How do Nevada wage, overtime and meal break laws work in 2026?
Nevada's minimum wage is $12 flat with no tip credit. The catch is daily overtime: anyone earning under $18 an hour earns it after 8 hours in a day.
· Nevada, United States guide
Illustration · Las Vegas, Nevada
Nevada looks like a simple wage state until you hit the overtime rule. The minimum wage is a single flat $12 for every employer, with no tip credit and no health-plan two-tier since the 2022 constitutional amendment. Unlike most states in the US hiring guide, Nevada locks that rate by constitution.
Overtime is where out-of-state employers slip. On top of the federal week, Nevada adds daily overtime: an employee paid under $18 an hour earns time-and-a-half after 8 hours in a single day, not just after 40 in a week. The trigger is the schedule, not the total hours.
What is Nevada's minimum wage in 2026?
Nevada's minimum wage is $12 an hour in 2026, one flat rate for every employer. There is no tip credit: tipped staff get the full $12 in cash before tips, which sets Nevada apart from most of the US. The Nevada Office of the Labor Commissioner confirms the single-rate rule applies regardless of industry or benefit structure.
The 2022 constitutional amendment removed the old two-tier system, where employers offering health insurance could pay a dollar less. That lower tier is gone, and the rate is fixed with no automatic inflation adjustment, so any future increase needs a legislative act or another constitutional vote.
Pay your Nevada hire $12 and there is no health-plan tier to track, no tip-credit calculation to defend in an audit. Every Nevada hour is worth at least $12, and tipped roles are costed at the full rate plus tips, which makes hospitality budgeting more predictable than in tip-credit states like Arizona or Utah.
Local governments cannot set a higher minimum, so the same $12 applies in Las Vegas, Reno and rural counties alike. The federal floor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is $7.25, so Nevada's rate is the one that governs. Any future rise needs a constitutional amendment or an act of the legislature, making the rate stable for multi-year workforce planning. Check Nevada's state tax and UI obligations alongside wage compliance for a full picture of Nevada employer costs.
How does overtime work in Nevada?
Nevada pays overtime at 1.5 times the regular rate after 40 hours in a week, matching federal law. The twist is daily overtime under NRS 608.018: employees earning under $18 an hour also earn it after 8 hours in a day.
Put a worker on $12 through a ten-hour shift and you owe two hours of overtime even if the week stays under 40 hours. Above the $18 threshold, only the weekly rule applies, matching what the US DOL Wage and Hour Division enforces nationally.
Schedule someone on $12 for a four-by-ten week and you owe daily overtime on every shift: 1.5x after 8 hours/day for employees earning under $18/hour. Weekly overtime: 1.5x after 40 hours/week for all non-exempt staff regardless of hourly rate.
Source: Nevada Revised Statutes 608.018
The daily rule catches employers who schedule four ten-hour days to give staff a long weekend. In most states that pattern is fine if the week stays at 40 hours; in Nevada, lower-paid staff on that schedule are owed daily overtime every shift. A mutually-agreed four-day, ten-hour schedule is the documented exception under Nevada Labor Commissioner guidance, but the written agreement must be on file before you run that roster. Getting this right is the same discipline as termination compliance: the documentation has to exist before the event, not after.
What are Nevada's meal and rest break rules?
Nevada requires a 30-minute meal break for a continuous shift of 8 hours or more, and a paid 10-minute rest break for each four hours worked.
The meal break is unpaid and the rest break is paid. Both are required under NRS 608.019 unless only one person is employed at the workplace, or a collective agreement provides otherwise.
Rest breaks of 10 minutes count as hours worked, so they fold directly into the daily-overtime calculation. The 30-minute meal break is unpaid only when the employee is fully relieved of duty; a working lunch at a desk or station is paid time and tips the daily-overtime clock toward the 8-hour trigger. The Nevada Office of the Labor Commissioner's FAQ sets out both requirements clearly. Under federal FLSA, short rest breaks (under 20 minutes) are also compensable time, consistent with Nevada practice.
Build both into the rota rather than relying on staff to claim them. The burden of proof on breaks sits with the employer, a point the Labor Commissioner enforces on audit. Pair break tracking with Nevada's paid sick leave rules so your rota accounts for both sets of entitlements from day one.
Who is exempt, and how does federal law apply?
Nevada's daily-overtime rule does not apply to employees earning $18 an hour or more, nor to bona fide executive, administrative and professional staff who meet the federal salary and duties tests under the FLSA exemption rules.
Federal FLSA still sets the floor for the 40-hour week and the salary basis for exemption. Where Nevada and federal rules differ, the one more generous to the employee wins, which is the governing principle across the US hiring guide.
Your Nevada hire's week is 40 hours; anything above that for a non-exempt worker is overtime at 1.5 times pay. Misclassifying a salaried worker as exempt is the expensive error: if the salary or duties test is not met, every over-40-hour week and every long shift under the $18 threshold becomes back-pay. The US DOL Wage and Hour Division enforces both the salary-basis and duties tests, and Nevada does not add a state-level salary threshold above the federal figure.
Because Nevada has no state income tax, wage and overtime rules are the primary compliance surface for a Nevada hire, as the state tax and UI guide explains. Getting the daily-overtime threshold and break tracking right matters more here than withholding arithmetic ever will. Use the Employer Cost Calculator to model the full cost of a Nevada hire at your target hours and rate before you sign an offer.
How Teamed runs Nevada wage and hour compliance
Teamed becomes your legal employer of record in Nevada for from $599 per employee per month flat. Zero FX mark-up. We run the timesheet-to-payslip path so daily and weekly overtime are calculated correctly, every cycle.
You set the schedule. Teamed applies the $18 daily-overtime threshold, tracks 30-minute meal and 10-minute rest breaks, and flags exemption risk before it becomes back-pay. Everything runs on one platform.
Real HR and legal experts handle your Nevada hires and know the daily-overtime quirk, the $12 flat minimum, and the break rules in detail. An actual person, not a chatbot or a pooled queue. Overtime, premium pay, and break compliance are computed and pass through at cost, itemised on every invoice. No setup fee. No exit fee.
Contractor onboarding, EOR payroll, and entity graduation all live on one platform: a Nevada contractor who converts to W-2 keeps their record, and that same employee can graduate to your own US entity when the model no longer fits, without switching systems. Use the Crossover Calculator to see the month the EOR model flips. Check the paid leave guide and the termination guide alongside this one so your Nevada compliance picture is complete before you make the hire. EOR is the right model for Nevada, until it isn't.
The Nevada wage mistake we see most is the four-by-ten schedule. Employers move staff to four ten-hour days to give a long weekend, the week stays at forty hours, and they assume no overtime is due. For anyone earning under the daily-overtime threshold, that is two hours of overtime every shift. The rota, not the week, is where Nevada overtime is won or lost.
Most states only count the week. Nevada counts the day too.
Anyone earning under $18 an hour earns overtime after 8 hours in a single shift, no matter what the week adds up to.
The minimum wage was never the risk. The schedule is, and tracking it shift by shift is the half you pay us for.
