2025 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 for paying employees.

Understanding overtime and minimum wage laws is crucial to budgeting your payroll. If you mistake the regulations early on, you could wind up paying a whole lot more later on.

In this post, we detail the core concepts of overtime rules and provide a comprehensive list of updated overtime laws by state for 2025.

Complete list: 2025 overtime & minimum wage laws by state

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

Standard mileage rate increase

Effective January 1, 2025, the Internal Revenue Service has also increased the standard mileage rate for using a personal vehicle in the course of business to $0.70 (70 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: Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, 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 wage stipulations by state: 

• California: While CA state law stipulates that a meal break is mandatory by the end of an employee's fifth hour of work, that timeframe lengths to six hours for crew members. Meaning, crew members must be given a meal break within six hours of start time. Exception: Work is to be concluded by the end of the sixth hour.
• Michigan: Minimum wage is scheduled to increase to $12.48 per hour on February 21, 2025.
• 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 $14.53 per hour.
• New York: The minimum wage in NYC, Nassau County, Suffolk County, and Westchester County is $16.50 per hour. The minimum wage in the remainder of the state is $15.50 per hour.
• Ohio: Employers with annual gross receipts under $394,000 must pay no less than $7.25 per hour.‍
• Oregon: The standard minimum wage is $14.70 per hour. The minimum wage in the Portland metro area is $15.95 per hour and the minimum wage in nonurban counties is $13.70 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.

For example, in the world of television and film, minimum rates for most actors are determined by The Screen Actors Guild, and SAG minimum wage is different from state minimum wage. While minimum wage in California may be $16.50, the minimum amount you’ll pay a 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, unions, like IATSE and the Teamsters, abide by separate pay-rate regulations of their own design.

The challenge of balancing varying rules and rates 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.

If you’re interested in learning more about overtime laws, minimum wage laws, or union pay regulations, be sure to check out our guide to running film payroll.

Or, watch our demo to find out how Wrapbook can support and simplify your payroll needs.