Minnesota's break rules got numbers on January 1, 2026 — and being salaried is not what makes you exempt from overtime

What changed on January 1, 2026

Minnesota has required work breaks since 1988. Until this year the requirement had no numbers in it, which meant it was close to unenforceable — an employer who gave you ninety seconds could argue that was “adequate.”

That ended on January 1, 2026. Laws 2025, 1st Special Session, ch. 6, art. 5, §§ 1 through 5, rewrote both break sections and put an effective-date clause on each one: “This section is effective January 1, 2026.”

The session law shows exactly what moved. Old § 177.253, subd. 1 required an employer to allow each employee “adequate time from work within each four consecutive hours of work to utilize the nearest convenient restroom.” Old § 177.254, subd. 1 required an employer to “permit” each employee working “eight or more consecutive hours” “sufficient time to eat a meal.” Adequate became 15 minutes. Sufficient became 30 minutes. Eight hours became six. And two brand-new subdivisions attached a damages remedy to each.

Rest breaks

Minn. Stat. § 177.253, subd. 1 now reads:

An employer must allow each employee a rest break of at least 15 minutes or enough time to utilize the nearest convenient restroom, whichever is longer, within each four consecutive hours of work.

“Whichever is longer” is doing real work. Fifteen minutes is the floor, not the entitlement; if the nearest usable restroom is a five-minute walk each way, the statute measures the break by the walk.

Subdivision 2 preserves a bargaining channel: “Nothing in this section prohibits employers and employees from establishing rest breaks different from those provided in this section pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement.” Different, not lesser — the statute does not qualify the word.

The section says nothing about whether the rest break is paid. That is a silence in § 177.253, and this page does not fill it.

Meal breaks

Minn. Stat. § 177.254, subd. 1:

An employer must allow each employee who is working for six or more consecutive hours a meal break of at least 30 minutes.

Here the legislature did address pay, in subdivision 2: “Except for subdivision 4, nothing in this section requires the employer to pay the employee during the meal break.” An unpaid 30 minutes is permitted. The “except for subdivision 4” clause is the point of leverage — subdivision 4 is the remedy, and it is measured in pay. An employer who provides the break owes nothing for it; an employer who denies it owes for it twice.

Subdivision 3 carries the same collective-bargaining provision, phrased for meal periods.

The remedies, which are the actual change

Before 2026 neither section named a consequence. Both now do, in identical language. Section 177.253, subd. 3:

If an employer does not allow an employee rest breaks as required by this section and related rules, the employer is liable to the employee for the rest break time that should have been allowed at the employee’s regular rate of pay, plus an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.

Section 177.254, subd. 4 says the same for meal breaks. The measure is the break time at your regular rate, doubled.

Those sections sit inside the range that § 177.27, subd. 8 opens to private suit: “An employee may bring a civil action seeking redress for a violation or violations of sections 177.21 to 177.44 and 181.165 directly to district court.” Subdivision 10 is not discretionary — “the court shall order an employer who is found to have committed a violation or violations of sections 177.21 to 177.44 or 181.165 to pay to the employee or employees reasonable costs, disbursements, witness fees, and attorney fees.” Separately, subdivision 4 authorizes the commissioner of labor and industry to issue compliance orders covering sections 177.21 to 177.435, and subdivision 7 directs the commissioner, on finding a violation, to order back pay and compensatory damages “and for an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.”

Overtime: 48 in Minnesota, 40 under federal law

The two numbers are both real, and they are not in conflict — they come from different statutes.

Minn. Stat. § 177.25, subd. 1:

No employer may employ an employee for a workweek longer than 48 hours, unless the employee receives compensation for employment in excess of 48 hours in a workweek at a rate of at least 1-1/2 times the regular rate at which the employee is employed.

29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1):

Except as otherwise provided in this section, no employer shall employ any of his employees who in any workweek is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or is employed in an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, for a workweek longer than forty hours unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.

The federal statute applies of its own force to the employees it covers. 29 U.S.C. § 218(a) preserves state law that is more protective — it says no FLSA provision “shall excuse noncompliance with any Federal or State law or municipal ordinance establishing a minimum wage higher than the minimum wage established under this chapter or a maximum work week lower than the maximum workweek established under this chapter.” Minnesota’s 48-hour maximum is higher, not lower, so § 218(a) does not preserve it against the federal rule. For an FLSA-covered employee who is not exempt, 40 is the operative number. Minnesota’s 48-hour rule is what governs where the federal statute does not reach the worker — either because the FLSA does not cover the employment or because one of the federal exemptions in 29 U.S.C. § 213 applies while no exclusion in Minn. Stat. § 177.23, subd. 7 does.

Section 177.25 also carries its own exceptions: a 14-day/80-hour work period for health care facilities by agreement (subd. 2), commissioned auto and farm-implement salespeople, parts people, and mechanics at nonmanufacturing dealerships (subd. 3), piece-rate on-farm silo construction (subd. 4), and air carrier employees trading scheduled hours by voluntary agreement (subd. 5).

Who counts as an “employee”

Chapter 177’s definitions in § 177.23, subd. 7 govern sections 177.21 to 177.35 — which is to say they govern the break sections and the overtime section alike. The subdivision defines “employee” as “any individual employed by an employer but does not include,” and then runs nineteen exclusions. Exactly two are limited by their own terms to a single section: clause (4) applies “for purposes of section 177.24,” and clause (13) “for the purpose of section 177.25.” The other seventeen are not so limited.

Clause (6) is the one that matters to most readers, and it is not limited:

any individual employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity, or a salesperson who conducts no more than 20 percent of sales on the premises of the employer;

Three other exclusions are worth knowing exist because they are easy to stumble over: clause (11) removes drivers employed by taxicab businesses, clause (16) removes individuals in positions where the U.S. Department of Transportation may set qualifications and maximum hours of service under 49 U.S.C. § 31502, and clause (17) removes seafarers, defined by reference to the federal exemption at 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(6).

Currency

The revisor’s History line for § 177.253 reads “1988 c 559 s 1; 1Sp2025 c 6 art 5 s 1,2” and for § 177.254, “1989 c 167 s 1; 1Sp2025 c 6 art 5 s 3-5” — the 2025 First Special Session amendments are the whole of the modern text. Section 177.25’s History line ends at “2011 c 11 s 1”; § 177.23’s most recent entries are from 2024. In the revisor’s table of Minnesota Statutes affected by the 2026 Regular Session, no section of chapter 177 was amended, new, or repealed. Nothing quoted above changed in 2026.

This page describes the machinery. Whether a particular job sits inside one of the nineteen exclusions, and what a given workweek adds up to, are questions about facts, and applying these statutes to them is not what this page does.