. A shift supervisor paid $60,000 who spends most of the week stocking shelves is very likely non-exempt no matter what the offer letter says, because the primary duty is not management.

Three groups skip the salary test entirely and can be exempt on duties alone: outside sales employees (29 CFR 541.500(c)), teachers (29 CFR 541.303(d)), and licensed doctors and lawyers actually practicing their profession (29 CFR 541.304(d)). That medical exception is narrow. It does not reach nurses, pharmacists, therapists, technologists, dietitians, social workers, or psychologists.

There is also a shortcut in the other direction. Under the highly compensated employee rule (29 CFR 541.601), someone with total annual compensation of at least $107,432, including at least $684 a week paid on a salary or fee basis, who does office or non-manual work, is exempt if they customarily and regularly perform any single exempt executive, administrative, or professional duty. It never applies to manual, production, maintenance, or trade workers, however well paid (29 CFR 541.601(d)).

One more detail that changes borderline answers: up to 10% of the required salary level can be met with nondiscretionary bonuses, incentives, or commissions paid at least annually, with a permitted catch-up payment (29 CFR 541.602(a)(3)). That credit does not apply to the $684 weekly salary inside the HCE test.

State Thresholds That Beat the Federal Level in 2026

Six states set an exempt salary floor above $35,568 for 2026. Where federal and state wage law differ, the more protective standard governs (29 U.S.C. 218(a)), so the higher threshold is the one that applies to you.

Five things worth knowing about that table:

• New York's exemption thresholds only cover the executive and administrative exemptions. New York sets no salary threshold for the professional exemption, so the federal $684 per week is the figure for New York professionals.
• Washington's small and large employer tiers are identical in 2026. Both pay 2.25 times the minimum wage, or $1,541.70 a week. The tiers split again in 2027 for the final phase-in step, then converge permanently in 2028, so an employer-size question would do nothing this year.
• Alaska steps up mid-year. The threshold was $1,040 a week ($54,080) through June 30, 2026, and $1,120 a week ($58,240) from July 1, 2026. This tool uses the figure in force now.
• California adds a quantitative duties test. An exempt California employee has to spend more than half of their working time on exempt duties, which is stricter than the federal primary duty standard. California also runs a separate computer software professional exemption at $122,573.13 a year ($10,214.44 a month, $58.85 an hour) for 2026, and a licensed physician hourly exemption that the state adjusts annually.
• Colorado has daily overtime. On top of the 40-hour week, Colorado requires overtime past 12 hours in a day and past 12 consecutive hours. Its highly compensated threshold is $130,014 and its highly technical computer employee rate is $34.85 an hour. Sources: CDLE INFO #1 (updated December 18, 2025) and the 2026 PAY CALC Order, 7 CCR 1103-14.

Note that $1,199.10 is not a clean multiple of New York's $16.00 rest-of-state minimum wage. It is a scheduled figure from the wage order, which is exactly why thresholds like this have to be looked up rather than derived from a minimum wage at run time.

What Overtime Is Worth If You Are Non-Exempt

Federal law requires at least 1.5 times your regular rate for every hour past 40 in a workweek (29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1)). For a salaried worker, 29 CFR 778.113(a) computes the regular rate by dividing the salary by the number of hours the salary is intended to compensate. This tool assumes that number is 40, which is the common default and the assumption behind most back-pay estimates, but it is not universal.

A worked example. Say you earn $52,000 a year in Colorado and work 50 hours most weeks. Your weekly salary is $1,000, which is below Colorado's $1,111.23 floor, so the salary level test fails and you are non-exempt regardless of your duties. Your regular rate is $1,000 divided by 40, or $25.00 an hour. Ten overtime hours at $37.50 comes to $375 a week, which is $19,500 over a year. That is the size of the gap a misclassification can create.

Two limits on that math. The FLSA has no daily overtime requirement at all, so federal overtime is measured strictly per workweek, though several states do impose daily rules (California past 8 hours a day and double time past 12, Colorado past 12). And the fluctuating workweek method in 29 CFR 778.114 works differently: a fixed salary compensates every hour worked, the regular rate falls as hours rise, and only an extra 0.5 times premium is owed on overtime hours. Where that method properly applies, the figures here overstate what is owed.

Being non-exempt also matters at tax time now. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act qualified overtime deduction only covers the FLSA-required overtime premium, which is something only non-exempt employees earn, so exempt status means there is nothing to deduct. See the 2026 no tax on overtime rules and run the numbers with the OBBBA Paycheck Impact Calculator.

Related tools: the Time and a Half Calculator for 1.5 times and double time from an hourly rate, the True Hourly Rate Calculator for what unpaid overtime does to your effective pay, Salary to Hourly and Hourly to Salary for conversions, the Shift Differential Pay Calculator, the Hourly Paycheck Calculator for take-home once overtime is included, and the Employee vs. Contractor Calculator for the other big classification question. Further reading: Overtime, Bonus, and Commission Take-Home and Salary vs. Hourly Pay Conversion.

Sources

Thresholds verified 2026-08-28 against: 29 CFR 541.600, 29 CFR 541.601, 29 CFR 541.602, the DOL technical amendment at 91 FR 27833, WHD Fact Sheet #17A, California DIR, Washington L&I, Colorado CDLE, Alaska DOLWD, Maine DOL, and the New York wage order at 12 NYCRR 142-2.14.