California pays 1.5× after 8 hours in a single workday.
California is one of a handful of states with daily overtime — and the threshold is 8 hours, the lowest in the U.S. Under Labor Code § 510, any non-exempt worker exceeding 8 hours in a single workday earns 1.5× their regular rate, even if their total weekly hours are under 40.
Daily 8-Hour Overtime
Calculates 1.5× pay for any hour worked over 8 in a single workday, independent of weekly totals. The anti-pyramiding rule prevents stacking with weekly OT.
What the rule does at hour 8 of a workday.
The hero card configuration: Avoid on schedule past 8 hrs without OT budget, Flag on timesheet entry. Here's what each does at runtime.
When a manager schedules a shift past 8 hours, Teambridge surfaces the OT cost projection and asks for confirmation. Not a block — managers may legitimately schedule longer shifts — but the cost is made visible at decision time.
When a worker logs hour 9 of a workday, the timesheet entry tags as OT. Payroll picks up the tag and applies 1.5× automatically. No manual review required.
Deploy daily OT in your Teambridge.
Tell us about your workforce. We'll spin up California daily overtime — alongside the other 20 California policies — in a sandbox tenant scoped to your roles, locations, and pay structure.
Hour 9 of any workday earns 1.5×, regardless of weekly total.
California's daily OT rule is independent of the federal weekly threshold. A worker logging 10 hours on Monday and zero hours all week still earns 2 hours of daily OT.
Workday is fixed, not rolling
A 'workday' under California law is a consecutive 24-hour period starting at the same time each calendar day. The employer designates the start time but it must be consistent. A worker can't earn daily OT by spreading hours across two designated workdays.
Anti-pyramiding rule
When daily and weekly OT both apply to the same hours, the calculation that produces the higher premium controls — but you cannot stack them. A worker who works 10 hours on Monday and 35 hours total for the week earns 2 hours of daily OT (not 0 hours of weekly OT plus 2 hours of daily OT). California's rule is to pay whichever calculation produces the largest premium.
Teambridge runs the calculation every shift, every payroll close.
California's OT rules interact in ways that are easy to miscalculate manually. Teambridge handles the comparison automatically.
OT projection at scheduling.
When a manager schedules a worker for a 10-hour shift, the schedule preview shows the OT cost — base + premium — before the schedule is published.
Hour 9 tagged automatically.
When a worker clocks in and crosses the 8-hour threshold mid-shift, the timesheet entry auto-tags as OT for hours 9 onward. No manager intervention needed.
Daily vs. weekly run automatically.
At payroll close, Teambridge runs both calculations (daily OT and weekly OT) for every worker and pays the controlling one. Anti-pyramiding is enforced by structure, not by manager memory.
Every OT hour traceable.
Each OT hour is logged with the trigger (daily 8hr, weekly 40hr, 7th-day) and the calculation that controlled. PAGA-defensible records by default.
Still evaluating? Get a free California compliance audit.
Send us your existing California scheduling and pay configuration. Our compliance team returns a written audit within 5 business days — every California-specific exposure ranked by risk and back-pay liability.