If you were expecting the federal overtime salary threshold to jump in 2026, it didn't — and the reason is a court fight that played out over the previous two years, not inaction from Congress. * The current federal minimum salary required to classify an employee as exempt from overtime under the FLSA's executive, administrative, and professional exemptions is $684 a week, or $35,568 a year. That's the same number that's applied since 2019. * A 2024 Department of Labor rule tried to raise that threshold significantly and phase in future automatic increases, but a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas vacated the rule in November 2024, ruling the Department had overstepped its authority. On May 14, 2026, the Department of Labor made it official: it published a technical amendment formally unwinding the 2024 rule and restoring the 2019 salary level as the current federal standard. * Meeting the salary threshold is only one part of qualifying an employee as exempt — the FLSA also requires a duties test (the employee's actual job responsibilities must be executive, administrative, or professional in nature) and a salary basis test (pay must be a predetermined amount that doesn't fluctuate based on hours or quality of work). * The federal number is a floor, not a ceiling: five states set their own overtime salary threshold above the federal $684-a-week minimum effective January 1, 2026, and where a state threshold is higher, employers have to follow the more protective state rule instead of the lower federal one.