I worked a stack of extra hours last week. My supervisor says they don’t pay overtime, they’ll just give me the hours back as time off later. Is that legal?

Start with what triggers overtime, because the swap only matters once something has. Fact Sheet #23, under Requirements, puts the federal rule this way:

The figure in the sentence above is the line this page refers to. The next paragraph of the same Requirements section sets out how the week is counted, and when the pay is normally due:

Two things follow from that paragraph. Hours moved around inside one workweek, with that week still under the line, do not raise a federal overtime question, and neither does a week of extra hours that never crossed it, however unfair the schedule felt.

But where a week did cross the line, the paragraph ties the overtime pay to that workweek and to the regular pay day for its pay period. That is the difficulty with banking the hours for a later pay period.

Agreeing to the swap does not change the requirement either. Under Typical Problems, at the paragraph headed “Overtime Pay May Not Be Waived:”, the same fact sheet says:

An arrangement can be friendly, it can be the worker’s own suggestion, and it can be in writing, and none of that is what the federal overtime requirement turns on.

Comp time instead of cash is still not a myth, which is where much of the confusion online begins. It does sit in federal law, and the version the Department sets out is in the Requirements section of Fact Sheet #7 on state and local government:

Note the “may”, and the “certain prescribed conditions”: the same paragraph goes on to cap how much comp time can be built up and to say when it has to be allowed. It is not a template that travels into other jobs, and a public-sector worker reading it has a further question rather than a finished answer.

Who settles this is not a website. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division takes questions about the federal rules on 1-866-487-9243, and a state labor department is the place to ask what applies where the work happens.

Three things. First, the whole week’s hours: every day worked and the times clocked in and out, not just the extra hours. The count runs week by week, so which week an hour sits in changes the picture.

Second, what was said about the swap: who offered time off in place of pay, when, and in what words. A text, an email, or a note made the same day beats recalling it months later.

Third, what actually arrived: the pay for that week, and the time off when it was taken, or the fact that it never was. Keeping both lets the two be set side by side.

Five things. It cannot say whether the federal rules reach a particular job: the Act has exemptions, and an exempt job is a separate question the Wage and Hour Division can explain.

It does not cover time off inside the same pay period. The Department’s field guidance treats some arrangements that offset overtime with time off in another week of the same pay period on their own terms, and this page does not describe them; how a specific arrangement fits is a question for the Wage and Hour Division.

It cannot say what a state requires on top. Some states run their own overtime rules, and a state labor department is the place to ask.

It does not settle public-sector jobs. State and local government employees may receive comp time, under conditions the fact sheet above does not list in full.

And it does not reach federal government employees, to whom a different set of rules applies; a federal agency’s HR office is where that question goes.