Checklist: FLSA Exempt Employment Checklist

The checklist below shows employees who are completely exempt from FLSA minimum wage, equal pay (except where noted), and overtime payment requirements, as well as employees who are completely or partially exempt from overtime pay requirements but are covered by minimum wage requirements.

• Executive, administrative, or professional employees, including teachers and academic administrative personnel in schools (no equal pay exemption).
• Outside sales personnel (no equal pay exemption).
• Employees of amusement or recreational establishments having seasonal peaks.
• Seamen on non-American vessels.
• Employees engaged in the fishing industry, including offshore seafood processing.
• Agricultural employees of an employer who did not use more than 500 man-days of agricultural labor in any quarter of the preceding calendar year; agricultural employees who are members of the employer's immediate family; hand harvest laborers who commute daily from their permanent residence; hand harvest laborers under 17 years old who are employed on the same farm as their parents; and workers principally engaged in the range production of livestock.
• Employees of weekly, semiweekly or daily newspapers of less than 4,000 circulation, the major part of which is in the county of publication or contiguous counties.
• Switchboard operators employed by independently-owned public telephone companies having not more than 750 stations.
• Employees who are casual babysitters or companions to ill or aged persons unable to care for themselves.

• Employees of motor carriers subject to regulation by the Secretary of Transportation.
• Employees of railroads, express companies and water carriers subject to Part I of the Interstate Commerce Act.
• Employees of air carriers subject to Title II of the Railway Labor Act.
• Outside buyers of poultry and dairy products.
• Seamen on American vessels.
• Announcers, news editors and chief engineers of radio or television stations in small communities.
• Salespersons, parts men or mechanics employed by automobile, truck or farm implement dealers, and salespersons employed by trailer, boat or aircraft dealers.
• Drivers and drivers' helpers who make local deliveries and are paid on a trip-rate or similar basis pursuant to a plan that was approved by the government.
• Agricultural employees.
• Agricultural employees who incidentally do livestock auction work, if they receive the statutory minimum wage for time spent in the auction work.
• Employees of non-profit agricultural irrigation systems.
• Workers employed by country elevators that are located within the area of production and have no more than five employees.
• Employees engaged in the local transportation of fruits or vegetables or workers employed or to be employed in the harvesting of fruits or vegetables.
• Drivers employed by taxicab operators.
• Law enforcement and fire fighting personnel working for agencies employing fewer than five such persons.
• Household domestic service employees who reside in the household.
• Employees of nonprofit educational institutions who, with their spouse, serve as resident house parents to children who are orphans or one of whose natural parents is deceased, if the house parents together earn at least $10,000 annually.
• Employees of motion picture theaters.
• Workers employed in forestry or logging operations by an employer who has no more than eight employees doing such work.
• Employees who process maple sap into syrup or sugar other than refined sugar.
• Computer system analysts, computer programmers, software engineers and other similarly skilled computer professionals whose hourly rate of pay is at least $27.63 per hour.
• Criminal investigators who are paid availability pay.

• Commission employees of retail or service establishments. Commissions qualify as overtime pay if the employee's regular rate exceeds one and one-half times the statutory minimum rate and if more than one-half of the employee's compensation represents commissions.
• Hospital employees. The employees may be paid overtime at one and one-half times their regular rates on the basis of a 14-day period, rather than the usual seven day workweek, if they agreed to the arrangement prior to performance of the work and if they receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of eight daily and in excess of 80 during the period.
• Nursing home employees. These employees have the same overtime standards as hospital employees.
• Employees of wholesale petroleum distributors meeting certain requirements. Employees must be paid at least one and one-half times their FLSA minimum rates for hours worked between 40 and 56 in a workweek, and one and one-half times their regular rates of hours worked in excess of 12 daily or 56 weekly.
• Employees working under a union contract that provides for a maximum of 1,040 hours in 26 weeks or that provides on an annual basis for a minimum of 1,840 hours and a maximum of 2,240 hours.
• Employees who gin cotton for market in counties where cotton is grown in commercial quantities. These employees are exempt from the regular overtime pay standards for up to 14 weeks in any 52-week period, provided they receive time and one-half their regular rate of pay for hours worked in excess of 10 hours a day or 48 hours a week during the 14-week period.
• Cotton and sugar service employees, if no other exemption is utilized. The exemption may be applied for up to 14 workweeks in a year, if the employee is paid overtime rates for hours worked in excess of 10 daily or 48 hours in a workweek.
• Employees who process sugar beets, sugar beet molasses or sugar cane into sugar (other than refined sugar) or syrup. These exemptions are subject to the same standards as for cotton-ginning employees.
• Fire fighters and law enforcement personnel, including prison security employees, if the employing agency has five or more such employees. Overtime rates must paid when tour-of-duty hours exceed 212 for a 28-day period, or a proportional number for a shorter period, for fire protection activities and 171 hours for law enforcement activities.
• Employees processing and handling green leaf tobacco, if no other exemption is utilized. The exemption may be applied for up to 14 workweeks in a year, if the employee is paid overtime rates for hours worked in excess of 10 daily or 48 hours in a workweek.
• Private entities that operate concessions in national parks, in national forests, or on land in the National Wildlife Refuge System. Overtime compensation is due after 56 hours of work in a workweek.
• Employees receiving remedial education. The exemption may be applied for a period of ten hours in any workweek in excess of the 40-hour maximum workweek, if the worker is involved in a remedial education program.

• Learners
• Apprentices
• Certain workers with disabilities
• Students in retail or service establishments
• Students in agriculture
• Students in institutions of higher learning
• Students working for schools
• Employees in American Samoa and some employees in Puerto Rico
• Messengers
• Teens entering the labor market