Office and Administrative Assistant Rights in California: Overtime

Most California administrative assistants, receptionists, secretaries and office clerks are nonexempt hourly employees who are owed overtime after 8 hours in a day or 40 in a week, paid rest breaks, duty-free meal breaks and reimbursement for work expenses, even if they are paid a salary or have “administrative” in their job title.

To be exempt from overtime under California’s administrative exemption, you must earn at least $70,304 a year in 2026 ($72,384 from January 1, 2027) and spend more than half your time on work that requires real discretion and independent judgment. Many office jobs fail one test or both. This guide explains how those rules apply to office work, plus after-hours email, remote-work costs and pay transparency.

Who this guide is not for: IT support staff should see the IT help desk guide; engineers and other tech staff, the tech worker guide; clinic staff, the medical assistant guide. If you work for a city, county or state agency, see public employee rights, because most wage order rules don’t apply to government employers.

1. Which wage rules apply to office workers?

California’s wage orders are assigned first by the employer’s industry. If your employer’s main business is covered by an industry order, that order covers you too: an office worker at a retail company falls under Wage Order 7, and one at a manufacturer under Wage Order 1. Office workers at businesses with no industry order, such as law firms and accounting firms, fall under Wage Order 4, which expressly lists clerks, secretaries, typists and office work. The core rules are the same in each order:

• Minimum wage: $16.90 an hour in 2026 and $17.40 from January 1, 2027, or a higher local rate.
• Overtime: time and a half after 8 hours in a day, 40 in a week, and for the first 8 hours on the seventh consecutive workday in a workweek; double time after 12 hours in a day and after 8 on that seventh day (Labor Code 510).
• Breaks: a paid 10-minute rest break per 4 hours worked or major fraction of 4, and a 30-minute meal break, free of all duties, if you work more than 5 hours.
• Salary doesn’t mean exempt: if you are paid a salary but don’t qualify for an exemption, your regular hourly rate is your weekly salary divided by 40 (Labor Code 515(d)).

💡 Example: Taylor, a hypothetical administrative assistant, is paid a $62,400 salary in 2026 and labeled exempt. That is below the $70,304 minimum, so Taylor can’t be exempt whatever the duties. Taylor’s weekly salary is $1,200, so the regular rate is $1,200 ÷ 40 = $30 and the overtime rate is $45. Working 48 hours a week, Monday through Friday, means 8 overtime hours, or $360 a week. Over 48 such weeks, that is $17,280 in unpaid overtime for the year.

Key fact

2. The administrative exemption: why most assistants don’t qualify

Your job title and the way you are paid don’t decide whether you are exempt. Under Labor Code 515 and the wage orders, an administrative exemption requires all of the following:

1. Salary: a monthly salary of at least twice the state minimum wage for full-time work. That is $70,304 a year ($5,858.67 a month) in 2026 and $72,384 a year ($6,032 a month) in 2027.
2. Type of work: office or non-manual work “directly related to management policies or general business operations” of the employer or its customers.
3. Judgment: you “customarily and regularly” exercise discretion and independent judgment.
4. Role: you regularly and directly assist an owner or an exempt executive or administrator, or do specialized or technical work requiring special training, experience or knowledge, or carry out special assignments and tasks, in each case under only general supervision.
5. Time: you are “primarily engaged” in exempt duties, which means more than half your work time.

Where assistants usually fall short

Answering phones, greeting visitors, scheduling, data entry, filing, ordering supplies, processing invoices by set procedures and preparing documents someone else drafted are important, but they usually involve following instructions rather than independent judgment on matters of significance. If those tasks take up most of your week, you are likely nonexempt, even at a high salary.

A senior executive assistant or office manager who makes real decisions for the business, such as negotiating vendor contracts, setting office policy or running projects without step-by-step direction, and who earns at least the salary floor, may qualify. It depends on what you actually do day to day, not on the job description. Learn more in misclassified as exempt and our 2026 and 2027 exempt salary guide.

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3. After-hours email, calls and remote work

Off-the-clock work

The wage orders define hours worked as time you are “subject to the control of an employer,” including all time you are “suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so.” If you are nonexempt and your employer knows or should know you are answering email at night, taking calls during your commute or logging in before your shift, that time generally must be paid, and it counts toward overtime. The California Supreme Court has described an employer’s liability for off-the-clock work as turning on whether it knew or should have known the work was happening. A meal break where you must stay at the front desk or answer the phone is not duty-free; it counts as time worked, and you are generally owed one hour of premium pay for that day (Labor Code 226.7).

Remote work expenses

Labor Code 2802 requires your employer to reimburse “all necessary expenditures or losses” you incur in doing your job. When you must use your personal cell phone for work calls, a California appeals court held in 2014 that your employer must reimburse a reasonable percentage of the bill, even if you have an unlimited plan. That case dealt with cell phones, but the same reasoning supports reimbursement when you are required to work from home: necessary costs such as a reasonable share of your internet bill and required equipment are likely reimbursable too. You cannot waive this right (Labor Code 2804). See expense reimbursement for phones and home offices and our Labor Code 2802 explainer.

4. Pay transparency and equal pay

Labor Code 432.3 gives office workers several pay-information rights:

• Any employer must give you the pay scale for your current position if you ask.
• Employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale in job postings, including postings through third-party sites.
• A “pay scale” is a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly wage range the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position upon hire.
• An employer can’t ask applicants about past pay or rely on it to set pay.

You can file a complaint with the Labor Commissioner within one year after you learn of a violation, and penalties range from $100 to $10,000 per violation. You also have the right to discuss your own pay with coworkers (Labor Code 232), and California’s Equal Pay Act bars paying you less than coworkers of another sex, race or ethnicity for substantially similar work. See our Labor Code 432.3 explainer.

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5. Pay problems we see in office jobs

Practice	Is it legal?	Law
Calling an assistant “exempt” because of a salary or title	No. You must meet the salary and duties tests.	Labor Code 515; Wage Order §1
Paying a salary below $70,304 (2026) with no overtime	No exemption is possible below the floor.	Labor Code 515(a)
Expecting email and calls after hours without pay	Not for nonexempt workers if the employer knows or should know	Wage Order §2; Labor Code 1194
Eating lunch at your desk to cover the phones	Not a duty-free meal break; premium pay is owed	Labor Code 512, 226.7
Making you pay for your own work phone or home internet	Generally no. Required work use of a personal cell phone must be reimbursed; home internet needed for required remote work likely must be too.	Labor Code 2802
Refusing to tell you your position’s pay range	No	Labor Code 432.3
Pay stubs that leave out hours or rates for salaried nonexempt staff	No	Labor Code 226
Taking away earned vacation when you leave	No. Vested vacation must be paid out.	Labor Code 227.3

By the numbersJanuary 1, 2027

6. Safety, injuries and workers’ comp

Office injuries are often slow to build: carpal tunnel and tendinitis from typing, neck and back strain from poor workstation setup, and eye strain. Cal/OSHA’s repetitive motion standard (8 CCR 5110), which names word processing as an example, requires an employer to evaluate jobs, reduce exposures and train workers when, within the last 12 months, more than one employee doing the same repetitive task has had a physician-diagnosed repetitive motion injury mainly caused by the job.

Workers’ comp covers injuries that arise out of and in the course of your job, and that can include injuries while working from home. If you are hurt:

• Tell your employer, ideally in writing, within 30 days (Labor Code 5400).
• Your employer must give you a DWC-1 claim form within one working day of learning of an injury needing more than first aid (Labor Code 5401).
• The general deadline to file a claim is one year from the injury (Labor Code 5405). For repetitive injuries, the date of injury follows special rules (Labor Code 5412).
• Firing or punishing you for a claim is illegal (Labor Code 132a).

See workers’ comp for carpal tunnel and workers’ comp for remote workers.

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7. Retaliation, discrimination and leave

Protected activity	Protection	Law
Asking for overtime or filing a wage claim	No firing, discipline or threats	Labor Code 98.6
Reporting fraud or other suspected violations, including ones you see in company records	Whistleblower protection	Labor Code 1102.5
Discussing or asking about pay	No discipline	Labor Code 232
Using paid sick leave (at least 40 hours or 5 days a year)	No retaliation	Labor Code 246, 246.5
Complaining about harassment or discrimination	No retaliation	Gov. Code 12940(h)
Reporting a safety hazard	No discharge or discrimination	Labor Code 6310
Filing a workers’ comp claim	No discrimination	Labor Code 132a

Assistants often work closely with one manager, which can make harassment hard to report; see our sexual harassment page. You may also have rights to family and medical leave and lactation breaks. State wage protections apply regardless of immigration status (Labor Code 1171.5).

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8. What you can recover and deadlines

If you were misclassified or worked off the clock, you may recover unpaid overtime, meal and rest break premiums, unreimbursed expenses with interest, waiting-time and pay stub penalties, and PAGA civil penalties. Retaliation claims can add lost pay and other damages.

Claim	Deadline
Unpaid wages, overtime and expenses	Generally 3 years; up to 4 years when paired with an Unfair Competition Law claim
Pay transparency complaint with the Labor Commissioner	1 year after you learn of the violation (Labor Code 432.3)
Retaliation complaint with the Labor Commissioner	1 year (Labor Code 98.7)
Discrimination or harassment complaint with the Civil Rights Department	3 years (Gov. Code 12960)
Workers’ comp claim	Generally 1 year from injury (Labor Code 5405)

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9. What to do now

1. Track your real hours, including early log-ins, late email and calls, in a personal notebook or app.
2. Write down your duties and roughly how much of each week each one takes.
3. Keep pay stubs, offer letters and job descriptions, plus receipts and phone and internet bills.
4. Request your records: personnel file (30 days to respond) and payroll records (21 days); see how to request them.
5. Estimate what you may be owed with our wage and hour calculator.
6. Get a free case review from our unpaid overtime team before you sign a severance agreement or release.

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10. Frequently asked questions

Can an executive assistant be exempt in California?

Sometimes. An executive assistant who earns at least $70,304 in 2026 and spends most of the week making independent decisions on matters that matter to the business may qualify. One who mainly schedules, answers calls and follows set procedures usually does not.

Do I get paid for answering work email after hours?

If you are nonexempt and your employer knows or should know you are doing it, that time is generally hours worked and must be paid, including at overtime rates when it pushes you past 8 hours in a day or 40 in a week.

Does my employer have to pay for my home internet?

Likely yes, if working from home is required and the internet is necessary to do the job. Courts have required employers to reimburse a reasonable share of personal cell phone bills used for work, and a reasonable reading of Labor Code 2802 applies the same rule to a reasonable share of home internet.

Can my employer pay me a salary and skip overtime?

Only if you meet both the salary floor and the duties test for an exemption. Otherwise you are salaried nonexempt, and overtime is owed at 1.5 times your weekly salary divided by 40.

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11. Laws this guide relies on

Law	What it does
Wage Order 4 (or your industry order)	Hours, breaks and exemption tests for office work
Labor Code 515	Exemption salary and duties rules
Labor Code 510	Daily and weekly overtime
Labor Code 226.7, 512	Meal and rest breaks and premium pay
Labor Code 2802	Expense reimbursement
Labor Code 432.3	Pay scales and salary history
8 CCR 5110	Repetitive motion injury programs
Labor Code 5400, 5401, 5405, 5412, 132a	Workers’ comp reporting, claims and retaliation

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Sources

• IWC Wage Order 4, 8 CCR 11040 (DIR)
• DLSE, Which IWC Order? Classifications
• DIR Minimum Wage Order MW-2026
• DIR News Release 2026-66: $17.40 minimum wage and $72,384 exempt salary for 2027
• Labor Code 515
• Labor Code 2802
• Labor Code 432.3
• Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court (Cal. Supreme Court, Apr. 12, 2012)
• Cochran v. Schwan’s Home Service, Inc. (Cal. Ct. App., Aug. 12, 2014)
• 8 CCR 5110, Repetitive Motion Injuries (Cal/OSHA)

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