4/10 Schedule Overtime Rules: A Compressed Workweek Guide

What Is a 4/10 Schedule (and a Compressed Workweek)?

A compressed workweek is any schedule that fits a full week of hours into fewer than five workdays. Instead of stretching 40 hours across five 8-hour shifts, you pack the same hours into longer days and gain an extra day off.

The 4/10 schedule is the most common version: four 10-hour days, one day off added to the weekend. Four times ten is 40, so the weekly total matches a traditional 5/8 schedule exactly. All that changed is how the hours are distributed.

How it compares to a 5/8

A 5/8 schedule is five days of 8 hours. A 4/10 is four days of 10 hours. Both land at 40 hours per week. The paycheck math is identical under federal law, because the FLSA does not care how your hours are spread across the week, only the total.

Other compressed variants

Two other patterns show up often:

• 9/80: 80 hours over nine days in a two-week cycle, with eight 9-hour days, one 8-hour day, and one day off. The trick is a mid-day workweek boundary that splits the 8-hour day so each workweek totals 40. More on this below.
• 3/12: three 12-hour days, common in healthcare and public safety. This one runs 36 hours and often pairs with a partial fourth day to reach 40.

The 4/10 stays popular because it is the easiest to administer: a fixed 40-hour week, no rotating boundary, and a clean three-day weekend.

Does a 4/10 Schedule Trigger Overtime Under Federal Law?

No. The Fair Labor Standards Act pays overtime by the workweek, not the workday. Per the Department of Labor, non-exempt employees earn 1.5 times their regular rate for every hour worked over 40 in a workweek. There is no federal daily overtime requirement at all.

A compliant 4/10 schedule lands at exactly 40 hours. It touches the threshold without going past it, so no federal overtime is owed. A 10-hour day, on its own, is not overtime under federal law.

Why the workweek definition matters

The FLSA lets each employer define its own workweek: a fixed, regularly recurring period of seven consecutive 24-hour days. Once set, it should not shift around to dodge overtime.

For a 4/10, the four working days have to fall inside one defined workweek. If the workweek is poorly defined, or if four shifts straddle two different workweeks, the hour counts can change and weekly overtime can appear where you did not expect it. A correctly defined, fixed workweek is what keeps a 4/10 at a clean 40.

Compressed hours are not FLSA overtime

The federal Office of Personnel Management is explicit on this point for compressed work schedules: hours that exceed 8 in a day or 40 in a week, when they are part of the scheduled compressed week, do not constitute FLSA overtime. The longer days are built into the schedule, not extra work piled on top of it.

States With Daily Overtime: Where 10-Hour Days Cost Extra

Federal law sets a floor. States can require more, and four of them do: they pay overtime based on hours worked in a single day, not just the week. On a 4/10 schedule, that daily rule is where a paycheck can quietly fall short.

California

California has the strongest daily overtime law. Per the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement:

• 1.5x for hours over 8 (and up to 12) in a workday
• 2x for hours over 12 in a workday
• 2x for hours over 8 on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek

On a standard 10-hour day, hours 9 and 10 are daily overtime. Across a four-day 4/10 week, that is 2 overtime hours per day times 4 days, or 8 overtime hours every week, unless an exception applies.

Alaska

Alaska requires 1.5x for hours over 8 in a workday, for employers with four or more employees, per the Alaska Department of Labor. A 4/10 here also generates 2 daily overtime hours per shift unless a recognized exception covers the schedule.

Colorado

Colorado’s threshold is higher. The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment requires 1.5x for hours over 12 in a workday (alongside the over-40-per-week and 12-consecutive-hours rules), with the larger calculation paid. A 10-hour day stays under the 12-hour line, so a plain 4/10 in Colorado usually triggers no daily overtime. A 12-hour compressed day would.

Nevada

Nevada requires 1.5x for hours over 8 in a 24-hour period, but with an important condition tracked by the Nevada Office of the Labor Commissioner: the daily rule only applies to employees earning less than 1.5 times the state minimum wage. Higher-paid hourly workers fall back to the weekly 40-hour rule, so whether a 4/10 owes daily overtime in Nevada depends on the pay rate.

In the 45 other states, there is no daily overtime, so a clean 4/10 at 40 hours owes nothing extra.

California’s Alternative Workweek Schedule (AWS) Exception

California has a built-in escape valve for 4/10 schedules. Labor Code Section 511 allows an Alternative Workweek Schedule, a properly adopted schedule of up to 10 hours per day with no daily overtime for those hours.

Per California Labor Code Section 511, an AWS raises the daily overtime threshold from 8 hours to 10. With a valid AWS in place, the 9th and 10th hours of a 10-hour day are paid at the regular rate, and the 8 weekly overtime hours a default 4/10 would owe disappear.

What makes an AWS election valid

An AWS is not something an employer can simply announce. It requires a real process:

• A written proposal describing the schedule, shared with affected employees in advance
• A disclosure meeting before the vote
• A secret-ballot election among the affected work unit
• Approval by at least two-thirds of the affected employees
• Proper reporting of the results to the state

Only after all of that does the higher daily threshold take effect.

What happens if the AWS was never properly adopted

If there was no valid election, or the process skipped a required step, the AWS does not exist in the eyes of the law. The default daily overtime rule applies, and the employer owes 1.5x for hours 9 and 10 of every 10-hour day. Hours over 12, and hours past 8 on a seventh consecutive day, still earn 2x even under a valid AWS.

If you work a 4/10 in California and have never voted on your schedule, that is worth a closer look at your pay stub.

4/10 vs 9/80: How Overtime Differs

People often lump the 4/10 and the 9/80 together, but they handle overtime differently. The distinction matters most in daily-overtime states.

How the 9/80 works

A 9/80 schedule covers 80 hours over a two-week cycle: eight 9-hour days, one 8-hour day, and one day off. The catch is that one 8-hour day. The employer sets the workweek boundary in the middle of that day, usually at lunch, so 4 hours land in one workweek and 4 hours land in the next.

That split is what keeps each workweek at exactly 40 hours. Without the mid-day boundary, one week would total 44 hours and trigger 4 hours of weekly overtime. The 9/80 only works because of that carefully placed line.

How the 4/10 works

A 4/10 needs no such trick. Four 10-hour days sit cleanly inside one workweek at 40 hours. There is no boundary to manage and no risk of an accidental 44-hour week if the schedule is set up correctly.

Overtime exposure compared

For weekly overtime, both schedules land at 40 and owe nothing, as long as the 9/80 boundary is correct. For daily overtime, the picture differs by state:

• In California without an AWS, a 4/10’s 10-hour days each owe 2 daily overtime hours. A 9/80’s 9-hour days each owe 1 daily overtime hour.
• An AWS can cover either schedule, but the elected schedule has to match what employees actually work.
• In states with no daily overtime, both schedules behave the same: a clean 40 with nothing extra.

So a 9/80 has more moving parts and more ways to go wrong, while a 4/10 is simpler but stacks more daily overtime hours per shift in California.

How to Verify Your Overtime Pay on a Compressed Schedule

You do not need a payroll background to audit a 4/10 paycheck. The process is short, and it catches the most common error: a missed daily overtime hour in a state that requires one.

Step 1: Track exact in and out times

Write down when you clocked in, when you clocked out, and every unpaid break, for each day. A 10-hour day with a 30-minute unpaid lunch is 9.5 paid hours, not 10. Rounding or guessing here is where errors hide.

Step 2: Know your workweek start day

Find your employer’s defined workweek (often in the handbook or on the stub). The seven-day window has a fixed start. All four of your 4/10 shifts should fall inside one such window. If they straddle two, your hour totals per week change.

Step 3: Apply the daily rule, if your state has one

If you work in California, Alaska, Nevada, or Colorado, check each day against the daily threshold. In California without an AWS, count hours 9 and 10 as daily overtime. In Colorado, only hours past 12 count.

Step 4: Apply the weekly 40-hour rule

Total your hours for the fixed workweek. Anything over 40 is weekly overtime under federal law.

Step 5: Pay the larger result, never both

The governing principle is “whichever is greater”. You apply the daily rule and the weekly rule, then take the larger overtime amount. The same hour is never counted as overtime twice. On a clean 4/10 at 40 hours, weekly overtime is zero, so the daily rule (if any) is what controls.

Spotting a missing hour

Take a quick California example. You work four 10-hour days, 40 hours total, with no AWS. Your stub shows 40 hours at straight time and zero overtime. That is wrong: you should see 32 straight-time hours and 8 daily overtime hours at 1.5x. A stub that lists only “40 regular” on a 4/10 in California is a red flag.

Keeping a clean record of in/out times and breaks makes this check fast. Timeclock44 has configurable daily and weekly overtime toggles, an adjustable overtime multiplier, and a week-start-day setting, so you can model your exact compressed schedule and catch a missed overtime hour before payday rather than after. You can also run the numbers in the overtime tools if you just want a quick estimate.