2026 Minimum Wage & Overtime Laws by State

Overtime regulations, minimum wage laws, mileage rates—not exactly fun topics for casual conversation. However, each of these concepts is crucial when it comes to paying employees.

Understanding overtime and minimum wage laws is crucial to budgeting your payroll. If you mistake the regulations early in the process, you could wind up paying a whole lot more later on. This is particularly true when dealing with union regulations, like SAG minimum wage laws.

In this post, we detail the core concepts of minimum wage and overtime rules and provide a comprehensive list of updated minimum wage laws and overtime laws by state for 2026.

Complete list: 2026 overtime & minimum wage laws by state

In California, meal penalties start at 5 hours for most employees, but there are special provisions for film workers outlined in IWC Article 12, which stipulates 6 hours.

Standard mileage rate increase

Effective January 1, 2026, the Internal Revenue Service has also increased the standard mileage rate for using a personal vehicle in the course of business to $0.725 (72.5 cents) per mile.

The standard mileage rate is used to calculate the deductive costs of operating an automobile for business. Employees may be entitled to either reimbursement from their employers or personal tax deductions according to the current mileage rate. 

Important exceptions 

For those states with no or lower-than-federal minimum wage: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wyoming, employers are still subject to the minimum wage laws set forth by the Fair Labor Standards Act and must pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

Notable minimum wage stipulations by state: 

• Montana: A business not covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act whose gross annual sales are $110,000 or less may pay $4.00 per hour.
• New Jersey: The minimum wage for employers who employ fewer than six people and employees engaged in seasonal employment is $15.23 per hour.
• New York: The minimum wage in NYC, Nassau County, Suffolk County, and Westchester County is $17.00 per hour. The minimum wage in the remainder of the state is $16.00 per hour.
• Ohio: Employers with annual gross receipts under $405,000 must pay no less than $7.25 per hour.
• Oklahoma: On June 16, 2026, voters in Oklahoma will determine whether the state will rise above the federally mandated minimum wage and move forward with a wage increase that would continue through 2029.
• Oregon: The standard minimum wage is $15.05 per hour. The minimum wage in the Portland metro area is $16.30 per hour and the minimum wage in nonurban counties is $14.05 per hour.

States with special break laws:

• Hawaii follows the Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS), Child Labor Law, which requires employers to provide at least a 30-minute rest or meal period after five consecutive hours of work for 14 and 15-year-old minors.
• Iowa follows a break law that states minors younger than 16 must be given a 30-minute break if they are employed five hours or more in a day.

What are overtime laws?

Overtime laws (also known as overtime rules) refer to the increased amount of money you have to pay an employee after a set amount of time.

This set amount of time, whether it be on a daily or weekly scale, varies from state to state.

For instance, in California, the initial amount of time an employee must work before receiving overtime pay is only eight hours. While in Kansas, overtime doesn’t take effect until 46 hours have been worked in a week.

How is overtime pay calculated?

Once your employees have crossed the threshold of their overtime pay law, they then earn “pay and a half.”

Expressed as “1.5x,” this multiplier is applied to the set rate in your employee’s contract. Unless negotiated higher, this rate will be the minimum wage.

Special case: overtime rules on a film set

While almost every employee is non-exempt from overtime laws, some guilds have special rules for their employees. As an example, we can consider SAG minimum wage laws.

In the world of television and film, minimum rates for most actors are determined by The Screen Actors Guild, setting a baseline commonly known as “scale” that we might also think of as SAG minimum wage.The cost of SAG minimum wage varies according to both production type and budget level, but - for the purposes of this post - the main point is that SAG minimum wage is different from state minimum wage. While minimum wage in California may be $16.90, SAG minimum wage - or the minimum amount you’ll pay any guild member - is much, much higher.

While overtime laws dictate a California employee will make 1.5x after eight hours, SAG minimum wage laws stipulate that talent only makes overtime pay after 10 hours. 

Meanwhile, other film industry unions, like IATSE and the Teamsters, abide by separate pay-rate regulations of their own design. The challenge of balancing varying minimum wage laws and rates within a single project is one of many reasons why you should hire an entertainment payroll company to run your payroll.

What is the federal overtime law?

Set by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal overtime law (or federal OT law) states that employees shall receive overtime pay after 40 hours have been worked in a week. When states don’t have set overtime laws, they automatically default to what is expressed in the chart above.

Wrapping up

Understanding the nuances of overtime and minimum wage laws isn’t just a way to impress your friends. Without knowing the rules in your state, you may end up owing your employees way more than you thought you did.

Whether it’s with minimum wage laws, overtime laws, or even union rules (like SAG minimum wage laws), Wrapbook leverages next-gen technology to help your production maintain compliance and maximize efficiency. Check out our demo to find out how Wrapbook can act as a force multiplier for your payroll and production accounting teams.