Overtime Laws in South Carolina

The Federal Baseline (FLSA)

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees in South Carolina must be paid at least one and a half times their regular rate for every hour worked beyond 40 in a single workweek. A workweek is any fixed, repeating block of seven consecutive days, your business picks the start day, but once chosen it has to stay consistent.

Overtime is calculated per workweek, not per pay period. So even on a bi-weekly payroll, you still total each of the two workweeks separately when figuring out who crossed 40 hours.

Does South Carolina Have Daily Overtime?

South Carolina does not impose its own daily overtime rule. Overtime follows the federal standard: 1.5× after 40 hours in a workweek. There is no extra premium simply for working a long single day, unless an employment contract or union agreement says otherwise.

Who Is Exempt from Overtime?

Overtime protections cover non-exempt employees. Workers correctly classified as exempt, typically salaried executive, administrative, and professional roles that meet both a salary threshold and a duties test, generally are not owed overtime. Misclassifying an employee as exempt is one of the most common and expensive wage-and-hour mistakes, so review the duties test, not just the job title.

Independent contractors are not employees and are not covered by overtime rules, but the test for contractor status is strict, and getting it wrong creates back-pay liability.

An Overtime Example Using South Carolina Numbers

Take someone earning the South Carolina minimum of $7.25 an hour who works 46 hours in a single workweek. The first 40 hours are paid at $7.25, which is $290.00. The remaining 6 hours are overtime at one and a half times the regular rate, or $10.88 an hour, which is $65.28. Gross pay for the week is $355.28.

The phrase doing the work there is "regular rate", and it is not always the same as the hourly wage on the offer letter. Non-discretionary bonuses, shift differentials and most commissions have to be folded in before the premium is calculated, which means an employee on $7.25 plus a $50 attendance bonus is owed overtime on a higher figure than 10.88.

South Carolina follows the federal weekly standard with no daily premium of its own, so a 12-hour Monday followed by three short days earns no overtime if the week finishes under 40 hours. That is legal, and it is also the arrangement employees most often query, so it is worth putting in writing.

The arithmetic is easy to get wrong by hand across a whole crew. The free overtime calculator linked below does it from a rate and a number of hours, and the time card calculator totals a full week including unpaid breaks.

South Carolina Labor-Law Snapshot

In dollar terms, South Carolina's minimum overtime rate works out to about $10.88/hour, time-and-a-half on the $7.25/hour (the federal floor) minimum. South Carolina follows the federal weekly overtime rule with no daily-overtime premium of its own, and a final paycheck is generally due within 48 hours or by the next regular payday (not more than 30 days) when someone is let go.

For South Carolina employers these rules interact with timekeeping: accurate, audit-logged hours drive overtime, final pay, and break records. South Carolina sets no statewide meal-break requirement and does not mandate paid rest breaks; a final paycheck is due within 48 hours or by the next regular payday (not more than 30 days) when an employee resigns. Confirm current South Carolina figures with the state labor office before relying on any single number.

What South Carolina Employers Should Keep on File

Federal law requires employers to keep payroll records for at least three years, and the records used to calculate pay, such as time cards and work schedules, for at least two. Several states require longer. The practical standard is simple: if a former employee filed a claim tomorrow, could you evidence every hour you paid and every hour you did not?

The records that matter are the daily start and end times, the total hours for each workweek, the regular rate and any premium, all additions and deductions, and the pay period the payment covers. Keeping the underlying punches matters more than keeping the summary, because a total nobody can trace back is not evidence.

Where the record is missing or unreliable, the employee's reasonable recollection is generally accepted, and the employer carries the burden of disproving it. That is the single strongest argument for an automatic time clock over a paper sheet reconstructed at the end of the week.

How South Carolina Compares with the States Next Door

South Carolina borders 2 states, and stays at the federal floor here. Georgia and North Carolina follow the federal 40-hour rule alone.

Minimum wage across the line: Georgia $7.25, North Carolina $7.25. South Carolina is at $7.25.

If you employ people on both sides of the South Carolina border, the stricter of the two states usually governs each worker, based on where the work is actually performed rather than where your business is registered.

Free calculators for this

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Official Sources

• U.S. DOL, Minimum wage by state
• U.S. DOL, State overtime
• U.S. DOL, State labor offices

More South Carolina Guides

Overtime Laws in Other States

South Carolina Overtime Laws: Frequently Asked Questions