Daily Overtime and Weekly Overtime in the Same Week: How to Count Each Hour Once (12-Hour Shift Examples)

A rule that pays overtime after 8 hours in a day and also after 40 hours in a week sounds like it should pay overtime twice on a heavy week. Take four 12-hour shifts: 48 hours. By the day, each shift has 4 overtime hours, 16 in all. By the week, there are 8 hours over 40. Add them and you get 24 overtime hours. The number a no-pyramiding rule produces is 16, because an hour that has already been paid as daily overtime is not counted again toward the weekly 40. That is called the no-pyramiding rule, and it is the step most hand calculations skip.

This post shows the counting method, runs it on five common weeks, and prices the gap with made-up numbers. It covers the arithmetic only. Whether your job has daily overtime at all is a separate question (see 12-hour shifts in daily overtime states).

Where each rule comes from

Federal law has only the weekly rule. DOL Fact Sheet #23 requires time-and-a-half the regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek and says averaging hours across weeks is not permitted. Nothing federal requires pay by the day for most private-sector workers.

The daily trigger comes from somewhere else: a state law (California is the best documented), or a union contract, or an employer policy. Those can say "over 8 hours in a day." The federal rules then do two useful things with that daily premium:

• It stays out of the regular rate. 29 U.S.C. § 207(e)(5) excludes extra pay for hours "in excess of eight in a day" or beyond the weekly maximum, or beyond the employee's normal working hours.
• It counts toward the federal overtime. Section 207(h)(2) says that extra pay "shall be creditable toward overtime compensation payable" under the Act. The regulation, 29 CFR § 778.202, spells it out with a $12 base rate and $12.50 paid for hours past 8 in a day: the extra 50 cents per hour can be credited against the weekly overtime owed.

So a daily premium never sits on top of the federal weekly premium for the same hour. It satisfies it, if it is large enough.

The counting method (4 steps)

For one workweek, with a daily trigger of 8 hours:

1. Add up the hours for the week. Call this T.
2. Daily overtime hours (D): for each day, hours over 8. Add them.
3. Take D out of the pile: R = T - D. These are the hours that have not been paid as overtime yet.
4. Weekly overtime hours (W): the part of R that is over 40, or 0 if R is 40 or less. Total overtime hours = D + W. Everything else is straight time.

One check: straight-time hours can never be more than 40.

This is the approach California's Division of Labor Standards Enforcement has described. Its opinion letter on AB 60, "No Pyramiding of Overtime Hours" gives examples such as five 10-hour days (the 10 daily overtime hours are not counted again toward the weekly overtime) and seven hours a day for six days (2 weekly overtime hours, since no day goes past 8). The letter is a scanned image, and I could confirm its title but not read its full text, so treat the examples as the pattern, not as a quote. Other states and many contracts have their own wording, and some pay both. Your agreement or your state labor agency decides, not this post.

Five weeks, counted once

Daily trigger 8 hours, weekly trigger 40, all hours at the same base rate.

"Counted twice" is daily overtime plus every hour over 40 in the week, with no overlap removed. It is the wrong answer under a no-pyramiding rule, and it is the number a quick hand calculation tends to produce.

Two patterns show up:

• The weekly rule often adds nothing on a daily-overtime week. In the 4 x 12, 16 of the 48 hours are already paid as overtime, which leaves only 32 hours counting toward the 40, so the weekly rule has nothing to add.
• The weekly rule starts to matter when the week runs long. In the last row, five 10-hour days leave 40 non-overtime hours, and the extra 6-hour day pushes the count over 40, so 6 more hours become overtime.

What it is worth: a made-up $30 an hour

Same base rate for every hour, time-and-a-half is $45. All numbers are hypothetical, and double-time past 12 hours (which some daily rules add) is left out.

The 4 x 12 week (48 hours)

• Counted once: 32 straight hours x $30 = $960, plus 16 overtime hours x $45 = $720. Total $1,680.
• Counted twice: 24 straight hours x $30 = $720, plus 24 overtime hours x $45 = $1,080. Total $1,800.
• Federal weekly rule only: 40 x $30 = $1,200, plus 8 x $45 = $360. Total $1,560.

So double counting would add $120 (8 hours x the $15 premium), and the daily rule alone adds $120 over the federal-only figure ($1,680 - $1,560). The federal check passes: $1,680 is at least $1,560, so the credit rule says nothing more is owed federally.

The 56-hour week (five 10s plus a 6)

• Counted once: 40 straight hours x $30 = $1,200, plus 16 x $45 = $720. Total $1,920.
• Counted twice: 30 x $30 = $900, plus 26 x $45 = $1,170. Total $2,070.
• Federal weekly rule only: 40 x $30 + 16 x $45 = $1,920. Same as counted once, because here the weekly rule already produces the 16.

Add-ups: 32 + 16 = 48 hours; 24 + 24 = 48; 40 + 16 = 56; 30 + 26 = 56.

Where this does not apply

• No daily trigger. Most private workers on a three-12 or 4-on-4-off schedule only have the federal weekly rule, which is the table's "federal only" column. See overtime hours per year on a 12-hour rotation for that count.
• Contracts that pay both. The federal credit rule is a floor and a cap on what must be credited, not a ban on paying more. A clause that says "daily and weekly overtime are cumulative" is allowed to override the table above, so read the clause.
• Differentials and bonuses. If a night differential or a non-discretionary bonus changes the regular rate, every dollar figure above scales up. See shift differential vs. overtime and weighted-average overtime.
• Hospitals on 8/80 and fire or police on 7(k). Different thresholds, different arithmetic: the 8/80 rule and 7(k) overtime.
• A premium that is not really an overtime premium. Under § 778.202(c), splitting a normal workday into a "straight-time" part and a higher-paid "overtime" part to avoid the regular rate is treated as a device to get around the Act, and the extra pay then goes into the regular rate.

Check your own week in five steps

1. Write down each day's hours for one workweek on your stub.
2. Mark the daily trigger your rules use (8 hours? 10? none?).
3. Add up daily overtime (D) and subtract it from the total hours.
4. Take whatever is left over 40 as weekly overtime (W).
5. Compare D + W with the overtime hours printed on the stub. If the stub shows more, ask whether your contract pays both. If it shows fewer, check the workweek start day and the daily trigger.

General information, not legal or pay advice. Your contract and your state's rules decide your actual pay, and the figures here are made up.

Laying a rotation across real calendar dates makes it easy to see which days fall in which workweek. Duty Pals, a shift calendar for Android, is now on Google Play, and the free shift pattern calculator on this site shows a 3 x 12, 4-on-4-off or 2-2-3 against the calendar so you can count each week's hours yourself.