Do Caregivers Get Overtime? Exemptions and State Rules

Yes, most caregivers do get overtime. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, a caregiver who works more than 40 hours in a workweek is generally owed one-and-a-half times their regular hourly rate for the extra hours.¹ The complication is that two federal exemptions can wipe out that right when a family hires a caregiver directly: one for companionship services and one for live-in workers. Caregivers hired through an agency almost always qualify for overtime today, though a rule change proposed in 2025 could narrow that.

The Default Rule Under Federal Law

In-home caregivers are treated as domestic service workers under the FLSA, and domestic service workers are covered by the federal overtime requirement. That means the starting point for any caregiver is straightforward: hours 1 through 40 pay at the regular rate, and every hour after 40 in the same workweek pays at 1.5 times that rate.

“Regular rate” is not always the same as the base hourly wage. It rolls in non-discretionary bonuses, shift differentials, and other recurring pay. The math: add up all qualifying compensation for the week, divide by total hours worked, and multiply by 1.5 for each overtime hour.² Gifts, paid time off, and reimbursements for things like mileage or supplies stay out of the calculation.

From there, whether a caregiver actually collects overtime turns on three questions: what duties they perform, whether they live in the home, and who employs them.

The Companionship Services Exemption

The biggest exception for family-hired caregivers is the companionship services exemption. A caregiver whose primary duties are providing fellowship and protection to someone who cannot care for themselves due to age or disability is exempt from both federal minimum wage and overtime.³ Fellowship covers social and mental engagement like conversation, reading, games, walks, and errands. Protection means being present to monitor the person’s safety.⁴

The exemption is narrower than it looks. It collapses in several common situations:

The caregiver spends more than 20% of the workweek on hands-on care such as dressing, bathing, feeding, grooming, or toileting. Cross that threshold and the exemption is gone for the whole week.⁴
The caregiver does household work that benefits the wider family, like laundry for other members, meals for the whole household, or cleaning rooms the care recipient doesn’t use.⁵
The job involves medical tasks that would normally be handled by trained medical personnel, such as wound care or injections. This voids the exemption regardless of the caregiver’s actual credentials.⁴
The employer is a third party such as a home care agency. Only the individual or family receiving care can claim this exemption.⁵

In practice, many caregivers hired for “companionship” drift past the 20% line as the care recipient’s needs grow. Once that happens, overtime is owed for the week. If you are a caregiver, keep a running log of what you do each day. If you are a family employer, take an honest look at what the caregiver’s day actually contains before assuming the exemption applies.

Live-In Caregivers

A separate exemption applies to caregivers who genuinely reside in the home where they work. Under the FLSA, live-in domestic service employees are exempt from federal overtime.³ A live-in caregiver who works 60 hours has no federal right to time-and-a-half for the extra 20.

Those hours are not free, though. Live-in caregivers must still be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 for every hour actually worked, and state minimums are often higher.⁶ Like the companionship exemption, this one is available only when the employer is the individual or family receiving care, not a staffing agency.

What Counts as Work Time

The harder question for live-in caregivers is which hours count. The employer and caregiver can agree in writing to exclude sleep periods, meal breaks, and other times of complete freedom from duty. For shifts of 24 hours or more, up to eight hours of sleep may be deducted, but only if the caregiver has adequate sleeping facilities and can usually get at least five consecutive hours of uninterrupted sleep.⁷ Every interruption counts as work time. If interruptions happen often enough that the caregiver rarely gets five consecutive hours, the whole sleep period becomes compensable.

Federal rules require the employer to keep the written agreement about hours and off-duty time, along with records of the exact hours worked.⁸

Caregivers Hired Through an Agency

Who signs the paycheck changes the answer. Home care agencies and staffing companies cannot claim either the companionship exemption or the live-in exemption. They must pay overtime for all hours over 40 in a workweek, whatever the caregiver’s specific duties look like.⁵ That rule has been in effect since January 1, 2015.

It may not stay in effect. On July 2, 2025, the Department of Labor published a proposed rule to rescind the 2013 regulation that barred agencies from using the companionship exemption. If the rescission is finalized, agencies could once again claim the same exemptions available to families, eliminating overtime for a large share of agency-employed caregivers.⁹ As of early 2026 the rule has not been finalized, so the current protections still apply.

Being Called an Independent Contractor

Overtime protections cover employees, not independent contractors, and some families and agencies try to avoid wage obligations by putting caregivers into the contractor category. The label does not decide the question. The Department of Labor looks at the economic reality of the working relationship.¹⁰

Relevant factors include whether the worker has a real chance for profit or loss based on their own decisions, who controls when and how the work gets done, how permanent the arrangement is, and whether the work is central to the employer’s operations. A caregiver who shows up at the same home every day, follows the family’s instructions, and has no other clients is almost certainly an employee. Signing a contractor agreement, receiving a 1099 instead of a W-2, or being paid in cash does not change that.¹⁰

The DOL is currently proposing a new classification rule to replace its 2024 regulation, which the agency has stopped applying in investigations.¹¹ Until a new rule is final, the economic reality test remains the framework.

Travel Between Clients Counts

Caregivers who see more than one client a day should watch travel time closely. The Department of Labor treats travel from one client’s home to another during the workday as compensable hours worked.¹² The morning commute to the first client and the trip home from the last client are ordinary commuting and do not count. Everything in between does.

That can push a caregiver over 40 hours without either side realizing it. An agency that books 38 hours of direct client time and adds four hours of driving between homes has scheduled a 42-hour workweek and owes two hours of overtime.

State Law Can Give You More

Federal rules are a floor. A caregiver who is exempt under the FLSA may still be owed overtime under state law. Several states have rejected the companionship exemption outright, requiring overtime for all caregivers who cross 40 hours a week regardless of duties. Some states set daily overtime thresholds, so premium pay kicks in after a certain number of hours in a single day rather than only counting weekly totals. Others decline to recognize the live-in exemption, so live-in caregivers there earn overtime even though federal law would not require it.

State minimum wages are often higher than the federal $7.25, which raises the base rate used to calculate overtime. When federal and state law conflict, the rule that gives the worker more protection is the one that applies. Because these laws vary and change, check the specific rules where the work is performed.

If You Weren’t Paid the Overtime You’re Owed

A caregiver who has been denied overtime can file a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division or file a lawsuit in federal or state court. A successful FLSA claim recovers the full unpaid overtime plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, so the total roughly doubles. The employer also pays the caregiver’s reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs.¹³

Deadlines matter. A caregiver generally has two years from each missed overtime payment to file. If the violation was willful, the deadline extends to three years.¹⁴ Willful means the employer knew the law required overtime and ignored it, or showed reckless disregard for whether the law applied. A family that never checked its obligations and simply assumed the caregiver was exempt can fall into that category.

1
U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 56A: Overview of the Regular Rate of Pay Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 213 – Exemptions
4
eCFR. 29 CFR 552.6 – Companionship Services
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 79A: Companionship Services Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 79B: Live-in Domestic Service Workers Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
7
U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA Hours Worked Advisor
8
eCFR. 29 CFR 552.110 – Recordkeeping Requirements
9
U.S. Small Business Administration. Advocacy Supports DOLs Rescission of Companion Care Rule
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Notice of Proposed Rule: Employee or Independent Contractor
12
U.S. Department of Labor. Travel Time
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 255 – Statute of Limitations