California · daily, weekly, seventh day
California overtime is a day’s work, not a week’s total
Cal. Lab. Code § 510 is blunt: eight hours is a day’s work. Anything after eight in one workday, anything after forty in one workweek, and the first eight hours on the seventh day of work in that workweek are at no less than one and one-half times the regular rate. Anything after twelve in a day, and anything after eight on that seventh day, is at twice the regular rate. The same section then refuses to let you stack those rates on a single hour.
How Labor Code 510 actually splits a day
On an ordinary workday (not the seventh day of work), this calculator carves the punches as follows, after unpaid lunch comes out of hours worked:
Hours 0:00–8:00 → regular
Hours 8:00–12:00 → overtime 1.5×
Hours after 12:00 → double time 2×
On the seventh day of work in the workweek — the seventh day that actually has punches, inside one employer-defined week — the first eight hours are already overtime. There is no regular band that day. After eight, it is double time. Mendoza v. Nordstrom read the day-of-rest scheme as workweek-based, not a rolling seven-day string; this page follows that and counts workdays, not calendar slots. Leave a day blank and you never reach a seventh-day premium.
The $1,320 check
Six days of eight hours and a ninth hour on Sunday, at $20, is the example people get wrong if they total 57 hours and multiply. Daily math puts 48 hours in the regular bucket (the six eights) and Sunday in seventh-day overtime (8 hours at 1.5× plus 1 hour at 2×). Weekly 40 then converts eight of those regular hours into overtime so the same hour is not paid twice. Result: 40 regular, 16 overtime, 1 double time = $800 + $480 + $40 = $1,320. Load that preset above to see the ticket.
In scope
- Daily 8 / 12 split on each workday
- Seventh day of work in the workweek
- Weekly 40 with no stacking on a premium hour
- Multiple shifts and unpaid lunch minutes
Out of scope
- Alternative workweeks (LC 511, 514, 554)
- IWC wage-order exceptions — not invented here
- Regular-rate add-ons (bonuses, differentials)
- Two straight-time rates in one workweek — that is /california-weighted-average-overtime/
- Meal and rest premiums — use the meal calculator
FAQ
When does California overtime start on a single day?
Labor Code 510 treats eight hours as a day’s work. Hours after 8 through 12 are paid at 1.5× the regular rate. Hours after 12 are paid at 2×. This is daily overtime even if the workweek is still under 40 hours.
What is seventh-day overtime in a California workweek?
The first eight hours worked on the seventh day of work in any one workweek are at 1.5×. Hours after eight on that day are at 2×. The seventh day is the seventh day the employee actually worked in the employer’s workweek, not a rolling seven calendar days. A blank day in the middle means you never reach a seventh workday.
Does California stack daily overtime and weekly overtime on the same hour?
No. Labor Code 510 says nothing in the section requires an employer to combine more than one overtime rate on the same hour. This calculator assigns the highest applicable rate to each hour: daily 8/12 or seventh-day first, then converts leftover regular hours above 40 into weekly overtime.
What is out of scope on this page?
Alternative workweeks under Labor Code 511 are on /california-alternative-workweek/, not this page. Two straight-time rates in one workweek are /california-weighted-average-overtime/. Labor Code 514/554, other IWC wage-order exceptions, and regular-rate add-ons such as nondiscretionary bonuses and shift differentials are out of scope. The hourly figure you type is treated as the regular rate.
