Kentucky does not require daily overtime. Like federal law, Kentucky pays overtime on a weekly basis: a covered, non-exempt employee earns one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a single workweek (KRS 337.285). There is no general rule requiring extra pay for working more than 8 hours in a day. Kentucky does, however, have one feature that surprises many workers and employers: under KRS 337.050, an employee who is permitted to work seven days in a single workweek must be paid time and one-half for the hours worked on that seventh day. That is Kentucky's closest equivalent to a "daily" overtime rule, and it exists in only a handful of states.
The core rule: weekly 40-hour overtime
Kentucky's overtime requirement tracks the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Both require time and one-half the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek, and neither requires daily overtime, weekend premiums, or holiday premiums as a matter of law. If your employer promises a weekend or holiday differential, that comes from a contract or company policy, not from Kentucky's overtime statute.
A "workweek" is a fixed, recurring period of seven consecutive 24-hour days (168 hours). It does not have to match the calendar week, but once set it should stay consistent. Your 40-hour threshold is measured within that single workweek. Hours cannot be averaged across two weeks to avoid overtime; working 30 hours one week and 50 the next still entitles you to 10 hours of overtime in the second week.
The overtime rate and the "regular rate"
The overtime rate is 1.5 times your regular rate of pay, not just your base hourly wage. The regular rate generally includes nondiscretionary bonuses, shift differentials, and certain commissions, so it can be higher than your stated hourly rate. Kentucky's minimum wage is $7.25 per hour as of 2026, the same as the federal FLSA minimum, because Kentucky has not enacted a higher state minimum. Because minimum-wage and tip rules can change, confirm the current figure with the Kentucky Labor Cabinet before relying on it.
Kentucky's seventh-day rule (KRS 337.050)
This is where Kentucky departs from the bare federal baseline. KRS 337.050 provides that if an employer permits an employee to work all seven days of a workweek, the employee must receive time and one-half for the time worked on the seventh day. Importantly, this is separate from the 40-hour rule, so in some weeks an employee could be owed seventh-day pay even on hours that, by themselves, would not push the weekly total over 40, depending on how the hours fall.
The seventh-day rule has statutory exceptions. It generally does not apply to employees whose total weekly hours are very low (the statute excuses it where the employee does not work more than a limited number of hours that week), and it does not apply to employers and employees who are exempt from KRS Chapter 337's wage-and-hour provisions. Because the precise thresholds and carve-outs are technical, verify how the rule applies to your situation with the Labor Cabinet or an employment attorney rather than assuming.
Who is exempt from overtime
Kentucky recognizes the familiar "white-collar" exemptions for bona fide executive, administrative, and professional employees, along with outside sales and certain computer employees. To qualify, an employee generally must be paid on a salary basis above a minimum threshold and must perform exempt job duties. A job title alone never makes someone exempt; the actual duties and pay structure control.
Other categories are exempt or specially treated under KRS Chapter 337 and the FLSA, including certain agricultural workers, some commissioned retail employees, and specific transportation roles. Notably, exempt status for overtime does not necessarily strip away every protection. The seventh-day rule and other Chapter 337 provisions have their own exemption lists that do not always match the overtime exemptions exactly, so a worker can be exempt from one rule but covered by another. Misclassification, treating an hourly worker as "salaried exempt," or labeling an employee an "independent contractor" who is really an employee, is one of the most common ways overtime is wrongly denied.