New York Minimum Wage and Overtime Exemptions Laws


Executive exemption

New York exempts bona fide executive employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. NY Labor Law 651(5)(b) To qualify as an executive employee, an employee must:

  • perform primary duty consisting of the management of the enterprise in which the individual is employed or of a customarily recognized department or subdivision thereof;
  • customarily and regularly directs the work of two or more other employees therein;
  • have the authority to hire or fire other employees or whose suggestions and recommendations as to the hiring or firing and as to the advancement and promotion or any other change of status of other employees will be given particular weight;
  • customarily and regularly exercise discretionary powers; and
  • be paid a salary on a weekly basis of not less than the amounts listed below, including board, lodging, other allowances and facilities:
    • New York City – $1,125.00
    • Nassau, Suffold and Westchester counties – $1,125.00
    • Remainder of the state – $937.50

NY Admin. Rules 142-2.14(4)(i)


Administrative exemption

New York exempts bona fide administrative employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. NY Labor Law 651(5)(b) To qualify as an administrative employee, an employee must:

  • perform primary duties that include office work or non-manual field work relevant to management policies and general operations;
  • customarily and regularly exercises discretion and independent judgment;
  • regularly and directly assists an employer, or another employee in the position of a bona fide executive or administrative (e.g., administrative assistant); or performs only under general supervision work along specialized or technical lines which require special training, experience or knowledge; and
  • be paid a salary on a weekly basis of not less than the amounts listed below, including board, lodging, other allowances and facilities:
    • New York City – $1,125.00
    • Nassau, Suffold and Westchester counties – $1,125.00
    • Remainder of the state – $937.50

NY Admin. Rules 142-2.14(4)(ii)


Professional exemption

New York exempts bona fide professional employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. NY Labor Law 651(5)(b) To qualify as a professional employee, an employee must:

  • perform primary duties which include:
    • performing work that requires advanced knowledge in the field of science or an education generally acquired by a “prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study”, as mastered from a general academic education, an apprenticeship, or training in the performance of routine mental, manual, or physical processes;
    • performing work that is original and creative in an accepted field of artistic undertaking, and achieves results that mainly depends on the employee’s invention, imagination, or talent; or
    • work that is predominantly intellectual and varied in character (as opposed to mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work) and is of such a character that the output produced or the result accomplished cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time.

NY Admin. Rules 142-2.14(4)(iii)


Outside salesman exemption

New York exempts outside salesment from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. NY Labor Law 651(5)(c) To qualify as an outside salesman, an employee must:

  • customarily and predominantly work away from the employer’s premises and not at any fixed location;
  • for the purpose of:
    • making sales;
    • selling and delivering articles or goods; or
    • obtaining orders or contracts for service or for the use of facilities.

NY Admin. Rules 142-2.14(5)


Computer employee exemption

New York exempts computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, or other similarly skilled workers from its minimum wage or overtime requirements under the same rules as the Fair Labor Standards Act. NY Admin. Rules 142-2.2


Other minimum wage and overtime exemptions

New York also exempts the following employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements:

  • individuals working on a casual basis as a part time baby sitter in the home of the employer;
  • individuals working in labor on a farm who; (NY Labor Laws 674)
    • are parents, spouses, children, or other members of the employer’s immediate family;
    • are minors under the age of 17 working as hand-harvest workers on the same farm as their parents or guardians and who are paid on a piece-rate basis at the same piece rate as employees 17 years of age and over;
    • individuals working for the Federal, State, or municipal government or political subdivision thereof; and
    • perform work on a part-time basis that is covered by any other minimum wage order promulgated by the New York Department of Labor;
  • drivers of taxicab;
  • individuals working as a member of a religious order, or as a duly ordained, commissioned or licensed minister, priest or rabbi, or as a sexton, or as a christian science reader;
  • individuals working in or for a religious or charitable institution, which work is incidental to or in return for charitable aid conferred upon the individual and not under any express contract of hire;
  • students working for a religious, educational or charitable institution;
  • individuals working for a religious, educational or charitable institution if the earning capacity of such individual is impaired by age or by physical or mental deficiency or injury;
  • individuals working in or for a summer camp or conference of a religious, educational, or charitable institution for not more than three (3) months annually;
  • individuals working as staff counselors in a children’s camp;
  • students working in or for a college or university fraternity, sorority, student association, or faculty association, whose earnings do not in any manner inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, and which is recognized by such college or university;
  • individuals working for a federal, state or municipal government or political subdivision thereof; and
  • individuals working as volunteers at a recreational or amusement event run by a business that operates such events, provided that no single such event lasts longer than eight (8) consecutive days and no more than one such event concerning substantially the same subject matter occurs in any calendar year where:
    • any such volunteer shall be at least eighteen (18) years of age,
    • a business seeking coverage under this paragraph shall notify every volunteer in writing, in language acceptable to the commissioner, that by volunteering his or her services, such volunteer is waiving his or her right to receive the minimum wage pursuant to this article, and
    • such notice shall be signed and dated by a representative of the business and the volunteer and kept on file by the business for thirty-six months
  • individuals that deliver newspapers or shopping news to the consumer and who is not performing commercial goods transportation services for a commercial goods transportation contractor within the meaning of article NY Labor Law 25c

NY Labor Law 651(5)


Overtime only exemptions

New York exempts from its overtime requirements all employees subject to exemption under Section 7 of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. It requires employers to pay employees one and a half times the standard minimum wage rate, as opposed to the employees’ regular rate, to employees covered by the exemption found in Section 13 of the Fair Labor Standards Act, unless the employees are otherwise exempt from New York’s minimum wage and overtime requirements. NY Admin. Rules 142-2.2


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