Are Breaks Required at Work? In Plain Words

The federal rule: no break is required

DOL’s “Breaks and Meal Periods” page opens with this line: “Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks.”

DOL’s elaws Fair Labor Standards Act Advisor says the same thing in answer to the question “When must breaks and meal periods be given?”: “The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require breaks or meal periods be given to workers.”

DOL’s breaks page also lists a page called “What Does the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) NOT Require?” and sums it up this way: “The FLSA does not require meal or break periods.”

So the federal answer to “does my employer have to give me a break?” is no — not under the federal rules on these DOL pages. What federal law does is set the pay rules for breaks that are given. Those rules are next.

Short breaks, when an employer gives them, are paid

DOL’s breaks page says: “However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers the breaks as compensable work hours that would be included in the sum of hours worked during the workweek and considered in determining if overtime was worked.”

DOL’s Fact Sheet #22 says it in similar words: “Rest periods of short duration, usually 20 minutes or less, are common in industry (and promote the efficiency of the employee) and are customarily paid for as working time. These short periods must be counted as hours worked.”

The two pages word the length two different ways — “about 5 to 20 minutes” on the breaks page, and “usually 20 minutes or less” on Fact Sheet #22 — so both wordings are printed here, not merged into one number.

In plain words: a short break that is given counts toward your hours for the workweek, and it counts when overtime is figured.

Meal periods are not work time — if you are truly off duty

DOL’s breaks page says: “Meal periods (typically lasting at least 30 minutes), serve a different purpose than coffee or snack breaks and, thus, are not work time and are not compensable.”

Fact Sheet #22 adds the condition that makes a meal period a real one: “Bona fide meal periods (typically 30 minutes or more) generally need not be compensated as work time. The employee must be completely relieved from duty for the purpose of eating regular meals. The employee is not relieved if he/she is required to perform any duties, whether active or inactive, while eating.”

Fact Sheet #22 gives this example of a meal period that is really work: “an employee who remains at his/her desk while eating lunch and regularly answers the telephone and refers callers is working. This time must be counted and paid as compensable hours worked because the employee has not been completely relieved from duty.”

In plain words: a meal period can be unpaid when it is typically at least 30 minutes and you are completely relieved from duty. If you must do duties while you eat — active or inactive — you are not relieved, and that time is work time.

Taking longer than the break you were given

Both DOL pages give the same rule for stretching a break. DOL’s breaks page says: “Unauthorized extensions of authorized work breaks need not be counted as hours worked when the employer has expressly and unambiguously communicated to the employee” all three of these things:

• the authorized break may only last for a specific length of time,
• any extension of the break is contrary to the employer’s rules, and
• any extension of the break will be punished.

“Expressly and unambiguously communicated” means the employer said it clearly and directly, in a way that leaves no doubt.

Why hours worked matters at all

Fact Sheet #22 explains the Act this way: “The Act requires that employees must receive at least the minimum wage and may not be employed for more than 40 hours in a week without receiving at least one and one-half times their regular rates of pay for the overtime hours. The amount employees should receive cannot be determined without knowing the number of hours worked.”

That is why the paid-or-unpaid line for a break matters: paid break time counts in the number of hours worked, and that number is what minimum wage and overtime pay are figured from.

Fact Sheet #22 also states this general rule: “Work not requested but suffered or permitted to be performed is work time that must be paid for by the employer.” “Suffered or permitted” is the fact sheet’s own wording for work an employer allows to happen, even if the employer did not ask for it.

States can be different

The federal rule is not the whole picture. DOL’s elaws Advisor says: “Some states may have requirements for breaks or meal periods.”

The same Advisor page then says: “If you work in a state which does not require breaks or meal periods, these benefits are a matter of agreement between the employer and the employee (or the employee's representative).”

So:

• Federal: no lunch or coffee break is required, and the pay rules above apply to breaks that are given.
• Your state: your state may have its own requirements for breaks or meal periods. States differ, and this page does not state any one state’s rule.
• No state requirement: in a state that does not require breaks or meal periods, DOL says they are a matter of agreement between the employer and the employee (or the employee’s representative).

DOL’s breaks page links to state labor offices and state laws, which is where a state’s own rule would be found.

The regulations DOL points to

DOL’s breaks page sums up its regulations this way: “Regulations on rest and meal periods make a distinction between rest periods (usually lasting 5 to 20 minutes) and compensable waiting time or on-call time, all of which are paid work time and meal periods (typically lasting at least 30 minutes that are not compensable work time.”

The page names the two regulations:

• 29 CFR 785.18 — Rest Periods.
• 29 CFR 785.19 — Meal Periods.

“CFR” is the Code of Federal Regulations, the book of federal regulations. Those section numbers are printed here exactly as DOL’s page prints them; this page does not quote the regulation text itself.

What this page does not cover

This page covers only what the three DOL sources below say about breaks and meal periods in general. It does not cover break rules for any one state, break rules for teen workers, or any separate break topic that those three sources do not state. Those topics need their own official sources, read on their own.