General information, not an assessment of any person's case.
Reading scope: Federal and Illinois
Sources read 2026-10-25. A retrieval date is not a certification that the law remains unchanged.
What the law generally says
Federal baseline. For employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act who are not exempt, overtime is generally due at no less than one and one-half times the regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. A workweek is a fixed, regularly recurring seven-day period. Under the federal rule, work on a Saturday, Sunday, holiday, or regular day off does not by itself create overtime. Those hours can still matter if they put the week over 40. Hours ordinarily cannot be averaged across two or more weeks. Read U.S. Department of Labor overtime guidance.
Regular rate — in plain language. The regular rate is the hourly pay figure used to calculate federal overtime, even when pay is based on a salary, commissions or piecework. Statutory exclusions and other regulations can affect the calculation. Federal overtime only. This page does not calculate a worker’s regular rate. 29 CFR 778.109 — The regular rate is an hourly rate →
Illinois. Illinois has a similar overtime rule: except as the statute provides otherwise, work over 40 hours in a workweek must be paid at no less than one and one-half times the regular rate. Both federal and Illinois rules have exemptions and other scope limits. For example, Illinois lists certain categories that may be exempt. Being paid a salary does not automatically make a worker exempt; the Illinois Department of Labor says the person’s primary duties must also meet the exemption requirements. Read the Illinois Minimum Wage Law and read the Illinois Department of Labor overtime FAQ.
The regular rate is an hourly rate used for overtime purposes. Federal regulations say pay may be based on a salary, commission, piece rate, or another basis, but that does not end the regular-rate question. Read 29 CFR 778.109 on the regular rate.
Illustration only: If a covered, nonexempt worker’s hours in one workweek go above 40, the hours above 40 are the part of that week that may need an overtime review. This is not a calculation and does not decide whether any exemption, work-time rule, or pay component applies.
Nonexempt — in plain language. Here, nonexempt means not excluded from the federal overtime requirement by an applicable exemption. A salary or job title alone does not decide that question. Federal overtime only. This explanation does not decide coverage or an exemption. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act → Fact Sheet #17A: Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer & Outside Sales Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) →
Signs this may be happening
These patterns can be useful questions to raise. They do not prove a violation or decide whether overtime is owed.
- A schedule, time record, or personal log shows more than 40 hours in one workweek, but the pay record does not show overtime pay.
- Hours from a busy week appear to have been combined with a shorter week before overtime was considered. Federal guidance says hours ordinarily cannot be averaged across two or more workweeks.
- A worker is told that salary alone means overtime never applies. Salary alone does not automatically establish an overtime exemption.
- A worker is told that overtime was not approved in advance and therefore will not be paid. The U.S. Department of Labor says a prior-approval rule does not erase compensation for compensable overtime that was worked.
Working a weekend or holiday alone is not enough under the federal baseline. The workweek total, the regular rate, the time that counts as work, coverage, and any exemption can all matter. Read U.S. Department of Labor overtime guidance, read the Illinois Department of Labor overtime FAQ, and read U.S. Department of Labor Fact Sheet 23.
What to gather
Keep copies only of records you already have the right to keep. Do not remove employer confidential information or obtain records you are not allowed to access.
Useful materials may include your own pay stubs, personal records of hours worked, schedules, time entries, the stated workweek, job and pay documents, and messages that show when work was assigned or performed. The U.S. Department of Labor identifies pay stubs and personal records of hours worked as helpful information for a complaint. Read the Department of Labor’s complaint-information checklist.
A simple personal timeline can help keep facts organized: note the date, start and end times, unpaid meal periods if any, the work performed, and what the paycheck shows. Keep the original context where possible. Do not alter records.
Employers covered by the federal recordkeeping rules must keep accurate wage-and-hour information for nonexempt workers, including daily and weekly hours, pay basis, regular rate, overtime earnings, and pay-period information. Illinois’s Minimum Wage Law likewise requires covered employers to keep true and accurate records, including rate of pay, amount paid, and daily and weekly hours, for at least three years. Those are employer recordkeeping duties; they do not require a worker to create or obtain every record. Read U.S. Department of Labor recordkeeping guidance and read Illinois Minimum Wage Law section 8.
Deadlines
Time limits can differ by law and by route. The periods below are lawsuit provisions, not a universal administrative-complaint deadline.
For federal Fair Labor Standards Act actions for unpaid overtime, the statute generally provides a two-year period from accrual and a three-year period for a cause of action arising from a willful violation. Read 29 U.S.C. 255 on the limitations period.
For an employee’s civil action under the Illinois Minimum Wage Law, the statute says the action must be brought within three years from the underpayment. The same statute gives the Illinois Department of Labor a separate five-year period for an action it brings under a different subsection. These are different statutory routes. Read Illinois Minimum Wage Law section 12.
The opened official sources do not establish a general deadline for every agency complaint or state whether filing a particular complaint changes any lawsuit deadline. The federal Wage and Hour Division and Illinois Department of Labor each describe administrative processes, but this draft does not treat an agency complaint as a substitute for confirming applicable time limits. Read the federal Wage and Hour Division complaint process and read the Illinois Department of Labor wage-claims process FAQ.
Sources and dates
Publisher and place: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: No displayed date or version in retrieved text.
Source limits: Agency guidance, not statutory text. Snapshot preserves claim-relevant extracted text, not the original HTML or a full-page capture.
Publisher and place: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: Revised October 2019.
Source limits: Agency general-information fact sheet, revised in 2019; its page states it is not an official statement of position and does not bind the public.
Publisher and place: eCFR, Office of the Federal Register / National Archives and Records Administration · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: Title 29 displayed up to date as of 10/22/2026; Title 29 last amended 10/14/2026.
Source limits: The retrieved eCFR page describes eCFR as authoritative but unofficial and distinguishes it from the annually published official CFR.
Publisher and place: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: Revised July 2008.
Source limits: Agency general-information fact sheet, revised in 2008; page states it is not an official statement of position and does not bind the public.
Publisher and place: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: No displayed date or version in retrieved text.
Source limits: Describes information helpful to a federal Wage and Hour Division complaint; it does not identify a worker-specific legal duty or prove an overtime claim.
Publisher and place: U.S. Government Publishing Office · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: United States Code, 2024 Edition.
Source limits: Official 2024 U.S. Code edition, not an individual deadline calculation. Text concerns an action; it does not itself establish a general agency-complaint deadline.
Publisher and place: Illinois General Assembly · Illinois.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: No consolidated version date displayed in retrieved text; the displayed section notes identify public-act sources.
Source limits: The stateless extraction partially elided the full list of section 4a(2) exceptions. This source supports that exceptions exist, not an exhaustive list in this packet. No consolidated version date was displayed.
Publisher and place: Illinois Department of Labor · Illinois.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: No displayed date or version in retrieved text.
Source limits: Agency FAQ says it is not a substitute for statutes or rules and is not complete; it gives no individual legal opinion.
Publisher and place: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: No displayed date or version in retrieved text.
Source limits: Explains federal administrative process only; it does not state a general complaint deadline or a tolling rule.
Publisher and place: Illinois Department of Labor · Illinois.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: No displayed date or version in retrieved text.
Source limits: Describes Illinois Department of Labor wage-claim process only; it does not state a general filing deadline or a tolling rule.
Publisher and place: U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo); U.S. Code prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-26.
Displayed date or version: 2024 U.S. Code edition, Title 29, section 255; official GovInfo link resolved to the 2024 section PDF on October 26, 2026. This edition is not a certification of later legal changes.
Source limits: For mixed federal/state or court/agency claims, this result supports only the federal section-255 component, not the separate state or agency proposition. For the retaliation hold, it supports the statement that section 255's stated subject is the listed wage, overtime, and liquidated-damages actions; it does not determine whether another limitations rule applies. The displayed-date limit does not establish absence of later changes. Research support only, not attorney approval.
Publisher and place: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: No page-level displayed date or version identified in the retrieved text.
Source limits: The page gives a general federal overview and does not itself resolve coverage or every exemption. No page-level publication date or version was identified in the retrieved text. The saved file is stateless-fetch extracted text, not original HTML bytes, because a direct raw-page retrieval from the official site returned HTTP 403.
Publisher and place: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · Federal.
Read: 2026-10-25.
Displayed date or version: Revised September 2019
Source limits: The page identifies itself as general information, states that it does not have the force and effect of law, and is revised September 2019. It does not decide a particular worker’s exemption. The saved file is stateless-fetch extracted text, not original HTML bytes, because a direct raw-page retrieval from the official site returned HTTP 403.
Read the scope and exceptions beside each explanation. These links do not replace review of personal facts or qualified legal advice.