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At Wrapbook, we pride ourselves on providing outstanding free resources to producers and their crews, but this post is for informational purposes only as of the date above. The content on our website is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for legal, accounting, or tax advice. You should consult with your own legal, accounting, or tax advisors to determine how this general information may apply to your specific circumstances.
Overtime regulations, minimum wage laws, mileage rates—not exactly fun topics for casual conversation. However, each of these concepts is crucial for paying employees.
Understanding overtime and minimum wage laws is crucial to budgeting your payroll. If you mistake the regulations early on, you could wind up paying a whole lot more later on.
In this post, we detail the core concepts of overtime rules and provide a comprehensive list of updated overtime laws by state for 2025.
In California, meal penalties start at five hours for most employees, but there are special provisions for film workers outlined in IWC Article 12, which stipulates six hours.
Effective January 1, 2025, the Internal Revenue Service has also increased the standard mileage rate for using a personal vehicle in the course of business to $0.70 (70 cents) per mile.
The standard mileage rate is used to calculate the deductive costs of operating an automobile for business. Employees may be entitled to either reimbursement from their employers or personal tax deductions according to the current mileage rate.
For those states with no or lower-than-federal minimum wage: Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, and Wyoming, employers are still subject to the minimum wage laws set forth by the Fair Labor Standards Act and must pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
Notable minimum wage stipulations by state:
States with special break laws:
Overtime laws (also known as overtime rules) refer to the increased amount of money you have to pay an employee after a set amount of time.
This set amount of time, whether it be on a daily or weekly scale, varies from state to state.
For instance, in California, the initial amount of time an employee must work before receiving overtime pay is only eight hours. While in Kansas, overtime doesn’t take effect until 46 hours have been worked in a week.
Once your employees have crossed the threshold of their overtime pay law, they then earn “pay and a half.”
Expressed as “1.5x,” this multiplier is applied to the set rate in your employee’s contract. Unless negotiated higher, this rate will be the minimum wage.
While almost every employee is non-exempt from overtime laws, some guilds have special rules for their employees.
For example, in the world of television and film, minimum rates for most actors are determined by The Screen Actors Guild, and SAG minimum wage is different from state minimum wage. While minimum wage in California may be $16.50, the minimum amount you’ll pay a guild member is much, much higher.
While overtime laws dictate a California employee will make 1.5x after eight hours, SAG minimum wage laws stipulate that talent only makes overtime pay after 10 hours.
Meanwhile, unions, like IATSE and the Teamsters, abide by separate pay-rate regulations of their own design.
The challenge of balancing varying rules and rates is one of many reasons why you should hire an entertainment payroll company to run your payroll.
Set by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal overtime law (or federal OT law) states that employees shall receive overtime pay after 40 hours have been worked in a week. When states don’t have set overtime laws, they automatically default to what is expressed in the chart above.
Understanding the nuances of overtime and minimum wage laws isn’t just a way to impress your friends. Without knowing the rules in your state, you may end up owing your employees way more than you thought you did.
If you’re interested in learning more about overtime laws, minimum wage laws, or union pay regulations, be sure to check out our guide to running film payroll.
Or, watch our demo to find out how Wrapbook can support and simplify your payroll needs.
