$18.00Pay threshold — below it, daily overtime after 8 hours1.5× the $12.00 minimum
$12.00Minimum wage — flat, single tier since July 2024, no tip creditNev. Const. Art. 15 §16
90°FHeat priority day trigger under the NOSHA regulationenforced since Apr 2025
>10Employee count at which the heat regulation appliesR131-24AP
Nevada in short
Nevada has daily overtime, and it applies to some of your crew and not others. Under NRS 608.018, an employee paid less than 1.5× the state minimum wage earns overtime after 8 hours in any 24-hour period. An employee paid at or above that threshold is on weekly-40 overtime only. With the minimum wage at a flat $12.00 an hour, the dividing line is $18.00 an hour — so a crew where some workers earn $17.50 and others $19.00 is running two different overtime regimes simultaneously, on the same job site, on the same day.
Nevada also mandates breaks, unlike most western states outside California: a 30-minute meal period for a continuous 8-hour shift and a paid 10-minute rest period per 4 hours worked, scaled by shift length. And since April 29, 2025, Nevada OSHA has been enforcing a written heat-illness regulation for employers with more than 10 employees, using a 90°F “heat priority day” trigger. For a state widely assumed to be light-touch, that is three separate mandates California-style engines already handle.
Summary as of July 2026 — rules move; verify current requirements with the Nevada 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 Nevada's rules run inside it with room to spare.
What Nevada employers actually have to get right
The rule that catches out-of-state contractors is NRS 608.018’s two-tier daily overtime. Workers paid less than 1.5× the state minimum wage are owed overtime after 8 hours in any 24-hour period. Workers paid at or above that threshold get weekly-40 overtime only. Everyone gets weekly-40 regardless. Because the minimum wage is a flat $12.00, the current line is $18.00 an hour — and it is a per-worker test, not a company-wide setting.
This matters more than it first appears. It means a 10-hour day costs you two hours of overtime for the $17-an-hour laborer standing next to the $19-an-hour foreman who accrues none. It means a raise across the threshold silently changes an employee’s overtime regime. And it means any payroll setup that models Nevada as “weekly 40, like most states” is systematically underpaying part of the crew. This is exactly the kind of per-worker, per-day conditional that a rule engine handles reliably and a spreadsheet does not.
Nevada’s wage structure changed recently and the change is often misread. Ballot Question 2 (2022) eliminated the old two-tier minimum wage that had been linked to whether the employer offered health insurance, consolidating to a flat $12.00 as of July 1, 2024, with no tip credit. What did not disappear in that consolidation is the daily-overtime rule — it simply now keys off a single $18.00 threshold instead of two.
On breaks, Nevada is more demanding than its neighbors. NRS 608.019 requires a 30-minute meal period for a continuous 8-hour shift and paid 10-minute rest periods per 4 hours worked, scaled by shift length (one break for 3.5–7 hours, two for 7–11, three for 11–15). There is a narrow exemption where only one employee is at a particular workplace.
And Nevada now has real heat rules. Following SB 427 (2023), Nevada OSHA adopted regulation R131-24AP, published guidance in January 2025, and began enforcement on April 29, 2025. It applies to employers with more than 10 employees and uses a 90°F “heat priority day” trigger requiring a written job-hazard analysis and prevention measures. For roofing and outdoor trades in Las Vegas and Reno, this is an enforceable obligation, not guidance.
The one most Nevada contractors get wrong
Contractors assume the 2024 minimum-wage consolidation swept away Nevada’s daily overtime. It didn’t. NRS 608.018’s daily-8 rule survived intact — it just now keys off a single threshold of 1.5× the $12.00 minimum, or $18.00 an hour. Every worker you pay below that is owed overtime after 8 hours in a 24-hour period, every day, regardless of the weekly total. Since near-minimum-wage labor is exactly the population most likely to be scheduled 10-hour days, this is the single most expensive misunderstanding available in Nevada.
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