Overtime, breaks & domestic worker rights in California
California sets overtime, rest, and minimum-wage rules for in-home caregivers and domestic workers. The sections below summarize the rules in plain language and link to the official Department of Industrial Relations and Labor Code sources.
Last verified 2026-06-20
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Daily and weekly overtime
Caregivers classified as personal attendants must receive overtime at 1.5× their regular rate for hours worked beyond 9 in a workday or 45 in a workweek, under the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights (Labor Code §1454). Domestic workers who are NOT personal attendants instead follow standard Wage Order 15 overtime.
A 'personal attendant' spends at least 80% of work time supervising, feeding, or dressing the person in care.
Other (non-attendant) domestic workers get overtime over 8 hours/day or 40 hours/week, with double time over 12 hours/day.
IHSS clients, family members, and casual babysitters are excluded from the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights.
A live-in personal attendant is entitled to overtime for hours worked beyond 9 in a day or 45 in a week. Wage Order 15 also requires off-duty time: at least 12 consecutive hours free of duty each workday and a 24-hour day off after five days of work (with overtime owed when those off-duty hours are worked). Employers must track hours actually worked.
A live-in worker required to work during the 12 off-duty hours is paid 1.5× for that time.
Working more than five days in a week triggers overtime, with double time over 9 hours on the 6th and 7th days.
Written agreements for live-in arrangements should spell out sleep, meal, and off-duty periods.
Under Wage Order 15, domestic workers who are NOT personal attendants are entitled to a paid 10-minute rest break for each four hours worked (or major fraction thereof) and an unpaid 30-minute meal break before the fifth hour of work. Caregivers classified as personal attendants are exempt from these meal and rest break requirements - though an employer may still provide them.
The personal-attendant exemption applies only when no significant time (no more than 20%) is spent on non-attendant work like cleaning or cooking.
For covered workers, on-duty meal periods are allowed only when the work prevents relief - with a written, revocable agreement.
For covered workers, a missed meal or rest break requires one hour of premium pay for that day (Labor Code §226.7).
Caregivers must receive at least the applicable state or local minimum wage for every hour worked. Several Bay Area cities set higher local minimums than California's state floor.
The higher of state or local minimum wage applies where the work is performed.
See our minimum-wage-by-city table for sourced local rates.
California's Domestic Worker Bill of Rights (Labor Code §1450 et seq.) removed the overtime exemption that previously applied to personal attendants in private households. Under Labor Code §1454, personal attendants must be paid overtime at 1.5× their regular rate for hours over 9 in a day or 45 in a week.
Before AB 241 (effective 2014), personal attendants were largely exempt from overtime; the law removed that exemption.
Families employing a caregiver must keep accurate records of hours worked.
The law does not itself create a separate day-of-rest entitlement - those rules come from Wage Order 15 (live-in) and Labor Code §551–552.
Labor rules depend on how the worker is classified, whether they live in, and local ordinances. This page is informational - not legal advice. Confirm current requirements with the linked California DIR and Labor Code sources or qualified counsel.
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