California Overtime Exemptions: Job Types, Salary Rules, and Misclassification in 2025

California overtime exemptions in 2025 cover specific job types, salary thresholds, and professions excluded from wage and hour rules. Misclassification can deny workers overtime pay, rest breaks, and legal rights, leading to wage claims or class action lawsuits.

By Brad Nakase, Attorney

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Exempt Employee Types
3. Overtime and Breaks
4. If You Are Misclassified

Introduction

According to California law, exempt workers who typically work in white-collar jobs, get salaries rather than hourly wages, and are not eligible for benefits under the wage & hour rules, such as overtime compensation or rest and food breaks.

Exempt workers in California are required to make a minimum of $1,320 per week ($68,640 annually) by 2025. Only when your job responsibilities fit the California Labor Code’s description of an exempt employee do you qualify. Your employer cannot just declare you a worker who is exempt:

  • By obtaining your signature on a contract committing you to becoming an exempt worker, or
  • Giving you a salary as opposed to an hourly wage.

Exempt Employee Types

California labor law exempts the following occupations and employment classifications. Therefore, additional wage and hour laws, including California overtime exemptions, are not applicable.

1. White-collar occupations (professional, administrative, and executive staff)

It is a widespread misperception that everybody who works in a business setting or receives pay is exempt from this requirement. For “white-collar” workers to be exempt, they must:

  • Possess administrative, executive, or professional principal responsibilities (which typically require them to devote at least 50% of their working hours to these tasks, such as running a corporation); and
  • Exercise discretion & independent judgment on a regular and customary basis at work; and
  • Make enough money to cover at least double the state’s minimum wage for 40 hours a week of full-time work.

2. Computer Professionals

California overtime exemptions apply to workers who are principally involved in the analysis, design, or development of computer systems, software, or hardware. The following needs to be true:

  • The staff member is primarily involved in creative or intellectual work that calls for the use of discretion & independent judgment;
  • The employee is extremely competent and skilled in applying highly specialized knowledge to software engineering, programming, or computer systems assessment; and
  • The worker makes at least $56.97 per hour, which translates to $118,657.43 annually, paid monthly (these statistics are for the year 2025 & will rise with inflation).

3. Surgeons and Doctors

Doctors must make a minimum of $103.75 an hour, or the equivalent of a full-time income, to be exempt. Residents, interns, and physicians protected by collective bargaining contracts are exempt from this rule.

4. Private school instructors for K-12

To be eligible for the California overtime exemptions, an educator needs to:

  • Be primarily involved in the work of teaching pupils; and
  • Exercise discretion and independent judgment on a frequent basis; and
  • Possess a valid teaching certification or a bachelor’s degree or higher from an approved university; and
  • Earn the higher of: One hundred percent of the lowest pay certified teachers in California can get from any school system, or seventy percent of the lowest wage that the county or city where the private educational institution is located offers its certified teachers.

5. Employees of the University of California and the Government

6. Outside Salespeople

The following conditions must be met in order to be exempt:

  • Generating sales (as outlined by the FLSA) or securing contracts or orders for services or facility use that require payment from the client or customer must be the worker’s main responsibility; and
  • The worker must be regularly and systematically employed somewhere other than the company’s place of operation. Note that delivery drivers are not considered outside salespeople.

7. Commission-earning workers

Those who make the following are exempt:

  • Make almost 1.5 times what is considered minimum wage (more than $24.75 an hour as of 2025); and
  • Receive commissions for over fifty percent of their pay.

8. Truck Drivers

While they are not subject to the laws governing meal and rest breaks, truck drivers who operate interstate routes or transport hazardous commodities are exempt from the overtime regulations.

9. Union Employees

Hours, pay, and working environment must be explicitly governed by a contract for collective bargaining. There has to be a premium salary for overtime work, and compensation must be at least thirty percent greater than the state’s minimum wage.

10. Other Exempt Professions

Because of the nature of their employment, some vocations are listed as exempt under California’s “wage orders.” Among them are:

  • Home managers for the elderly
  • Some nannies
  • In-home domestic assistance
  • Drivers and attendants of ambulances
  • Agricultural workers
  • Individual attendants
  • Counselors at camp
  • The employee’s parents, spouse, and kids

It should be noted that unless they fulfill the additional conditions of the white-collar California overtime exemptions and are largely involved in executive and administrative duties, registered nurses are not considered exempt personnel.

Overtime and Breaks

The overtime regulations in California do not apply to exempt employees. Your company is not required to pay you time-and-a-half wages if you’re considered an exempt employee, according to this, even if you work:

  • Over eight hours throughout the workday, or
  • Over 40 hours a week of employment, or
  • More than six days in a row during a workweek.

Additionally, companies in California are excluded from providing regular food and rest intervals to exempt employees, unlike non-exempt employees. Only workers who are non-exempt are eligible for:

  • A 30-minute unpaid meal break for employees who work in excess of five hours; and
  • A 10-minute paid break for every four hours of labor.

If You Are Misclassified

The issue can be resolved by discussing your situation with your supervisor. You may also go to the human resources department. If not, labor lawyers assist workers who have been wrongfully designated as exempt. They help workers in suing their employers for unpaid overtime compensation through wage & hour claims.

Non-exempt workers who were incorrectly classified may also be entitled to reimbursement for missed meal and rest periods. A wage & hour class action suit can be suitable if many employees are impacted.

Companies misclassifying non-exempt workers as exempt to evade paying overtime or fulfilling other labor law obligations in California is something we have witnessed far too frequently. Frequently, the employer:

  • Relies on the worker’s ignorance of the law and
  • Asserts that because the worker has a “desk job” or receives a salary instead of an hourly rate.

There are instances where an employee is requested to sign an agreement “agreeing” to be exempted from overtime rules.

None of these circumstances, however, can grant a non-exempt worker California overtime exemptions under California wage & hour law.

Have a quick question? We answered nearly 2000 FAQs.

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