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A lunch break is unpaid under the federal baseline only when it is a bona fide meal period and the employee is completely relieved of duty. A meal period is generally 30 minutes or longer. An employee who answers calls, watches a desk, responds to messages, cleans up, waits for assignments, or performs any other duties while eating is still working for that time.
Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks for adult employees. Break requirements, when they exist, come from state law, employer policy, or a contract. The federal calculation separates three items: paid work time, paid short breaks, and unpaid bona fide meal periods. Covered nonexempt employees then receive overtime after 40 hours worked in a fixed FLSA workweek.
Short breaks provided by an employer, usually about 5 to 20 minutes, count as compensable hours worked under federal law. They stay in the paid total and count toward weekly overtime for covered nonexempt employees. A 15-minute rest break inside an 8-hour shift is paid time, so removing it from the timesheet understates hours worked.
Meal periods get different treatment because the employee must be completely relieved from duty. A lunch that lasts 30 minutes or more can be unpaid only if the employee is free from work duties during that period. State law can add stricter meal-period rules, premium-pay rules, or timing requirements, so a U.S. calculation should keep federal arithmetic separate from state-specific overlays.
Start with the gross shift span, subtract only unpaid bona fide meal time, and leave paid breaks in the total. The formula is: paid hours = clock-out time minus clock-in time minus unpaid meal time. For a 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM shift with a 1-hour unpaid lunch, the gross span is 10 hours and the paid total is 9 hours.
At $25.50 per hour, those 9 paid hours equal $229.50 before taxes, deductions, overtime, or premiums. If that same employee is covered and nonexempt, weekly overtime is calculated after the fixed workweek total is known. Covered nonexempt employees in the United States must receive at least 1.5 times the regular rate for hours worked over 40 in that workweek.
A calculator is enough when you need to check one shift, correct a single lunch deduction, or explain why a meal period stayed paid. It also works for quick reviews of AM/PM entries, crossing-midnight shifts, and simple weekly totals. The result is arithmetic, not a compliance ruling on state break mandates or employer policy.
A managed workflow becomes necessary when multiple people submit weekly hours, managers need to approve or reject entries, and payroll or billing needs a protected record. Everhour Timesheets collect weekly project hours and working hours by person, then let admins approve, reject, partially approve, and lock submitted time before it moves into payroll or billing review.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
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Federal law does not require lunch breaks for adult employees. Under the federal baseline, a bona fide meal period is generally unpaid only when it lasts 30 minutes or more and the employee is completely relieved of duty. If the employee performs duties while eating, that time counts as hours worked.
A short break provided by an employer, usually about 5 to 20 minutes, is compensable under federal law. It stays in paid hours and counts toward weekly overtime for covered nonexempt employees. Do not subtract short paid breaks the same way you subtract an unpaid bona fide meal period.
A lunch break cannot be treated as an unpaid bona fide meal period under the federal standard when the employee keeps working. Duties such as monitoring a phone, helping customers, staying at a post, or handling messages make the time worked. The timesheet should include that time in paid hours.
State law can add meal-break requirements, timing rules, premium pay, or stricter employee protections. The federal baseline only says adult lunch breaks are not required and bona fide meal periods are unpaid only when the employee is relieved of duty. Apply the state rule after the federal paid-time decision.
Overtime for covered nonexempt employees uses hours worked in a fixed FLSA workweek. Paid short breaks count toward that total, and unpaid bona fide meal periods do not. Hours cannot be averaged across multiple workweeks to avoid overtime after 40 hours in one fixed workweek.
Everhour Timesheets collect weekly project hours and working hours by person, so managers can review submitted time before payroll or billing. Admins can approve, reject, partially approve, and lock time entries, which helps keep corrected lunch deductions from changing after review.
Use Everhour Timesheets to collect weekly hours, review lunch deductions, approve corrections, and lock accepted time before payroll or billing review.
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