Texas labor law, encoded as policies you can deploy.
Texas keeps the regulatory surface narrow — federal floor wages, federal-only overtime, no state break rules for adults. But the Texas-distinctive rules that do exist are sharp: 6-day final paychecks, written-authorization deductions, 180-day TWC claim windows, and triple damages for willful nonpayment. Each rule below runs as a live Teambridge policy with the right enforcement level for the actual stakes.
Last updated: April 29, 202614 policies coveredReviewed against TWC & FLSA 2026 guidance
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6-Day Final Paycheck Rule
Tags voluntary vs. involuntary. Calculates final pay within 1 minute of termination start. Blocks offboarding close until issued.
Block close without final pay6-day countdown on involuntary
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Authorization-Gated Deductions
Routes every non-statutory deduction through pre-existing signed written authorization. Verifies post-deduction pay clears the FLSA minimum.
No prior signed authorizationPushes pay below minimum
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Vacation Payout by Policy
Reads the employer's written PTO policy. Pays out if policy says yes; doesn't if silent or use-it-or-lose-it. Tracks consistency across workers.
Surface PTO + policy section
Compliance, on autopilot.
Every Texas rule below runs as a live policy in Teambridge. A non-tipped shift saved at $7.00/hr is illegal — block at the source. A wage deduction without written authorization is illegal — same. A 6-day final paycheck deadline missed by even one day exposes the employer to $1,000 admin penalties plus triple damages if willful. Each rule gets the right severity, applied automatically.
Optimize
Silently routes around the issue.
Flag
Surfaces a note. Action proceeds.
Avoid
Warns and discourages. Allows override.
Critical
Strong warning. Requires acknowledgment.
Block
Hard stop. Cannot proceed.
SofterHarder
The Texas policy library
14 rules. The right severity for each.
Texas's compliance surface is smaller than California's or New York's — federal preemption keeps cities from layering their own rules, no state OT means FLSA controls, no state PSL means leave is contractual. But the rules that exist are unforgiving: written-authorization deductions, 6-day final paychecks, 180-day claim windows. Teambridge encodes each rule with the right enforcement level for the stakes.
14 Texas policies, configured by default. Add your own — by client, role, or site — at any time.
01Minimum wage & preemption
Texas adopts the federal floor: $7.25/hr non-tipped, $2.13/hr tipped cash + tip-credit reconciliation up to $5.12. The rate has been unchanged since July 24, 2009 — Texas Labor Code § 62.051 references the federal FLSA rather than setting an independent number, so the Texas rate moves automatically when (and only when) Congress acts. Just as important: § 62.0515 explicitly preempts cities and counties from setting higher minimums for private employers. Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston have all tried; all attempts have been struck down or rendered unenforceable for private-sector employment.
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Texas Minimum Wage Floor
$7.25 floor on every non-tipped Texas shift. Tipped workers route to the reconciliation policy. Federal-rate watchdog surfaces uplift candidates if Congress raises the FLSA floor.
Block save below $7.25 cashFLSA-tied uplift on rate change
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Why no city-level routing in Texas
Operators familiar with California or Colorado expect to configure city-level overrides (Berkeley vs. Oakland vs. SF; Denver vs. Edgewater). In Texas, that's wrong by design. Section 62.0515 voids local minimums; the $7.25 state floor is the entire wage routing. Multi-state operators expanding into Texas often need this caught up front before they overconfigure.
Texas has no state overtime law. All Texas OT obligations flow through the federal FLSA: 1.5× the regular rate past 40 hours in a fixed workweek. No daily OT, no consecutive-hour rule, no spread-of-hours premium. The simplicity at the threshold hides complexity in regular-rate calculation: shift differentials, non-discretionary bonuses, and commissions all factor into the OT base. Misclassification — workers tagged exempt who don't meet the federal salary basis ($684/week) and duties test — is the single largest source of FLSA back-wage exposure for Texas employers.
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Federal Weekly Overtime + Regular Rate
Tracks weekly hours toward the 40-hour FLSA threshold. Calculates the true regular rate including bonuses, differentials, and commissions. Pays 1.5× automatically.
Warn at 36-hour scheduled driftSurface OT exposure on payroll closeAuto-tag past-40 timesheet entries
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Why misclassification matters more than OT timing
The 40-hour OT trigger is bright-line and rarely contested. The fights are over who's exempt. An assistant manager misclassified as exempt who routinely works 50-hour weeks is owed 2-3 years of back OT plus liquidated damages plus attorney fees — class-action territory. Teambridge surfaces classification risk at hire and on any role change.
Texas Labor Code § 61.014 splits final-paycheck timing by how the employment ended. Involuntary (fired, laid off, otherwise sent away by the employer): 6 calendar days from the date of discharge. Calendar days, not business days — weekends and holidays count toward the deadline. Voluntary (resigned, retired, quit): the next regularly scheduled payday. Constructive discharge (working conditions so intolerable a reasonable person would feel compelled to resign) counts as involuntary. "Mutual" separations are usually involuntary in practice. TWC has been explicit that holding the final paycheck because the worker hasn't returned company property is illegal.
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6-Day Final Paycheck Enforcement
Calculates final pay within 1 minute of termination workflow start. Tags voluntary vs. involuntary. Blocks offboarding workflow close until payment is processed.
Block offboarding close without final pay6-day countdown on involuntary
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Why "mutual" usually means involuntary
When a separation is framed as "mutual," TWC applies the same analysis used in unemployment cases: if the employer initiated and continued work was available, the separation is involuntary regardless of paperwork. This means the 6-day deadline applies to most "mutual" exits — a trap operators often miss when they assume monthly pay extends to the final check.
The Texas Payday Law's deduction rule is among the strictest in any state. Under § 61.018 and 40 TAC § 821.28, an employer can only make non-statutory wage deductions with specific, signed, written authorization from the worker — and the authorization must predate the deduction. A handbook clause is not authorization. A blanket onboarding form may not be specific enough for an unpredictable event like equipment damage. Even with valid authorization, deductions cannot push pay below the federal minimum wage. Illegal deductions are the second most common Texas Payday Law claim.
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Authorization-Gated Deductions
Routes every non-statutory deduction through pre-existing written authorization. Blocks deductions without documentation. Verifies post-deduction pay clears the FLSA minimum.
No prior signed authorizationPushes pay below minimumAudit-ready documentation linkage
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Why a handbook isn't authorization
Rule 821.28(b) requires authorization to be "as specific as possible as to the amount and purpose." A handbook clause that says "the company may deduct for any debts owed" lacks specificity. TWC routinely rejects handbook clauses as authorization in deduction disputes. The defensible practice is per-deduction signed forms covering predictable categories — overpayment recovery, benefit premiums, equipment damage with explicit valuation method.
Texas is structurally different from Colorado, California, and most blue states: there is no statutory mandate to pay out unused vacation or PTO at separation. Whether a worker gets cash for unused time depends entirely on what the employer's written policy or agreement says. If the policy promises payout, the Payday Law treats the unpaid balance as wages and enforces it. If the policy is silent or says use-it-or-lose-it, no payout is owed — and that's legal. The flip side: forfeiture provisions that are illegal in Colorado (under Nieto v. Clark's Market) are perfectly enforceable in Texas, provided the policy is in writing and applied consistently.
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Policy-Driven Payout
Reads the employer's written PTO policy and applies its payout rule at termination. Surfaces the policy text alongside the calculation. Tracks consistency across workers in the same role.
Block close without policy appliedSurface PTO balance + policy section
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Why consistency matters more than content
TWC enforces the policy as written — so a "no payout" policy is fine. But selective enforcement isn't. An employer who pays out vacation for some workers and not others creates discrimination claims under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, even if the underlying policy was lawful. Teambridge applies the policy uniformly per worker classification and surfaces selective-enforcement patterns for review.
Texas child labor law mostly mirrors the federal FLSA, with two state-distinctive features. Hour caps for 14-15 year olds match federal: 3 hours per school day, 18 hours per school week, 8 hours per non-school day, 40 hours per non-school week. Texas's nightwork ban is more permissive than federal: 10pm-5am during the school year (federal is 7pm-7am), or midnight-5am in summer when not enrolled in summer school. 16-17 year olds have no Texas hour caps but federal hazardous occupation rules (HO-1 through HO-17) still apply. Texas's only state-specific break rule: 30-minute meal period for under-18 workers on shifts of 5+ consecutive hours — there is no equivalent for adults.
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Minor Scheduling & HO Gating
Tracks age tier (14-15, 16-17) and school-week vs. non-school-week. Blocks shift acceptance past hour caps and nightwork cutoffs. Auto-inserts the 30-min meal break on under-18 shifts of 5+ hours. Gates HO-tagged roles for under-18 regardless of hours.
Past weekly cap or nightwork cutoffHO-tagged role + worker under 18Block publish on minor 5+ hr shift without break
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Why follow the federal 7pm rule, not the Texas 10pm rule
When state and federal rules differ, both apply — and the more restrictive controls. The federal FLSA bars 14-15 year olds from working past 7pm during the school year (extended to 9pm in summer). For most Texas employers — anyone covered by FLSA's interstate commerce or $500K gross receipts thresholds — the federal rule is the operative one. Following Texas's more permissive 10pm rule when FLSA-covered creates exposure for hours-worked violations.
The Texas Workforce Commission enforces the Texas Payday Law on a tight clock: workers must file wage claims within 180 days of when wages were due. The clock runs from the missed payment, not discovery of the violation. Standard penalties: back wages plus admin fines up to $1,000 per violation. Under § 61.0031, willful (intentional or knowing) nonpayment exposes the employer to triple the unpaid wages — Texas's analog to liquidated damages but harsher when the willfulness finding sticks. Section 61.0185 enables personal liability of corporate officers and directors who knowingly cause violations. Most Texas wage cases involving overtime route through the U.S. DOL instead of TWC, because FLSA's 2-3 year statute beats TPL's 180 days.
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TWC Wage Claim Exposure Tracking
Tracks every wage event with its 180-day exposure window. Surfaces compliance gaps before they become claims. Documents intent on disputed payments to defend against willful-nonpayment findings.
180-day exposure window per workerPattern flags for willful-finding risk
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Why TWC vs. DOL routing matters
A worker with both an OT claim and a final-paycheck claim will usually file at U.S. DOL for the OT (longer statute, federal liquidated damages) and at TWC for the final paycheck (faster process, triple-damages availability). Operators who treat TWC and DOL as interchangeable misjudge the worst-case timeline. Teambridge surfaces both windows so the timeline is unambiguous.
Texas's compliance surface is steadier than CA or NY by design — but a few federal-level shifts and TWC enforcement updates touched the rule set in 2026:
Federal minimum wage remains at $7.25/hr — unchanged since July 24, 2009. Texas adopts this by reference under § 62.051. No state-level CPI indexing exists; the rate stays where it is until federal law moves.
Federal child labor civil penalties rose to $14,973 per violation (annual inflation adjustment, January 2026) for FLSA child labor violations involving hazardous occupations — stacked on top of Texas's Class A misdemeanor and $10,000/violation administrative penalty.
Federal exempt salary threshold remains at $684/week / $35,568/yr following the 2024 court rulings that vacated the Biden-era increase. Texas does not have a state threshold above federal, so misclassification analysis runs entirely on the federal number.
TWC enforcement focus in 2026 emphasized child labor (audits in QSR, retail, hospitality) and final-paycheck timing. Pattern complaints — multiple workers reporting the same employer for the same violation — increasingly trigger broader audits.
Texas Payday Law text unchanged — the 6-day rule, written-authorization requirement, 180-day filing window, and triple-damages provision all stand as written. Substantive Texas labor law has been remarkably stable across recent legislative sessions.
Federal OT regular-rate guidance — DOL Field Assistance Bulletin 2025-1 clarified that retention bonuses paid more than once annually are non-discretionary and must be included in the regular rate for OT calculation. Texas employers using retention bonuses to backfill staffing are most affected.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum wage in Texas in 2026?
$7.25 per hour, adopted by reference from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act under Texas Labor Code § 62.051. Tipped workers earn $2.13/hr cash with up to $5.12 of tips counted toward the $7.25 floor — the worker's combined cash + tips must reach $7.25 for each workweek. The state rate has been unchanged since July 24, 2009.
Can a Texas city set a higher minimum wage?
No. Texas Labor Code § 62.0515 explicitly preempts cities and counties from setting minimum wages above the state/federal rate for private employers. Austin's 2018 $15 resolution was symbolic. Austin and San Antonio's 2018 paid sick leave ordinances were struck down by the Texas Court of Appeals as preempted. Cities can require higher wages on city contracts (similar to Davis-Bacon prevailing wage), but those don't extend to private-sector employment.
Does Texas have daily or weekly overtime rules above federal?
No. Texas has no state-level overtime statute. All Texas OT obligations flow through the federal FLSA: 1.5× the regular rate for hours over 40 in a fixed workweek. There is no daily OT (unlike California), no consecutive-hour rule (unlike Colorado), no spread-of-hours premium (unlike New York). The complexity is in regular-rate calculation, not the threshold — shift differentials, non-discretionary bonuses, and commissions all factor into the rate that 1.5× applies to.
When must a final paycheck be issued in Texas?
Involuntary termination (fired, laid off, otherwise sent away by the employer): within 6 calendar days under § 61.014. Voluntary resignation: on the next regularly scheduled payday. Calendar days include weekends and holidays — the clock doesn't pause. Constructive discharge counts as involuntary. "Mutual" separations are usually involuntary in practice. TWC has been explicit that holding the final paycheck because the worker hasn't returned company property is illegal — recover property through other means.
Does Texas require vacation payout at termination?
Not by statute. Texas only requires payout if the employer's written policy or agreement provides for it. If silent or use-it-or-lose-it, no payout is owed. This is structurally different from Colorado (mandatory under Nieto v. Clark's Market) and California (mandatory under Labor Code § 227.3). The flip side: forfeiture provisions illegal in Colorado are enforceable in Texas, provided the policy is in writing and applied consistently across workers in the same role.
What's the rule for wage deductions in Texas?
Specific, signed, written authorization is required before any non-statutory deduction (statutory = taxes, court-ordered child support, IRS levies). Rule 821.28(b) requires authorization to be "as specific as possible as to the amount and purpose." A handbook clause is not authorization. Even with valid authorization, deductions cannot push pay below the federal minimum wage. Illegal deductions are the second most common Texas Payday Law claim — the most common is late or missing final paychecks.
How long does a worker have to file a wage claim in Texas?
180 days from when the wages were due, filed at the Texas Workforce Commission. The window is one of the shortest in the country. Standard remedy: back wages plus administrative penalties up to $1,000 per violation. Under § 61.0031, willful nonpayment exposes the employer to triple the unpaid wages. Section 61.0185 allows personal liability for corporate officers and directors who knowingly cause violations. Most OT claims route through the U.S. DOL instead because FLSA's 2-3 year statute beats TPL's 180 days.
What's the difference between Critical and Block in Policy Builder?
Block is a hard stop — no override, no exception. Use it for things flat-out illegal (paying below $7.25, classifying someone exempt below $684/week salary, taking a non-statutory deduction without authorization, scheduling a 14-year-old past 18 hours in a school week). Critical is a strong warning that requires explicit acknowledgment but allows the action to proceed — use it for things that are operationally normal but compliance-sensitive (a 6-day final paycheck deadline approaching, a tipped-wage shortfall on payroll close, an exempt classification with risky duties patterns).