The white-collar exemptions are federal rules that let an employer skip overtime pay for certain executive, administrative, professional, computer and outside sales employees, plus some highly paid workers. Most require a salary of at least $684 a week, paid on a true salary basis, and a primary duty that fits a specific legal test — and the employer has to prove every piece.
This page is the overview. The individual exemptions employers lean on hardest have their own pages: the executive exemption, the administrative exemption and the learned professional exemption.
Fail any one test and the exemption does not apply. Hours over 40 must then be paid at time-and-a-half.
A salary does not make you exempt, and neither does a title. “A job title alone is insufficient to establish the exempt status of an employee.” 29 C.F.R. § 541.2. DOL Fact Sheet #17A agrees: “Job titles do not determine exempt status.” What counts is the work you actually do most of the time.
Management must be the main job, with at least two full-time employees directed and real input on hiring and firing. 29 C.F.R. § 541.100; DOL Fact Sheet #17B. See our executive exemption page.
The primary duty must be “office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations” of the employer or its customers, and must include “discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.” 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a); DOL Fact Sheet #17C. Following a manual or a care plan is not the same thing. See our administrative exemption page.
A learned professional’s primary duty must require “advanced knowledge in a field of science or learning” customarily gained through a prolonged course of academic study. 29 C.F.R. § 541.301(a); DOL Fact Sheet #17D. Registered nurses can qualify; licensed practical nurses generally do not. Creative work must require “invention, imagination, originality or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.” 29 C.F.R. § 541.302(a). See our learned professional exemption page.
Systems analysts, programmers and software engineers paid at least $684 a week on a salary basis or at least $27.63 an hour. 29 C.F.R. § 541.400(b); DOL Fact Sheet #17E.
Making sales or obtaining orders while “customarily and regularly engaged away from the employer’s place or places of business.” 29 C.F.R. § 541.500(a). No salary test applies. 29 C.F.R. § 541.500(c); DOL Fact Sheet #17F.
At least $107,432 in total annual compensation, including at least $684 a week on a salary or fee basis, for an employee who “customarily and regularly performs any one or more of the exempt duties or responsibilities” of an executive, administrative or professional employee. 29 C.F.R. § 541.601; DOL Fact Sheet #17H.
Case managers, care coordinators and utilization review staff are often salaried and labeled “professional” or “administrative.” But the day is usually intake, template assessments, arranging services, documentation and applying set criteria. Those duties often fail the executive test (no one to supervise), the administrative test (following criteria) and the learned professional test (a job open to a degree in any field). Read more about case managers, care coordinators and utilization review.
Two questions come up constantly once a worker starts looking at a misclassification claim: how a group of workers gets a case certified as a collective, and how far back an overtime claim reaches. Which state you work in matters too, because a state wage law can sit on top of the federal claim — or, as in Texas, not exist at all.
No. A salary of at least $684 a week is only one of three tests. Your primary duty must also fit an exemption, and “a job title alone is insufficient to establish the exempt status of an employee” (29 C.F.R. § 541.2).
$684 per week, or $35,568 per year. The 2024 rule that would have raised it was vacated (E.D. Tex. Nov. 15, 2024), and the Department of Labor formally reinstated the 2019 figures effective May 15, 2026. The highly compensated employee level is $107,432 in total annual compensation (29 C.F.R. § 541.601).
The employer. An exemption is a defense to an overtime claim, so the employer must prove each requirement is met.
Not automatically. What matters is your primary duty, “the principal, main, major or most important duty that the employee performs” (29 C.F.R. § 541.700(a)).
Often not, though it depends on the job. Many case managers supervise no one, follow set criteria, and hold jobs open to a degree in any field. Each of those facts cuts against an exemption.
Salaried, called exempt and working over 40 hours? We will review your job description and pay records at no charge. Siegel Law Group PLLC represents workers — never employers — in FLSA overtime and wage cases, and the work is the regulations, the Department of Labor’s interpretations, and the records that show what a job actually consists of.
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