How Overtime Rules Work Under the Labour Codes

Overtime in India is paid at twice the wage rate. That is the number everyone quotes, and it is where most answers stop.

What surprised me reading both Codes is that two separate laws say it, in two different ways. Which one covers your staff decides when overtime starts, how the hours are counted, and whether you can ask for it at all.

This page sets out both overtime rules, what separates them, and which one applies to the people on your payroll.

What Is the Overtime Rate in India?

Twice the rate of wages. Both Codes say so, and neither lets an employer pay less.

Section 27 of the OSH Code puts it plainly: wages shall be paid at the rate of twice the rate of wages for overtime work.

Section 14 of the Code on Wages, 2019 reaches the same figure by a different route. It sets an overtime rate not less than twice the normal rate of wages.

The words not less than are the first thing that separates the two. The OSH Code states the figure. The Code on Wages states it as a minimum, so paying above it is not ruled out.

Which Overtime Rules Apply to You?

It turns on how the employee’s wage was set, and on their role.

The two Codes even use different words. The OSH Code says worker and defines who that is; the Code on Wages says employee. This page says employee, except where the OSH Code’s own word is the point.

The split is written into the sections themselves.

Who Section 14 Reaches

Section 14 of the Code on Wages opens with a condition. It covers an employee whose minimum rate of wages has been fixed under that Code.

That rate can be fixed by the hour, by the day, or by a longer wage period the rules prescribe. If no minimum rate has been fixed for somebody, section 14 does not reach them.

Who Section 27 Reaches

Section 27 of the OSH Code, 2020 has no minimum-wage condition, but it covers only a worker as that Code defines one. The definition leaves out anyone employed mainly as a manager or administrator, and supervisors earning over ₹18,000 a month.

It also turns on the establishment being one the Code covers, and on hours having been prescribed for it.

So a machine operator in a Chennai fabrication unit on a notified minimum wage has both rules to satisfy. A colleague paid well above any notified rate falls outside section 14, leaving the OSH rule, unless they are a manager or a better-paid supervisor, when neither applies.

	OSH Code, section 27	Code on Wages, section 14
Who it covers	A worker in a covered establishment, not managers or supervisors over ₹18,000	An employee on a minimum rate fixed under the Code
The rate	Twice the rate of wages	Not less than twice the normal rate
When it starts	Past the hours your government prescribes	Past the hours making a normal working day
How hours are counted	Daily or weekly, whichever is more favourable to the worker	Every hour, or part of an hour, worked in excess
Consent	Required, by proviso	Not mentioned

The common mistake is reading the wrong row. A business whose staff are all above any notified minimum rate has no section 14 duty at all, and one whose staff are on notified rates has both to satisfy.

When Do Overtime Rules Start?

Past the hours your own government has notified, which is not always eight.

The working day itself is capped first. Section 25 of the OSH Code says no worker shall be required or allowed to work more than eight hours in a day, with the intervals and the total span notified by whichever government regulates you.

Eight hours is the ceiling on ordinary work, and overtime is the lawful way past it.

Section 27 starts paying for it once a worker goes beyond the hours prescribed by the government that regulates you, in a day or in a week.

Under the Code on Wages, section 14 triggers on work in excess of the number of hours constituting a normal working day, which section 13 lets the government fix where minimum rates apply.

Our guide to the Code on Wages rules covers which employers read the central rules and which read their state’s.

How Overtime Rules Count the Hours

By the hour in the Code on Wages, and by whichever period favours the worker in the OSH Code. Both start from the same place, the ordinary wage, and then count the extra hours differently.

The two methods below can produce different totals for the same week, which is why it matters which one covers the person in front of you.

Daily or Weekly, Whichever Is Better

Section 27 says the period of overtime shall be calculated on a daily basis or weekly basis, whichever is more favourable to such worker. The choice is not the employer’s.

A warehouse in Pune running one heavy Monday and five lighter days may find the daily count produces more overtime than the weekly one. The worker keeps the better result.

The same comparison decides it for a hotel banqueting team through a wedding weekend, a garment unit clearing a shipment, and a school running extra classes before exams.

Part-Hours Count

Section 14 pays for every hour or for part of an hour worked in excess, so a short overrun is not rounded away.

A diagnostic lab chain in Hyderabad that rounds down to the nearest hour is underpaying its staff on notified rates every time somebody finishes fifteen minutes late.

Take an employee on ₹24,700 a month in a six-day week, on a normal day of eight hours. Neither divisor below is in the Codes. They are the common way of getting from a monthly wage to an hourly one, and your own notification may set them differently.

Divide by 26 for a daily rate of ₹950, then by eight for an hourly rate of ₹118.75. An overtime hour is twice that, so ₹237.50.

Twenty minutes past the normal day is a third of that hour, so ₹79.17. Under section 14 it is payable. Rounded to the nearest hour it disappears.

Our overtime calculation template lays that arithmetic out, and the time card calculator totals the hours before you apply a rate to them.

Doing it once a month by hand is fine. Doing it for every shift, across branches, on the 7th when payroll is due, is where the rounding starts to get decided by whoever is in a hurry.

What About Work on a Rest Day?

It is paid at the overtime rate too, where your government has said so.

Section 13 is gated the same way. It applies where minimum rates of wages have been fixed under the Code on Wages.

Within that, it lets your government provide for a day of rest in every seven, and for payment for work on a day of rest at a rate not less than the overtime rate.

Where your government has provided for it, the wording is not less than. A rest day worked is not a cheaper kind of overtime, and it can be dearer.

A hospital in Kochi rostering weekend cover, or a quick-commerce warehouse working through a festival, is paying the overtime rate for those hours rather than an ordinary day rate.

Five Cases Treated Differently

Section 13(2) names five cases where those hours rules reach only as far as your government has prescribed:

1. Work in an emergency that could not have been foreseen or prevented
2. Preparatory or complementary work that has to happen outside the normal limits for that employment
3. A role the government has declared essentially intermittent, which section 13(3) ties to duty holding long periods of inaction
4. Work that for technical reasons has to be finished before the duty ends
5. Work that can only be done at times set by the irregular action of natural forces

A watchman with long quiet stretches is the shape people usually have in mind for the third one. If you think a role of yours belongs in any of the five, check what your government has actually prescribed before treating it as an exception.

Can You Make Employees Work Overtime?

Not without their consent, under the OSH Code.

The first proviso to section 27 says a worker shall be required to work overtime subject to the consent of such worker. It sits in the Code itself, not in a rule or a contract.

A second proviso lets the government prescribe the total number of hours of overtime. The Code names no figure of its own, so any ceiling is one your government has chosen to set.

Section 14 of the Code on Wages is silent on consent. Its silence does not cancel the OSH proviso, so where a worker is covered by section 27 the consent requirement still applies to them.

The Factories Act changes cover what else moved for manufacturers when the codes came in, and the statutory register formats show where overtime hours have to be recorded.

Your Overtime Rules Checklist

Overtime rules rarely cause a dispute about the rate. The argument is about which hours counted, and nobody wrote the answer down before it started.

1. Write down which rule covers each group of staff, and keep it where payroll can see it.
2. Find the hours your own government has notified, because that is where overtime starts, not at eight by default.
3. Run the daily and the weekly count for anyone under the OSH rule, and pay whichever is better for them.
4. Stop rounding part-hours away for anyone on a notified minimum rate.
5. Record consent for overtime rather than assuming it.
6. Check the week has not crossed six days, unless section 26 exempts you, before adding overtime to it.

The salary per day calculator converts a monthly wage into the daily and hourly figures an overtime rate is applied to. The attendance to salary run shows where those hours come from in the first place.

Both rules have been in force since the four labour codes took effect on 21 November 2025. If you want overtime worked out from punched hours under whichever rule applies, attendohr.com is the place to start.

Frequently Asked Questions