Are Work Breaks Paid? What Federal Law Says About Rest and Meal Breaks
- Federal law doesn’t require employers to give breaks at all, but if they offer short rest breaks of about 5 to 20 minutes, those must be paid.
- A meal break can be unpaid only if you are completely relieved from duty; ordinarily that means 30 minutes or more.
- If you eat at your desk while answering phones, that time counts as work.
Break pay is one of the easiest places for hourly workers to lose money without noticing. A few unpaid minutes a day adds up over a year. The rules come from the Department of Labor’s regulations on “hours worked” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and they are short enough to read yourself.
Short rest breaks must be paid
Under 29 CFR 785.18, “rest periods of short duration, running from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes, are common in industry” and “must be counted as hours worked.” The same section says the employer can’t offset that paid break time against other working time such as compensable waiting or on-call time.
Meal breaks can be unpaid, with conditions
29 CFR 785.19 says bona fide meal periods are not work time, but the employee “must be completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating regular meals.” It adds that “ordinarily 30 minutes or more is long enough” and that coffee breaks and snack breaks are rest periods, not meal periods.
The regulation gives two examples of workers who are working while eating: an office employee required to eat at their desk and a factory worker required to stay at their machine. You don’t have to be allowed to leave the building, though; the rule says that isn’t necessary if you are otherwise completely freed from duty.
Quick checklist
- Break of 20 minutes or less? It should be on the clock.
- Lunch automatically deducted, but you still take calls, watch a register or monitor a patient? That time should be paid.
- Interrupted lunch? Write down the date and minutes worked and raise it with payroll.
- Over 40 hours that week? Any break time that should have been paid can also change your overtime pay.
State law may give you more
The federal rules above only decide whether break time is paid. Many states go further and actually require meal or rest breaks for adults. Check your state labor department’s site for its rules.
Sources: 29 CFR 785.18, 29 CFR 785.19, DOL Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked.
Published October 27, 2026. Sources are linked in the text.
Header image: original graphic by JobPayRaise.com.
Comments (1)
One related rule that catches people: for nursing employees, the FLSA also requires reasonable break time and a private place other than a bathroom to pump breast milk, for up to one year after the child’s birth. Those breaks can be unpaid only if the employee is completely relieved from duty. Source: DOL Fact Sheet #73.