The honest answer about North Dakota is shorter than you might expect: the law protecting your overtime here is mostly federal. The state's minimum wage has not moved since 2009, its rule sets no salary threshold, and its overtime chapter gives you no right to sue. The FLSA does. Knowing which law you are actually using is the whole game in this state.
The standard sits in an administrative rule, not a statute. N.D. Admin. Code § 46-02-07-02(4) provides that "Overtime pay must be paid at one and one-half times the regular rate of pay to any employee for hours worked in excess of forty hours in any one week."1 Forty hours a week, no general daily overtime.
What the state does not give you is a private right of action. Chapter 34-06 of the Century Code, which authorizes that rule, lets no employee sue for unpaid overtime — § 34-06-19 makes a violation a class B misdemeanor, enforced by the labor commissioner.2 So when a North Dakota worker recovers overtime in court, the claim is almost always federal, under 29 U.S.C. § 207, which carries liquidated damages in "an additional equal amount," a mandatory "reasonable attorney's fee," and a two-year lookback that stretches to three for a willful violation.6
The 8/80 arrangement. "Hospitals and residential care establishments may adopt, by agreement with their employees, a fourteen-day overtime period in lieu of the usual seven-day workweek, if the employees are paid at least time and one-half their regular rate for hours worked over eight in a day or eighty in a fourteen-day work period."1 Three conditions are built into that sentence: it reaches hospitals and residential care establishments only, not healthcare employers generally; it requires an agreement with the employees; and it requires the eight-in-a-day premium to actually be paid. Employers that take the 8/80 benefit while skipping the daily premium end up with the worst of both tests.
Taxicab drivers. "Individuals employed as drivers by taxicab companies must be compensated at one and one-half times the regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of fifty hours in any one week."1 Fifty, not forty.
The state rule exempts "bona fide executive, administrative, or professional" employees without stating any salary level and without incorporating 29 C.F.R. Part 541 — its only federal cross-reference is to 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(1)–(3) for motor carriers.1 So the threshold that matters is the federal one, because the federal claim is the one you are bringing: $684 per week, with a highly compensated employee threshold of $107,432. A 2024 rule that would have raised it was judicially vacated, and the Department of Labor restored the 2019 regulations by technical amendment announced May 14, 2026.5
Most of the state's other exemptions carry a number an employer can get wrong: computer professionals must be paid at least $27.63 per hour, shelter and foster-care employees must spend 51% or more of their time on direct care, outside sales employees must spend more than 80% of their hours on outside work, and retail commission employees must earn at least one and one-half times the minimum wage with more than half their pay from commission.1 A computer professional at $26 an hour is not exempt. An outside salesperson inside half the week is not exempt. Salary versus hourly
There is a state wage-collection remedy, in a different chapter from the overtime rule. Under N.D.C.C. § 34-14-09.1, "Every employee is entitled to recover from the employee's employer" interest on the unpaid wages from the date they were due until paid in full at the rate set by § 47-14-09, plus an amount equal to double the unpaid wages where the employer has previously been found liable for two wage claims, or treble where it has been found liable for three or more.3
That is a repeat-offender multiplier. It does nothing for a worker whose employer is being caught the first time; for an employer with a history of wage claims it changes the arithmetic considerably. Separately, § 34-14-09(1) lets an employee "file with the department a claim for wages due under this chapter or under chapter 34-06 if the filing is made within two years from the date the wages are due."3
Day-rate and flat-salary pay in the Bakken is the dominant pattern: eighty or more hours a week on a hitch, the same figure regardless, no time-and-a-half line on the stub. Day rates are not illegal — but the Supreme Court held in Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt that daily-rate pay does not satisfy the salary basis test unless the conditions in 29 C.F.R. § 541.604(b) are met, and most arrangements do not meet them.7 A large day rate is not a defense.
The quieter methods run the same here as anywhere: pre-shift setup and post-shift cleanup, donning and doffing gear, travel between well sites, unpaid lunches worked through, after-hours calls, bonuses and production pay left out of the regular rate, hours trimmed, comp time instead of cash. Off-the-clock work
N.D.C.C. § 34-01-20 separately bars an employer from discharging, disciplining, threatening, discriminating against or penalizing an employee "regarding the employee's compensation, conditions, location, or privileges of employment" for reporting a violation of law or participating in an investigation.4
Because North Dakota offers no state-law class vehicle for unpaid overtime, a group case runs as an FLSA collective action — and the FLSA is opt-in: "No employee shall be a party plaintiff to any such action unless he gives his consent in writing to become such a party and such consent is filed in the court in which such action is brought."6
That is not a technicality. If a notice arrives about a wage case covering your crew, the envelope is the claim. Throw it away and you keep nothing. How collective actions work · Wage claim deadlines
Yes — time and one-half past forty hours under § 46-02-07-02(4). But chapter 34-06 gives employees no private right to sue for it; a violation is a class B misdemeanor enforced by the labor commissioner. In court, the claim is federal.12
Yes, under the FLSA — the unpaid overtime plus an equal amount as liquidated damages and a reasonable attorney's fee. You can instead file a wage claim with the North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights within two years of the date the wages were due.36
Two years under the FLSA, three if the violation was willful.6
Day rates are not automatically unlawful, but they rarely satisfy the salary basis test — so day-rate workers are frequently still owed overtime for every hour past forty.7
Not automatically. Exemption turns on your actual duties plus a salary of at least $684 per week under the federal regulations. A supervisor title over work substantially the same as the crew's generally does not qualify.15
Siegel Law Group concentrates in overtime and misclassification litigation for workers, including in the District of North Dakota — among them Burruss v. Wyoming Casing Service, Inc., No. 1:16-cv-00080 (D.N.D.), brought for oilfield workers.8 You do not need a lawyer physically in North Dakota to pursue a North Dakota claim. We represent employees only — never employers.
Consultations are free and confidential. Call (214) 790-4454 or request a case review. Siegel Law Group PLLC, 11341 W US Hwy 290, Bldg 2, Austin, TX 78737.
Agencies: North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights (nd.gov/labor); U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division (dol.gov/agencies/whd). Law stated as of October 3, 2026. This page is deliberately shorter than the firm's other state pages because North Dakota's own wage law is genuinely thinner — the state sets no salary threshold, its minimum wage has not changed since 2009, and its overtime chapter provides no private right of action. Padding it would mean padding it with federal law that applies in every state.
This page is general information about North Dakota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. This website contains attorney advertising. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
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Attorney advertising. Jack L. Siegel of Siegel Law Group PLLC, Austin, Texas, is responsible for this content.
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