Colorado Labor Laws: Overtime, Breaks, and Meal Periods

Under Colorado labor laws, there is no cap on the number of hours per day an adult can be required to work, but any time past 12 hours in a workday must be paid at one and a half times your regular rate. That daily overtime rule, together with mandatory rest breaks and a meal period, comes from the Colorado Overtime and Minimum Pay Standards Order, currently COMPS Order #40 for 2026.¹ Employers can schedule shifts longer than 12 hours; the premium pay requirement is what makes long shifts costly rather than illegal.

The Three Overtime Triggers

Colorado overtime kicks in under three separate rules, and whichever produces the highest pay in a given week is the one that applies. You earn time-and-a-half for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek, beyond 12 in a single workday, or beyond 12 consecutive hours regardless of whether those hours cross midnight into a new calendar day.²

The consecutive-hours trigger is the one workers miss most often. Start a shift at 8 p.m. and work straight through until 10 a.m., and those last two hours are overtime even if your weekly total is only 20 hours.

The daily and consecutive-hours calculations do not depend on your weekly total. Three 14-hour days in a row gives you 42 hours for the week, but you still earn two hours of overtime for each of those three days. You never lose overtime by qualifying under one trigger instead of another; the rule that pays more wins.

What Counts as Hours Worked

Whether you’ve crossed the 12-hour line depends on what counts as paid time, and Colorado’s definition is broader than the federal one. The state never adopted the federal Portal-to-Portal Act, so pre-shift and post-shift tasks that federal law might exclude are still compensable here.³

Time on the clock includes putting on or removing required gear (though not uniforms you also wear off-duty), clocking in and out, security screenings, setup and cleanup, pre- and post-shift meetings, and waiting on-site for assignments.³ An employer scheduling an 11.5-hour shift may think they’ve avoided overtime, but a 10-minute security check at the start and a 15-minute cleanup at the end pushes the employee past 12 hours of compensable time.

The only exception is for tasks under one minute that the employer can show are genuinely infeasible to track. Anything of a minute or more counts, no matter how inconvenient it is to record.

Rest Breaks Required Through the Day

Most non-exempt employees in Colorado get paid 10-minute rest breaks that scale with the length of the shift:⁴

2 hours or fewer: no rest break required
Over 2, up to 6 hours: 1 paid rest break
Over 6, up to 10 hours: 2 paid rest breaks
Over 10, up to 14 hours: 3 paid rest breaks
Over 14, up to 18 hours: 4 paid rest breaks
Over 18, up to 22 hours: 5 paid rest breaks

Rest breaks are counted as time worked, so they cannot be deducted from your pay. Breaks should fall near the middle of each four-hour block when practical.

If your employer fails to authorize a rest period, the missed break counts as 10 additional minutes of compensable work, with overtime pay layered on top if those extra minutes push you past any overtime threshold.⁵ An employer who routinely skips rest breaks builds unpaid wage liability every shift.

Meal Period on Shifts Over Five Hours

Any shift longer than five consecutive hours requires an uninterrupted, duty-free meal period of at least 30 minutes.⁴ It’s usually unpaid, but only when you are genuinely free from all work: free to leave your station, with nobody expecting you to watch a phone or answer messages. The moment your employer requires you to remain available or keep working while eating, the full 30 minutes becomes paid time at your regular rate.

A narrow exception exists for jobs where a single employee is responsible for a whole site and cannot be relieved. In that situation, the employer can allow an on-duty meal, but you must be paid for that time and you must agree to the arrangement.⁵ Employers sometimes try to stretch this exception well past solo-coverage situations, which is a common source of wage complaints.

Timing counts too. The meal period should fall at least one hour after the shift starts and at least one hour before it ends, to the extent practical.⁴ Scheduling lunch 15 minutes before quitting time does not comply with the rule.

Who Is Exempt From These Rules

Not every Colorado worker gets daily overtime and mandatory breaks. The COMPS Order carves out exemptions based on job duties, pay level, and industry. The most common are the white-collar exemptions covering three categories of salaried workers:⁶

Administrative employees: salaried workers who directly support an executive and regularly exercise judgment in decision-making.
Executives or supervisors: salaried workers who manage at least two full-time employees and have hiring or firing authority.
Professional employees: salaried workers whose primary duties require advanced knowledge in a specialized field or recognized creative talent.

All three require a minimum salary. The 2024 threshold was $55,000 per year, and the 2026 figure set by the PAY CALC Order is approximately $57,784.¹ Paying someone a salary alone does not make them exempt; the job duties must independently qualify. Misclassification exposes an employer to years of back overtime plus penalties.

Other exemptions include outside salespeople, business owners with at least 20 percent equity, taxi drivers, certain in-residence workers like property managers and seasonal camp staff, highly compensated employees, and specific technical computer roles.⁶ Auto dealership salespeople and mechanics are exempt from overtime but may still be entitled to rest breaks. Interstate truck drivers fall under the federal Motor Carrier Act, which removes them from both state and federal overtime protections and regulates their hours through Department of Transportation safety rules instead.⁷

Daily Hour Caps for Workers Under 18

Adults face no daily maximum, but minors do. No worker under 18 may be scheduled for more than 8 hours in a 24-hour period or more than 40 hours in a week.⁸ These are absolute maximums, not overtime triggers. Premium pay does not buy an employer past them.

Workers under 16 face tighter limits tied to the school calendar:⁹

School days: no more than 3 hours outside of school hours, including Fridays.
School weeks: no more than 18 hours in any week that includes school days.
Evening curfew: no work between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., except from June 1 through Labor Day, when the evening limit extends to 9 p.m.

Seasonal agricultural harvest work allows minors 14 and older to work up to 12 hours in a 24-hour period on a piece-rate basis, but 14- and 15-year-olds can only exceed the 8-hour limit on 10 days within any 30-day stretch.⁸

If Your Employer Breaks These Rules

Colorado’s wage penalties have weight. If your employer fails to pay wages you’re owed, including overtime, and does not pay within 14 days of a written demand, the automatic penalty is the greater of two times the unpaid amount or $1,000. If the failure was willful, it becomes the greater of three times the amount owed or $3,000.¹⁰ A second violation of the same type within five years is automatically treated as willful.

You can file a wage complaint with the Colorado Division of Labor Standards and Statistics, regardless of your immigration status. The Division investigates claims of up to $7,500 in unpaid wages; for amounts above that, you can still file but may need to pursue the remainder in court.¹¹

The statute of limitations is two years from when the wages were due, or three years for a willful violation. That deadline can extend further if the employer prevented you from knowing your rights, such as by failing to post required workplace notices.¹¹ Every Colorado employer must display the current COMPS Order poster in the workplace.¹² If yours isn’t posted, that’s worth noting as you gather information about your claim.

1
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Adopted 2026 COMPS Order #40 7 CCR 1103-1
2
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO #1 – 2026 COMPS and PAYCALC Orders
3
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO #20A – What Is and Isn’t Time Worked That Must Be Paid Under Colorado Law
4
Cornell Law Institute. 7 CCR 1103-1-5 – Meal and Rest Periods
5
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO #4 – Meal and Rest Periods
6
Cornell Law Institute. 7 CCR 1103-1-2 – Coverage and Exemptions
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 19 – The Motor Carrier Exemption Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
8
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Colorado Youth Employment Opportunity Act – C.R.S. 8-12-101 et seq.
9
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO #22 – Employment of Minors in Colorado
10
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Colorado Wage Act – Revised January 1, 2025
11
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO #2A – The Wage Claim Investigation Process
12
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Posters