How do Washington wage, overtime and break laws work in 2026?
Washington's minimum wage is $17.13 an hour, the highest of any US state, with no tip credit. Overtime is weekly only, but the salary you must pay to keep a worker exempt is $1,541.70 a week, far above the federal line.
· Washington, United States guide
Illustration · Seattle, Washington
Washington has the highest minimum wage of any US state at $17.13 an hour, with no tip credit, and several cities go higher: Seattle sits at $21.30. Overtime is the easy part, because Washington counts the week only. If you're also hiring across the border, see how the rules compare in our Oregon wage and overtime guide.
Where out-of-state employers slip is the exempt salary line. To keep a salaried worker off overtime in Washington you must pay at least $1,541.70 a week, which is $80,168.40 a year and more than double the federal threshold. Miss it and the exemption fails. For full US hiring context, start at the United States hiring guide.
What is Washington's minimum wage in 2026?
Washington's state minimum wage is $17.13 an hour in 2026, the highest state minimum wage in the country, indexed each year to the CPI-W by Washington Labor & Industries. There is no tip credit: tipped staff get the full $17.13 in cash, with tips on top.
Several cities set their own higher rate. Seattle's 2026 minimum wage is $21.30 an hour for all employer sizes, so a Seattle hire sits well above the state floor.
Because Washington allows no tip credit, hospitality and service payroll costs the full $17.13 (or the higher city rate) before tips, which makes budgeting more predictable than in a tip-credit state but also more expensive at the floor. Tips belong to the employee and never count toward the minimum.
The city rule is the one to check first. The $17.13 state rate is the floor, but Seattle, SeaTac, Tukwila and others publish their own higher minimum, and the obligation follows where the work is performed. For a Seattle role you cost the hour at $21.30, not the state $17.13. Check the city, not just the state. Washington's wage framework is also one of the most direct inputs into whether your worker qualifies as an employee or a contractor, a question covered in the Washington worker classification guide.
How does overtime work in Washington?
Washington pays overtime at 1.5 times the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek, matching the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. There is no daily overtime in Washington, with a narrow exception for certain public works.
So a ten-hour shift triggers no overtime on its own. What matters is the weekly total: anything over 40 hours in the week is paid at 1.5 times the regular rate, whether those hours fall on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday.
This is simpler than the daily-overtime states. A four-day, ten-hour schedule is fine in Washington as long as the week stays at 40 hours, because there is no premium for the long day by itself. The unit Washington measures is the workweek, not the shift. California, by contrast, triggers daily overtime after eight hours, which is a material cost difference for shift-heavy roles. See the California wage and overtime guide if you hire on both coasts.
The regular rate is where the care goes. Overtime is 1.5 times the regular rate, and that rate has to fold in non-discretionary bonuses and shift premiums, not just base pay. The US DOL Wage & Hour Division sets the FLSA methodology for regular-rate computation, and Washington follows it. Get the regular-rate maths right and Washington overtime is the most predictable part of the wage bill.
What are Washington's meal and rest break rules?
Washington requires a 30-minute meal period for any shift longer than five hours, starting between the second and fifth hour, and a paid 10-minute rest break for each four hours worked.
The rest break is paid and counts as hours worked. The meal period is unpaid only if the employee is fully relieved of duty; if they work through it, the whole period is paid. These rules sit in WAC 296-126-092.
You owe every shift worker over five hours an uninterrupted 30-minute meal period, taken between the second and fifth hour. On top of that, a paid 10-minute rest break runs for each four hours worked and counts as hours worked toward the 40-hour overtime line.
Source: Washington L&I, Rest Breaks, Meal Periods & Schedules
The 10-minute rest break cannot be waived and is paid, so it folds into the hours-worked total that feeds the 40-hour overtime line. The 30-minute meal period can be waived only by agreement, and stays unpaid only when the employee is genuinely free of duty.
Build both breaks into the rota rather than relying on staff to claim them. A missed or interrupted meal period flips to paid time, and the burden of proving breaks were provided sits with the employer, so the record matters as much as the rule. Washington's paid-leave obligations run alongside these break rules, and are covered in the Washington paid family and sick leave guide.
Who is exempt, and how does Washington compare to federal law?
To treat a salaried worker as overtime-exempt in Washington, you must pay at least $1,541.70 a week ($80,168.40 a year) in 2026 and meet the duties test. That threshold is 2.25 times the state minimum wage and applies to small (1 to 50) and large (51 plus) employers alike.
That is far above the federal FLSA salary basis. Where Washington and federal rules differ, the one more generous to the employee wins, so in Washington it is the state threshold that governs the salary you must pay to keep someone exempt.
This is the Washington trap for out-of-state employers. A salary that comfortably clears the federal exemption can still fall short of Washington's $1,541.70 weekly floor, and the moment it does the worker is non-exempt: every hour over 40 in a week becomes overtime at 1.5 times pay, retroactively, as back-pay. The threshold also moves, because it is pinned to the minimum wage and rises toward 2.5 times the minimum by 2028. The US DOL Wage & Hour Division overtime rules set the federal floor, but Washington's state threshold sits above it and governs.
So the exempt-or-not call in Washington turns on the state number, not the federal one. A worker paid below $80,168.40 a year is non-exempt no matter how senior the title, and a worker at or above it is still only exempt if the duties test is met. Misclassifying a salaried worker as exempt is the expensive error here, far more than the overtime rule itself. If you're also managing Washington termination obligations, the termination law guide covers what the at-will doctrine does and doesn't protect.
How Teamed runs Washington wage and hour compliance
Teamed becomes your legal employer of record in Washington for $599 per employee per month flat. Zero FX mark-up. We run the timesheet-to-payslip path so weekly overtime, the right city minimum wage, and break tracking are handled every cycle.
You set the schedule. Teamed applies the $17.13 state floor (or the higher Seattle $21.30 rate), tracks 30-minute meal and paid 10-minute rest breaks, and flags any salaried role under the $1,541.70 exempt threshold before it becomes back-pay. Everything runs on one platform.
Real HR and legal experts handle your Washington hires and know the $17.13 state minimum, the Seattle $21.30 rate, the 40-hour weekly overtime line, and the $1,541.70 exempt-salary threshold. An actual person, not a chatbot or a pooled queue. Overtime, premium pay, and break compliance are computed and pass through at cost, itemised and auditable on every invoice. No setup fee, no exit fee.
Contractor onboarding, EOR payroll, and entity graduation all live on one platform: a Washington contractor who converts to W-2 keeps their record, and that same employee can graduate to your own US entity without switching systems. Use the Crossover Calculator to see the month the model flips, or run the Employer Cost calculator to price the full Washington wage bill. EOR is the right model for Washington, until it isn't. Washington's state tax and unemployment insurance guide covers the other payroll obligations that stack on top of these wage rules.
The Washington wage mistake we see most is the exempt salary line. Employers move a worker onto a salary that clears the federal exemption and assume the job is done. Washington pins its exempt threshold to the state minimum wage, so the number is far higher and it rises every year. A salary that was exempt last year can be non-exempt this year, and every over-forty-hour week then becomes back-pay. The salary level, not the overtime rule, is where Washington compliance is won or lost.
Washington overtime is the easy half. The state counts the week, not the day.
The hard half is the exempt salary line: $1,541.70 a week to keep a worker off overtime, double the federal floor, and rising every year.
The minimum wage was never the risk. The salary threshold is, and tracking it as it moves is the part you pay us for.
