Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales, and Computer Employees; Implementation of Federal Court Judgments
Key claim: The Department of Labor is removing the vacated 2024 FLSA overtime/minimum-wage exemption rule from the CFR and restoring the prior regulatory text, as required by federal court judgments.
Abstract
(Rule · Labor Department, Wage and Hour Division) This document implements the judgments of federal courts vacating the Department of Labor’s (Department) 2024 final rule revising regulations issued under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA or Act) implementing the exemptions from minimum wage and overtime pay requirements for executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, and computer employees. Through this technical amendment, the Department is removing from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) the regulatory text from the now-vacated 2024 rule and republishing in its place the regulatory text as it existed prior to the effective date of that rule.
Why this matters
Overtime exemption thresholds determine which salaried workers are entitled to time-and-a-half pay, and the 2024 rule would have expanded overtime eligibility to millions of workers by raising the salary cutoff. With courts vacating that rule and DOL now formally removing it from the CFR, employers face the pre-2024 (2019) thresholds as the settled standard, and any future expansion of overtime coverage would require a new rulemaking. The action illustrates how litigation, not just administrative preference, is shaping the FLSA regulatory baseline.