Arizona’s hour rules are federal-plain, but Prop 206 layered on a CPI-indexed wage and a paid-sick-time accrual that most contractors under-track — and the heat rules are a patchwork, not a standard. CDO's engine is built to California's standard — the strictest in the country — so in Arizona it runs with headroom: GPS-verified punches, live break and overtime math on Arizona's actual rules, bilingual EN/ES crews, and the minute-level record that decides wage disputes.
Arizona follows federal overtime: 1.5× past 40 hours in a week, with no required meal or rest breaks. The state minimum wage is $15.15 for 2026 (Flagstaff $18.35), and workers earn paid sick time at one hour per 30 worked. There is no binding state heat standard; Arizona’s 2026 guidance is voluntary.
Arizona has no daily overtime, no meal breaks, and no rest breaks for adults under state law. Hours run on the federal FLSA: 1.5× the regular rate past 40 in a workweek. What Arizona does add comes from Proposition 206, the 2016 ballot measure that both raised the minimum wage and created a statewide paid sick time entitlement. The minimum wage is CPI-indexed and adjusts every January 1, reaching $15.15 an hour for 2026, and Flagstaff sets a substantially higher local rate — $18.35 for 2026, with the tip credit eliminated entirely.
Paid sick time accrues at one hour per 30 hours worked, capped at 24 hours a year for employers with fewer than 15 employees and 40 hours a year at 15 or more. On heat, Arizona has no binding statewide standard: the Industrial Commission’s April 2026 update to its Heat Emphasis Program is voluntary guidance and an enforcement priority, not a codified rule. Several cities — Phoenix, Tempe, Tucson, Pima County — impose heat requirements, but generally on public-contract construction rather than all private work.
| Rule | Arizona | For contrast: California |
|---|---|---|
| Overtime | Weekly only — 1.5× past 40 hrs (federal FLSA) | Daily past 8, double time past 12, 7th-day rules |
| Meal breaks | Not required by state law | Before end of hour 5; second before hour 10 |
| Rest breaks | Not required by state law | Paid 10 min per 4 hours, duty-free |
| Heat rules | No binding statewide standard — 2026 guidance is voluntary | Cal/OSHA §3395 — shade, water, cool-downs |
| Minimum wage | $15.15 statewide (CPI-indexed each January); Flagstaff $18.35 | State rate plus many higher local rates |
Summary as of October 2026 — rules move; verify current requirements with the Arizona labor department and qualified counsel. The California column is there for scale, not because it applies to you: it's the regime CDO's engine was built to, which is why Arizona's rules run inside it with room to spare.
On hours, Arizona is federal-plain: overtime past 40 in a workweek, no daily overtime, no double time, and no state-mandated meal or rest breaks for adults. A 2026 bill to create break requirements (HB 2466) failed in the legislature and is not law. Any break you do give that runs under 20 minutes is paid time under federal rules.
Proposition 206 is what makes Arizona payroll non-trivial. It indexes the minimum wage to inflation with an adjustment every January 1 — $15.15 for 2026 — so a rate hardcoded in your payroll system goes stale on a predictable annual schedule. Flagstaff runs its own materially higher ordinance at $18.35 for 2026, and has eliminated the tip credit outright starting in 2026. A contractor working jobs in both Phoenix and Flagstaff is running two wage floors.
Prop 206 also created paid sick time accruing at one hour per 30 hours worked (A.R.S. §23-372), capped at 24 hours per year for employers with fewer than 15 employees and 40 hours at 15 or more. For hourly field crews with variable weekly hours, this is the requirement most often under-tracked — accrual has to follow actual hours worked, which means it has to follow the timeclock, not a flat monthly grant.
Heat is Arizona’s most misunderstood area, and precision matters. There is no binding statewide heat standard. The Industrial Commission of Arizona updated its Heat Emphasis Program in April 2026 and Governor Hobbs’s Executive Order 2025-09 created a Workplace Heat Safety Task Force in May 2025 — but what came out of that is guidance and an enforcement priority, not a codified regulation with a temperature trigger and mandatory rest schedule. Municipal rules do exist (Phoenix, Tempe, Tucson, and Pima County each have one) and they generally bind public-contract construction rather than every private job.
That patchwork is precisely the case for enforcing heat-recovery breaks in software rather than by memory. CDO prompts and logs cool-down periods on outdoor work regardless of which jurisdiction a job site sits in — so the record exists whether the rule was mandatory, contractual, or simply the right call in 112°F.
The Prop 206 paid sick time accrual is tied to hours actually worked, at one hour per thirty — not to headcount, not to a flat monthly grant. Contractors with seasonal or variable-hour crews routinely under-accrue, because a worker who runs 55-hour weeks in July accrues far faster than a flat allotment assumes. The accrual has to be computed off the timeclock. Separately: Arizona’s minimum wage moves every January 1 on a CPI formula, so a hardcoded rate is guaranteed to be wrong within twelve months.
Wherever the rules land on the strictness scale, the constant is the same: disputes are decided by records. CDO's GPS-verified, minute-level, bilingual punch trail — reviewed by AI, with exceptions surfaced for human judgment — is the record that wins them. See why teams pick CDO
Governor Hobbs creates a Workplace Heat Safety Task Force, directing state agencies to develop heat guidance ahead of the 2026 summer.
State minimum wage reaches $15.15 under CPI indexing; Flagstaff reaches $18.35 and eliminates the tip credit entirely.
The commission approved task-force guidelines on April 9, 2026 as voluntary guidance and an enforcement emphasis, and said it will revisit the question later this year — it is not a codified standard with binding triggers. Read carefully before assuming a mandate exists.
Both the state rate and Flagstaff’s adjust again on the annual CPI schedule — Flagstaff has published $18.95 for 2027. Build the step into multi-year bids.
Dated items reflect what was publicly on the books or scheduled as of October 3, 2026. Effective dates slip and rules get amended — confirm current status before you rely on any of this.
Overtime: Two-tier: daily 8-hr OT below $18.00/hr; weekly 40 for everyone. Meals: 30 min unpaid for a continuous 8-hour shift.
See Nevada rules Neighboring stateOvertime: 1.5× past 40/week, past 12/day, or past 12 consecutive hours — whichever pays more. Meals: 30 min duty-free for shifts over 5 hours.
See Colorado rules California guideDaily overtime, double time and the seventh-day rule — the benchmark the engine is built to.
Read the guide California guideThe fifth-hour meal window, the §226.7 premium, and waivers.
Read the guide CalculatorRun a shift against California overtime and double-time rules.
Open the calculator CalculatorTest a day against the §512 window and the premium it can owe.
Open the calculatorNo. Arizona has no state law requiring meal or rest breaks for adult workers. A 2026 bill to create one (HB 2466) failed in the legislature and is not law. Under federal rules, any break shorter than 20 minutes that you do provide counts as paid time.
$15.15 per hour statewide, effective January 1, 2026, under the CPI indexing created by Proposition 206. Flagstaff sets a higher local rate of $18.35 for 2026 and has eliminated the tip credit entirely. Both figures adjust every January 1, so any rate stored in a payroll system needs an annual review.
At one hour for every 30 hours worked, under A.R.S. §23-372. The annual cap is 24 hours for employers with fewer than 15 employees and 40 hours for employers with 15 or more. Because accrual follows hours actually worked, variable-hour field crews accrue at variable rates — it has to be computed from the timeclock rather than granted as a flat monthly allotment.
Not a binding statewide one. The Industrial Commission of Arizona updated its Heat Emphasis Program in April 2026, and a state task force was created by executive order in May 2025, but what exists is voluntary guidance and an enforcement priority rather than a codified rule with mandatory temperature triggers. Several jurisdictions — Phoenix, Tempe, Tucson, Pima County — have their own requirements, which generally apply to public-contract construction rather than all private work. Federal OSHA’s General Duty Clause applies statewide.
Weekly only. Arizona follows the federal FLSA: 1.5× the regular rate past 40 hours in a workweek, with no daily overtime and no double time under state law.
CDO is in a pilot with one California roofing contractor, so Arizona is not yet a proven market for it. What it contributes is the record the Arizona rules depend on: minute-level, GPS-verified hours by job site (sick-time accrual and weekly overtime both follow hours worked, and a crew moving between Phoenix and Flagstaff keeps each site’s hours separate), plus heat-recovery prompts and logs even where no rule requires them.
GPS-verified clock-ins, breaks and overtime computed live, and the exceptions that need a human — shown on a working crew in 20 minutes.
CDO is in a pilot with one California roofing contractor. Software, not legal advice.