South Carolina Overtime Pay Calculator

South Carolina has no state minimum wage or state overtime statute of its own, so every overtime right an employee has here comes from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Non-exempt hourly and salaried workers must be paid 1.5 times their regular rate for every hour worked beyond 40 in a single workweek. There is no daily overtime in South Carolina — working a 12-hour shift on Monday and taking Tuesday off entirely creates no overtime obligation as long as the weekly total stays at or under 40 hours.

Because the state defers entirely to federal law, the regular rate calculation follows FLSA rules closely: it must include hourly wages, non-discretionary bonuses, commissions, and shift differentials, then divide total compensation by total hours worked to find the base rate before applying the 1.5x multiplier. Employers in manufacturing, hospitality, and the state's large distribution and logistics sector frequently miscalculate this by forgetting to fold in bonuses tied to attendance or production.

South Carolina's textile, tourism (Myrtle Beach, Charleston), and agricultural economies mean many workers face tip-credit and seasonal-worker questions. Tipped employees can be paid a direct cash wage as low as $2.13/hour as long as tips bring them to at least $7.25/hour, and overtime must be calculated on the full minimum wage, not the reduced tipped cash wage — a common point of underpayment.

South Carolina's Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (LLR) handles wage complaints under the state Payment of Wages Act, but unpaid overtime claims specifically are usually routed to the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, which has an office in Columbia. Workers can file a complaint online or by phone, and the agency can investigate, order back pay, and in some cases assess liquidated damages equal to the unpaid overtime.

The FLSA statute of limitations is two years from the date each unpaid overtime wage was due, extended to three years if the employer's violation was willful — meaning the employer knew or showed reckless disregard for whether its pay practice violated the law. Workers can also skip the agency route and file a private lawsuit directly in state or federal court, which is often faster when the claim involves a clear pattern of unpaid hours across a job title.

The biggest misclassification trap in South Carolina involves paying salaried employees a flat weekly amount and assuming that alone makes them exempt. Exemption requires both a salary of at least $684/week (the 2026 federal threshold pending any DOL updates) and job duties that are genuinely executive, administrative, or professional in nature — a shift supervisor who spends 90% of the time on the same tasks as hourly staff is not exempt just because they are salaried.

Because South Carolina offers zero additional protections beyond the FLSA, this state sits at the floor of American overtime law: no daily overtime, no higher state minimum wage, and no state-specific liquidated damages statute for wage claims. Workers who feel shorted should keep their own timesheets, since employers here are not required to provide pay stubs itemizing hours.