An aide works her usual overnight shift, 10pm Saturday to 6am Sunday. The schedule says eight hours. On Sunday, November 1, 2026, the clocks fall back at 2am, so she is actually on duty for nine. If payroll pays the scheduled eight, she is short an hour, and if that hour pushes her past 40 for the week, she is short overtime too.
Daylight saving time overtime is a small problem that repeats across every overnight shift you staff, every year. This guide explains the federal rule behind it, works the numbers for a typical week, covers the exemption questions specific to home care, and gives payroll a short check to run before the November 1 period closes.
When the Clocks Change
Under 15 USC 260a, daylight saving time ends at 2am on the first Sunday of November and begins at 2am on the second Sunday of March. That makes the dates November 1, 2026 and March 14, 2027. The statute lets a state exempt itself by law and observe standard time all year, so agencies with branches in such a state have nothing to adjust there. Check each state you operate in.
In practice, at 2am on November 1 the clock reads 1am again. Any shift running across that hour is one hour longer in real time than its clock times suggest. In March the opposite happens: an overnight shift is one hour shorter.
Daylight Saving Time Overtime Under the FLSA: Pay for Hours Worked
The FLSA does not mention daylight saving time. It does not need to. Overtime is based on hours worked in the workweek. Under 29 CFR 778.103, the employer must total all hours worked by the employee in the workweek, even across unrelated assignments, and pay overtime for each hour over the maximum. The rules for what counts as hours worked are in 29 CFR part 785.
DOL's Fact Sheet #23, revised October 2019, adds the details payroll needs: overtime is at least one and one-half times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek; the workweek is a fixed, regularly recurring period of 168 hours, seven consecutive 24-hour periods; and averaging hours over two or more weeks is not permitted. The fact sheet also notes the FLSA does not require overtime for weekend or holiday work as such.
So the question for November 1 is simple: how long was the employee actually on duty? For the opening shift, the answer is nine hours.
Sleep Time Does Not Rescue the Extra Hour
Agencies sometimes assume an overnight caregiver who may sleep does not need to be paid for every hour. For shifts under 24 hours, that is wrong under federal rules. 29 CFR 785.21 says an employee required to be on duty for less than 24 hours is working even if permitted to sleep when not busy.
Only shifts of 24 hours or more allow a sleep exclusion. Under 29 CFR 785.22, employer and employee may agree to exclude a bona fide regularly scheduled sleep period of up to 8 hours, if adequate sleeping facilities are provided and the employee can usually enjoy an uninterrupted night's sleep. Interruptions for a call to duty are hours worked, and if the employee cannot get at least 5 hours of sleep, the entire period counts. DOL's Fact Sheet #79D, on hours worked in domestic service, repeats the same principle for home care.
For a 24-hour shift spanning November 1, which is really 25 hours, the extra hour is still on-duty time unless it falls inside a properly agreed sleep period capped at 8 hours. That depends on your written agreement, so check it rather than assume.
A Worked Example
Illustrative numbers. An aide earns $16.00 an hour. Her workweek runs Sunday 12:00am to Saturday 11:59pm. She works:
- Monday to Thursday: four 8-hour day shifts, 32 hours.
- Saturday night, October 31, 10pm to Sunday, November 1, 6am.
That last shift crosses two workweeks. The 2 hours before midnight Saturday belong to the week ending October 31. The hours after midnight belong to the new week starting Sunday, November 1, and that is the part the clock change affects: midnight to 6am by the clock is 7 hours of real time.
- Week ending October 31: 32 + 2 = 34 hours. No overtime.
- Week starting November 1: starts with 7 hours, not 6.
Now suppose in the new week she also works five 8-hour shifts, Monday to Friday, totaling 40 hours, plus the 7 from Sunday morning. That is 47 hours: 40 at $16.00 and 7 at $24.00. If payroll counted Sunday as 6 hours, it would pay 46 hours and underpay her by one overtime hour, $24.00. Across 30 overnight staff, that is $720 in one night, plus the recordkeeping exposure of 30 inaccurate time records.
In March, the reverse: a 10pm to 6am shift on March 13 to 14, 2027 is 7 hours worked. Paying 8 is generous, not illegal, under federal law, but your policy and any union or contract terms decide which you do. Write the rule down so it is applied the same way every year.
Home Care Exemptions: Know Which Rule You Apply
Whether home care aides get FLSA overtime at all is currently unsettled, and you need to know which position your agency takes before the DST question matters.
- The regulation. 29 CFR 552.109, as amended in 2013 and still in the text today, says third-party employers such as agencies may not claim the companionship exemption or the live-in overtime exemption.
- The proposal. DOL published a proposed rule on July 2, 2025 to rescind the 2013 changes. As of this writing, no final rule has been published.
- The enforcement position. DOL's Field Assistance Bulletin 2025-4, dated July 25, 2025, tells investigators not to enforce the 2013 rule against third-party employers that claim the exemptions, until a final rule takes effect. It says it does not alter statutory or regulatory requirements, and it does not cover RNs and LPNs, who are not to be treated as exempt.
- State law. Many states set their own overtime rules, and some are stricter than federal law. California's general rule, for example, requires overtime after eight hours in a workday as well as after 40 in a week, according to the state's overtime FAQ. Home care workers in some states fall under separate wage orders or domestic worker laws, so check the rule that covers your staff.
If your agency pays overtime to aides, which many do because of state law, contracts or policy, the DST hour counts toward it. Hospice nurses and LPNs on continuous care shifts are nonexempt in most arrangements and need the same check.
A Payroll Check for the November 1 Period
- 1.List every shift that spans 1am to 2am on November 1, from the schedule and from clock-in data.
- 2.Recompute hours worked from real elapsed time, not clock-time subtraction. Many timekeeping systems handle this automatically; confirm yours does by testing one shift before payroll closes.
- 3.Assign hours to the correct workweek where a shift crosses your workweek boundary.
- 4.Check 24-hour and live-in shifts against the written sleep agreement and logged interruptions.
- 5.Recalculate overtime under federal and state rules for every affected employee.
- 6.Check EVV and billing separately. Payer units follow payer rules, which may differ from pay rules. Do not let a billing cap shorten a paycheck.
- 7.Correct the time record with a note explaining the adjustment, and keep it.
- 8.Calendar March 14, 2027 with the same steps.
Where Systems Help
The DST hour is easy to miss because the schedule and the clock both look right. Nuraflow is being designed so that payroll and accounting prepares pay from approved visits and shifts with overtime and exception checks, and scheduling and care matching shows overtime warnings before a shift is assigned.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Overtime treatment depends on federal rules that are under review and on state law, so confirm your approach with employment counsel or your state labor agency.