Meal & Rest Breaks

California employers must provide nonexempt employees with meal and rest periods.

When employers fail to provide breaks as required, qualifying employees may recover penalties. For each missed meal break or rest break, the penalty is of one hour of pay at the employee’s regular hourly rate of pay.

Meal Period Requirements (California)

Nonexempt employees are entitled to a 30-minute meal break if they work more than 5 hours in a day. Meal breaks must be provided within the first 5 hours of the workday. When a meal break is not provided until deep into the shift (e.g., sometime during the 7th hour of work), a penalty is owed to the employee because the meal break is “late.”

Employees who work more than 10 hours in a day are entitled to a second 30-minute meal break. Many employers fail to provide second meal breaks altogether.

Meal breaks must be a full 30 minutes in duration and may not be interrupted by work. During meal breaks, employees must be relieved of all work duties and must be free to leave the work premises. Employers cannot pressure employees to end their breaks early or start them late to finish a project.

If you believe you may have a claim for meal period violations, contact us for a free case evaluation.

Rest Period Requirements (California)

Nonexempt employees are entitled to rest breaks when then work shifts of at least 3 and 1/2 hours in duration.

Rest periods must be at least ten minutes for each four hours (or major fraction thereof) that the employee will work in the day. This means 10 minutes of paid, completely off-duty time.

Rest breaks must be counted as time worked and must be paid time. Employers cannot force employees to clock out for 10-minute rest breaks.

If you believe you may have a claim for rest period violations, contact us for a free case evaluation.