Apollo's Templates
HomeBusinessTimesheet TemplatesCalifornia Overtime
Golden State rules

California Overtime Timesheet

California computes overtime by the day, not just the week: time-and-a-half past 8 hours in a workday, double-time past 12, plus the familiar 40-hour weekly cap. A standard timesheet gets that wrong on every long day. This one runs the three-tier split per day — regular, OT, double-time — then applies the weekly cap and prices each tier at your rate.

The CA sheet

Daily overtime, done right.

Excel — the daily split, automated
Every day's hours divide into regular (first 8), overtime (8–12 at 1.5×), and double-time (past 12 at 2×) — then the week applies the 40-hour cap and prices all three tiers.
Printable PDF preview
PDF
Printable PDF
The ten-column version for the wall: clock times on the left, the three-tier split on the right, the rule summary printed at the bottom.
Download PDF
Worked example

Why the daily split matters.

Take a 38-hour week that includes one 10-hour day and one 12.5-hour day. A weekly-only sheet sees 38 < 40 and pays zero overtime. California sees the 10-hour day (2 hours at 1.5×), and the 12.5-hour day (4 hours at 1.5×, then half an hour at 2×). Same week, meaningfully different paycheck — and the difference is exactly what wage-and-hour claims are made of.

The sheet also feeds the weekly cap correctly: only regulardaily hours count toward the 40, so a long week doesn’t double-count hours that already earned a daily premium. That interaction is the part people get wrong on paper — it’s the reason this sheet exists as a spreadsheet first.

The federal standard
Weekly Timesheet
The 40-hour weekly split — right for the other 47 states' hourly payroll.
Open →
Two-week pay periods
Biweekly Timesheet
Two week blocks, overtime split inside each — pair with this sheet's daily rules manually for CA crews.
Open →
All the spreadsheets
Excel Timesheet Templates
Every sheet in the library as an .xlsx with working formulas.
Browse →

Frequently asked questions

What are California's overtime rules, exactly?
For most nonexempt employees: time-and-a-half after 8 hours in a workday or 40 in a workweek, and for the first 8 hours worked on a seventh consecutive workday; double-time after 12 hours in a workday, and past 8 hours on that seventh consecutive day. The daily triggers are what make California different — a 10-hour Tuesday earns 2 overtime hours even in a 38-hour week, which a standard weekly timesheet computes as zero. Current details live at the California DIR's overtime page (dir.ca.gov); some occupations and alternative workweek schedules have their own rules.
Does the spreadsheet handle the seventh-consecutive-day rule?
No, and the sheet says so on its face rather than pretending. The 7th-day premium depends on the consecutive-day streak, which can start in the previous week's sheet — a single-week grid can't see it reliably, and a wrong automatic answer is worse than an honest manual one. When someone works all seven days, reclassify that seventh day by hand: the first 8 hours to the OT column, anything beyond to double-time. The note row on the printed sheet spells out the same rule.
Who should use this sheet instead of the standard weekly one?
Anyone paying or being paid for nonexempt hourly work performed in California — the standard weekly sheet's 40-hour-only split will systematically undercount overtime on long days there. It's also the right sheet for the handful of other daily-overtime jurisdictions (Alaska and Nevada compute daily OT past 8 hours too, though without California's double-time tier — ignore the DT column there). If your crew never crosses 8 hours in a day, the two sheets produce identical numbers and the standard weekly is simpler.
Is this sheet legal advice?
No — it's arithmetic. The formulas implement the general daily and weekly thresholds, which cover most straightforward hourly situations, but California layers exemptions, alternative workweek schedules, meal-period premiums, and occupation-specific wage orders on top. The sheet gets the standard math right and prints its assumptions where an auditor can read them; for edge cases, the DIR's site and a payroll professional outrank any template, ours included.
Updated through August 2026