Breaks and meal periods - California

Breaks

Federal law does not require employers to provide rest periods or coffee/snack breaks. However, if employers choose to offer short breaks, breaks lasting 20 minutes or less must be considered work time and employees are paid for the time.

California law requires non-exempt employees to take a rest period during the middle of each “work period.” The rest period is based on the total hours worked daily and must be at the minimum rate of a net 10 consecutive minutes for each four-hour work period, or major fraction thereof. The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement considers anything more than two hours to be a major fraction of four. A rest period is not required for those employees whose total daily work time is less than three and one-half hours. The California Supreme Court has ruled, therefore, that non-exempt employees are entitled to 10 minutes’ rest for shifts from three and one-half hours to six hours in length, 20 minutes for shifts of more than six hours up to 10 hours, 30 minutes for shifts of more than 10 hours up to 14 hours, and so on.

Rest periods must fall in the middle of a work period “insofar as practicable.” Employers are thus subject to a duty to make a good faith effort to authorize and permit rest breaks in the middle of each work period (each four-hour period or major fraction thereof), but may deviate from that preferred course where practical considerations render it infeasible.

The rest period is counted as work time and the employee is paid for that time.

Lactation accommodation

Federal law requires employers to provide reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for one year after her child’s birth. The employer must provide a room or location for the employee to use, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion by coworkers and the public.

Every California employer must provide a reasonable amount of break time to accommodate an employee desiring to express breast milk for the employee’s infant child. The break time shall, if possible, run concurrently with any break time already provided to the employee. Break time for an employee that does not run concurrently with the rest time need not be paid. The employer shall make reasonable efforts to provide the employee with the use of a room or other location, other than a toilet stall, in close proximity to the employee’s work area, for the employee to express milk in private. The room or location may include the place where the employee normally works if it otherwise meets the requirements of this section. An employer is not required to provide an employee break time for purposes of lactating if to do so would seriously disrupt the operations of the employer.

Meal periods

Federal law does not require employers to provide meal periods. However, if employers choose to provide one, a meal period of at least 30 minutes may be unpaid as long as employees are completely relieved from duty. If employees are not completely relieved of job duties during the meal period, employees must be paid for that time.

California labor code states that an employer must provide an employee with a meal period of at least 30 minutes for workdays lasting more than five hours, and provide two meal periods of at least 30 minutes each for workdays in excess of 10 hours. However, if the employee’s work period for that day lasts six hours or less, the meal period may be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and employee. If the total hours worked is no more than 12 hours, the second meal period may be waived by mutual consent of the employer and employee, but only if the first meal period was not waived. Employers must provide the first meal period no later than the end of an employee’s fifth hour of work, and the second meal period no later than the end of an employee’s 10th hour of work.

There are slightly different meal period requirements for employees in the motion picture industry.

The employee must be relieved of all duties during the 30-minute meal time. If not relieved of all duties, the employee will be considered "on duty" during the meal period and the time will be counted as hours worked and paid at the employee's regular pay rate. An on-duty meal period is permitted only when the nature of the work prevents an employee from being relieved of all duty. If the employee must be on duty during the meal period, the employee and employer must have a written agreement which the employee can revoke at any time.

Effective January 1, 2011, the meal period law provides a number of exemptions, particularly for construction occupations and commercial drivers. The meal period requirements will not apply to employees if both of the following conditions are satisfied:

1. The employee is covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement.
2. The valid collective bargaining agreement expressly provides for the wages, hours of work, and working conditions of employees, and expressly provides for meal periods for those employees, final and binding arbitration of disputes concerning application of its meal period provisions, premium wage rates for all overtime hours worked, and a regular hourly rate of pay of not less than 30 percent more than the state minimum wage rate.

These new exemptions may apply to the following employees under applicable collective bargaining agreements:

• An employee employed in a construction occupation.
• An employee employed as a commercial driver.
• An employee employed in the security services industry as a security officer and who is employed by a private patrol operator registered pursuant to that chapter (this does not affect the nature or scope of the law relating to meal periods for security officers who are not covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement).
• An employee employed by an electrical corporation, a gas corporation, or a local publicly owned electric utility.

If employees are required to remain at the worksite or facility during the meal period, the meal period must be paid. This is true even where the employee is relieved of all work duties during the meal period.

If an employer fails to provide an employee a meal period in accordance with state law, the employer must pay one additional hour of pay at the employee's regular rate of pay for each workday that the meal period is not provided. This additional hour is not counted as hours worked for purposes of overtime calculations.

California Supreme Court

Time records

In February 2021, the California Supreme Court affirmed how serious an employee’s right to a meal period is. In this case, the Court ruled on two main issues:

• First, employers cannot round timeclock punches when it comes to meal periods. These provisions are designed to prevent even minor infringements on meal period requirements, and rounding isn’t allowed.
• Second, if employers’ time records show they were noncompliant with meal periods, the burden is on employers’ shoulders to prove employees were given their allowed meal period. Otherwise, the assumption is that an employer was in violation.

Meal break waivers

On April 21, 2025, the California Supreme Court ruled that prospective meal period waivers are permissible under the California meal break law, as long as the waivers are not unreasonable or coerced. The waivers stem from California’s Labor Code (§512) and IWC Wage Orders 4 and 5 (governing professional and technical workers). These are, however, silent on whether waivers must be “prospective” or “as-accrued,” and whether they should be written or oral. The Court ruling helped clear up that the waivers can be prospective.

Employers should include specific language in their meal period waivers and implement them to leave no doubt that employees agree to them voluntarily. Waivers must make clear that employees may revoke (cancel) them at any time.

Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating, Inc.