U.S. Department of Labor Issues New Opinion Letters Addressing Key Wage-and-Hour Issues, 7-22-2026

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division recently issued four new opinion letters addressing recurring compliance questions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), including meal periods, compensable work time, employee exemption classifications, and bonus calculations. Although opinion letters are fact-specific and not binding law, they provide insight into how the DOL interprets and administers the FLSA and may help employers assess wage-and-hour compliance.

Meal Periods
In Opinion Letter FLSA2026-7, the DOL considered whether a meal period must be paid when employees work at a large facility where parking and controlled access points make it difficult to leave the premises and return within the allotted 30-minute meal period.

The DOL concluded that a bona fide meal period generally remains unpaid if employees are completely relieved of their work duties, even if practical limitations make it inconvenient to leave the employer’s premises during the break. The agency explained that the FLSA does not require employers to compensate employees for time voluntarily spent traveling off-site to obtain or eat a meal or to extend an otherwise compliant meal period to account for that travel time.

Employers should keep in mind, however, that state and local wage-and-hour laws may impose more restrictive meal-break requirements than federal law.

Pre-Shift and Post-Shift Activities
Opinion Letter FLSA2026-8 addresses when activities performed before or after a scheduled shift constitute compensable work.

The DOL explained that activities that are integral and indispensable to an employee’s principal job duties are compensable under the FLSA. In the healthcare setting presented, tasks such as reviewing patient handoff reports and obtaining work assignments were compensable because they were integral and indispensable to the employees’ principal job duties.

By contrast, the agency concluded that simply waiting in line to clock in or out generally is not compensable if it occurs before an employee begins the first principal activity of the workday or after completing the last principal activity.

The opinion letter also discusses rounding practices. Applying longstanding FLSA principles, the DOL concluded that the hospital’s rounding policy described in the request was not neutral because it rounded early clock-ins to employees’ scheduled start times even when employees performed compensable pre-shift work, without any corresponding rounding practice that benefited employees. The agency noted, however, that rounding concerns arise only when employees are performing compensable work during the rounded period, and that a facially neutral rounding policy that benefits employees as well as employers may comply with the FLSA.

The agency also reiterated that employers should expect close scrutiny of claims that regularly performed off-the-clock work is too insignificant to require compensation.

Employees Serving in Both Exempt and Nonexempt Roles
Opinion Letter FLSA2026-5 considers whether an employee may perform both exempt and nonexempt work for the same employer.

The DOL concluded that an employee may remain exempt despite also performing nonexempt duties, provided the employee’s primary duty remains exempt work and the applicable salary requirements continue to be met. The analysis focuses primarily on whether exempt work remains the employee’s primary duty.

The opinion letter emphasizes that exempt status depends on the employee’s actual job duties and the particular facts and circumstances, rather than the employee’s job title or compensation structure alone.

Bonus Pools and Overtime Calculations
Opinion Letter FLSA2026-6 addresses the treatment of quarterly bonus pools when calculating the regular rate of pay for overtime purposes.

The DOL concluded that the quarterly bonus formula described in the request qualified as a “percentage of total earnings” bonus because each employee’s bonus was calculated using the employee’s total earnings, including both straight-time and overtime pay. As a result, the bonus already included the required overtime compensation, and the employer was not required to recompute the regular rate or pay additional overtime on the bonus.

Employers should review bonus plans carefully to ensure they are structured in compliance with the FLSA’s regular-rate and overtime requirements.

Employer Takeaways
While DOL opinion letters are fact-specific to the particular question presented, and do not create new legal requirements, they provide useful insight into the agency’s interpretation and administration of the FLSA.

In light of these recent opinion letters, employers may wish to review:

• Meal-break policies to confirm employees are relieved of all work duties during unpaid meal periods;
• Procedures governing pre-shift and post-shift work to ensure employees are compensated for integral and indispensable activities;
• Timekeeping and rounding practices, particularly where employees may perform compensable work before scheduled shifts begin;
• Job classifications for employees performing multiple roles; and
• Bonus programs to verify that regular-rate and overtime calculations properly account for nondiscretionary compensation.

Because many states have wage-and-hour laws that provide greater employee protections than the FLSA, employers should also ensure their policies comply with applicable state and local requirements in addition to federal law.

Author:
Solomon Abramov
Partner