FLSA Salary Threshold 2026: It's $684/Week

If you are searching for the current FLSA salary threshold, you have probably run into two contradictory numbers: $58,656 and $35,568. Here is the short answer.

The federal salary threshold for the white-collar overtime exemptions is $684 per week ($35,568 per year). The higher $1,128/week ($58,656/year) figure comes from a 2024 DOL rule that was struck down in court and never took legal effect.

Why so much confusion?

The 2024 rule was widely reported before it was struck down, so the $58,656 number spread through HR articles, payroll blogs, and vendor content — and much of that content was never updated. Here is the actual sequence:

The key point that trips people up: the court vacated the rule on November 15, 2024 — six weeks before the $1,128 step was scheduled to arrive. That step never became law. The $844 interim step was also undone by the vacatur.

After the Fifth Circuit denied the appeals, the DOL published a technical amendment in the Federal Register on May 15, 2026, striking the 2024 rule's regulatory text from the Code of Federal Regulations and restoring the 2019 text in its place. The DOL made it effective immediately, reasoning that the court orders were already operative and that leaving stale text in the CFR would mislead both employers and employees.

Current federal thresholds (2026)

What Does the $684 Threshold Mean for Employers?

If you raised salaries to $58,656 to stay compliant, you were not wrong to be cautious — but you were not legally required to. Those employees are exempt at any salary at or above $684/week, provided they also pass the duties test. Note that you generally cannot claw back a raise already granted without significant employee-relations and, in some states, legal risk.

If you reclassified employees to non-exempt in anticipation of the rule, you may reclassify them back to exempt — but only if they genuinely meet both the salary basis test and the duties test. Reclassifying purely to avoid overtime, without a real duties analysis, is exactly what generates FLSA liability.

If you did nothing, you are almost certainly fine on the federal salary level. Focus your attention on the duties test instead, which is where most misclassification liability actually originates.

The salary threshold was never the main risk

The salary test is the easy half of the analysis — it is a single number you can check in seconds. The duties test is where employers lose cases. An employee earning $150,000 who does not perform genuinely exempt duties is still non-exempt and still owed overtime.

See our complete exempt vs. non-exempt guide for the full duties tests across all five white-collar exemptions.

Do not forget state thresholds

Several states set salary thresholds well above the federal $684/week, and the higher figure always controls:

Full table, formulas and sources: Exempt Salary Threshold by State 2027.

If you operate in these states, the federal number is essentially irrelevant to your classification decisions. Always verify current figures with the state labor agency before classifying.

Bottom line

• Current federal threshold: $684/week ($35,568/year)
• The $58,656 figure: vacated, never in effect
• HCE: $107,432/year
• Formally confirmed by DOL technical amendment, May 15, 2026
• The duties test — not the salary level — is where your real exposure sits

Once you have confirmed an employee is non-exempt, use our FLSA Overtime Calculator to compute overtime correctly, including the effect of non-discretionary bonuses on the regular rate.

Sources

• 29 CFR Part 541 — Exemptions for white-collar employees
• U.S. DOL — Fact Sheet #17A: Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees
• State of Texas v. U.S. Dep't of Labor, E.D. Tex. (Nov. 15, 2024) — order vacating the 2024 overtime rule
• DOL technical amendment restoring the 2019 salary levels, Federal Register (May 15, 2026)