Working off the clock in California: the unpaid minutes that add up

Generally, any work your employer knows or should know you’re doing while you aren’t being paid for it. California’s wage orders count two kinds of time as paid “hours worked.” One is time you’re under your employer’s control, even if you aren’t actively working. The other is work your employer allows you to do, even if it didn’t ask for it. Common examples:

• Setup before the shift: unlocking, starting up registers or computers, prepping a station, putting on gear the job requires.
• Logging in: waiting for a computer or app to load before you’re allowed to clock in.
• Security and bag checks: in 2020 the California Supreme Court held that time spent at work waiting for and going through required bag checks after clocking out is paid time. In 2024 it applied the same idea to time spent waiting at an exit gate for a required vehicle inspection before leaving a job site.
• Closing duties: counting the drawer, cleaning, locking up.
• Waiting to clock out, or being told to clock out and keep working, including through a meal break.
• Pre-shift meetings, required training, and driving between job sites during the day.

The work doesn’t have to be required to count. The question is whether you were under your employer’s control, or doing work it knew or should have known about. If any of this sounds like your shift, a legal professional can help you work out how much time is involved.

Only if the rounding is neutral, and even that rule is under review. Rounding records your clock-in and clock-out to the nearest five, six, or 15 minutes. Since 2012, California appeals courts have allowed it when the policy is neutral on paper and in practice, so employees as a group aren’t underpaid over time. A policy can pass that test even if some individual workers lose time.

The problem is what can happen in practice. Say your shift starts at 9:00 and you can be written up for clocking in late, so you punch in at 8:53 and the system rounds it to 9:00. You lose seven minutes that morning, and the late punches that would round in your favor may never happen.

Two more rulings matter. In 2021 the California Supreme Court held that employers can’t round meal break punches. In 2022 a California appeals court let an unpaid-wage claim go forward where rounding paid an employee for less time than the employer’s own records showed he worked. The California Supreme Court agreed in 2023 to decide whether employers may use neutral rounding at all. As of late October 2026, it hadn’t heard argument or ruled. Until it does, trial courts may choose between the 2022 decision and earlier rulings that allow neutral rounding. If your pay stubs show suspiciously tidy hours, a legal professional can compare them to your actual punches.

Not if the minutes are a regular part of the job. Federal law lets employers skip tiny amounts of time that can’t practically be recorded. In 2018 the California Supreme Court held that employers can’t require employees to routinely work minutes off the clock without pay. The case involved a Starbucks shift supervisor who spent four to 10 unpaid minutes after clocking out on closing tasks. The court noted that today’s technology can make small amounts of time easier to track, and it left open whether rare or very brief tasks must be paid.

Run the numbers. Ten unpaid minutes a shift, five shifts a week, is about 43 hours a year. At $20 an hour, that’s about $867 for one employee, more if those minutes push you into overtime. Across a crew of 40 people on the same closing routine, it’s more than $34,000 a year, before interest and penalties. If small unpaid stretches are treated as normal where you work, our team may be able to help you add them up.

Often yes. After-hours texts, emails, calls, and app check-ins your employer expects you to handle are generally work time for hourly employees. The clock doesn’t stop because you left the building. Answering a manager’s texts about tomorrow’s schedule, replying to work emails from home, logging into a scheduling app to confirm a shift, or finishing a report at home can all be work.

Courts haven’t settled whether every brief, occasional task must be paid, so regular after-hours work tends to make the strongest claim. A manager who texts you at 9 p.m. and expects an answer may have a hard time saying the company didn’t know you were working. The practical issue is proof, which is why your phone matters: timestamps on texts, emails, and app logins can be the record. If you’re expected to be reachable after your shift and nobody is tracking it, a free case review can help you figure out what that time is worth.

Both can be illegal, and both can be evidence. California requires employers to keep accurate records of when you start and stop work each day and your total hours. Editing your punches to cut hours, deleting a late clock-out, or asking you to “fix” your timecard to match the schedule generally violates both the record-keeping rules and the duty to pay for all hours worked.

If your employer makes you sign a timesheet it knows is wrong in order to get paid, that signature doesn’t give up your right to the unpaid wages, and no agreement can waive the minimum wage or overtime. Overtime you didn’t report is still owed if your employer knew or should have known you worked it. A rule against unapproved overtime doesn’t let an employer accept extra work it knows about and then skip the pay. Signed timesheets can still be used against you, so keep your own notes of the hours you actually worked.

You may be able to recover the unpaid wages, interest, and penalties, plus overtime pay where the extra minutes push you past eight hours in a day or 40 in a week. If you win a claim for unpaid minimum wage or overtime, the employer generally has to pay your attorney’s fees and costs. And if the practice is companywide, your coworkers may be owed too.

Several remedies can stack. Hours you work off the clock with no pay also count as unpaid minimum wage hours, and California law generally adds liquidated damages equal to the minimum wage owed for those hours, plus interest. A court or the Labor Commissioner may reduce or deny that if the employer shows it acted in good faith and reasonably believed it was following the minimum wage law. If your employer didn’t give you a proper 30-minute meal break, you’re also generally owed one extra hour of pay at your regular rate for that day.

A pay stub that doesn’t show all the hours you worked violates California’s pay stub law. If that failure was knowing and intentional, you may recover $50 for the first pay period and $100 for each later one, up to $4,000. If your employer willfully fails to pay everything you’re owed when you quit or are let go, it can owe a penalty of up to 30 days of your daily wages. A genuine, good-faith dispute over whether the wages are owed can defeat that penalty.

When off-the-clock work comes from a company policy or a manager’s routine, coworkers can be affected too. That can support a class action or a PAGA claim, where a worker who personally experienced each violation seeks civil penalties on behalf of the state and coworkers affected by the same violations. Our page on PAGA claims in California explains how that works, and our unpaid wages lawyers may be able to estimate what the practice at your workplace is worth.

Start your own record today; your employer can’t stop you from keeping one. Note when you actually start and stop each day, and what you did before clocking in or after clocking out. Save texts, emails, and app notifications that show work outside your shift. Keep copies of your schedules, pay stubs, and any timecard you were asked to sign.

You can ask to inspect or get a copy of your payroll records, and your employer generally must comply within 21 days; asking in writing gives you proof. Your personnel file is due within 30 days of a written request. California law also protects you from being fired or punished for complaining that you’re owed unpaid wages, in writing or out loud.

Then mind the deadlines. Claims for unpaid wages generally reach back three years, and sometimes four. A PAGA notice generally has to be filed within one year of the violations you personally experienced. Our guide to California employment deadlines covers the details. A free case review can tell you where you stand before more of it expires.

Unpaid minutes are still unpaid wages, and the practice may not stop with one person. If your shifts start before the clock does, the California employment lawyers at Wilshire Law Firm offer a free case review, available 24/7, with no fees unless you get paid. You can also start your case review online. This article is general information, not legal advice, and every situation is different.