New York rules on hours and rest for hotels and restaurants

Free, no email required. The same four rules on one page, with their sources.

This page explains, in plain words, four New York State rules that a weekly schedule meets in a hotel or a restaurant: the day of rest, meal periods, spread of hours and call-in pay. Each section says what the rule is, what it means when you write a schedule, and where the rule is published, so you can read the original.

This is general information, not legal advice. It covers four rules. It leaves out most of their exceptions and every other rule that applies to your business, such as overtime, the minimum wage and any union agreement. Each statement was checked against the source named in its section on November 10, 2026, and rules change. For a decision about your own business, read the source, or ask the New York State Department of Labor or your counsel.

Day of rest: 24 hours in a row, in every calendar week

The rule. An employer that operates a hotel or a restaurant must allow every person employed there at least 24 consecutive hours of rest in any calendar week. Before operating on Sunday, the employer designates a day of rest for each employee and tells them in advance, and no employee may be permitted to work on their designated day of rest. The Department of Labor's overview for the hospitality industry describes the calendar week as Sunday through Saturday.

Who is left out. The law lists exceptions. Among them are a foreman in charge, and employees of resort or seasonal hotels and restaurants in rural communities and in cities and villages of fewer than 15,000 people. An employer can also apply to the Department of Labor for a variance.

On the schedule. Read each person's row from Sunday to Saturday and look for at least 24 hours in a row with no shift, inside that same week. Seven eight-hour morning shifts from Sunday to Saturday leave 16 hours between one shift and the next, and no block of 24. Where the business is open on Sunday, each person also has a named day of rest with no shift on it.

Source. New York Labor Law, Section 161; New York State Department of Labor, Day of Rest and Meal Periods and Overview of Labor Law Rules and Regulations for the hospitality industry.

Meal periods: 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and a further 20

The rule. Section 162 of the Labor Law sets meal periods by the time of day. These are the ones for people who work outside a factory; factory workers have longer ones.

• A person who works a shift of more than six hours that extends over the noonday meal period, 11 am to 2 pm, gets at least 30 minutes off within that period.
• A person whose shift of more than six hours starts between 1 pm and 6 am gets at least 45 minutes for a meal, at a time midway between the beginning and the end of the shift.
• A person whose shift starts before 11 am and continues later than 7 pm gets an additional meal period of at least 20 minutes between 5 pm and 7 pm.

A meal period that meets these requirements does not have to be counted as hours worked or paid. Where only one person is on duty, the Department accepts that the employee eats on the job if the employee agrees to it voluntarily. An employee who asks for an uninterrupted meal period must be given one, and a meal period that is worked through must be paid. The Department's guidelines also say that it permits a meal period shortened to no less than 30 minutes without an application, so long as there is no indication of hardship to employees; anything shorter needs a permit.

On the schedule. A meal period belongs on the shift when the shift is written. A 7 am to 3 pm shift crosses the noonday period, so it carries at least 30 minutes between 11 and 2. A 3 pm to 11 pm shift starts after 1 pm and runs more than six hours, so it carries a meal period around 7 pm. A day from 9 am to 9 pm has the noonday 30 minutes and a further 20 between 5 and 7.

Source. New York State Department of Labor, Guidelines for Meal Periods (form LS 443, 12/25) and Meal and Rest Periods Frequently Asked Questions; New York Labor Law, Section 162.

Spread of hours: one more hour of pay on a day longer than 10 hours

The rule. The spread of hours is the length of time between the beginning and the end of an employee's workday. It includes working time, time off for meals and intervals off duty. On each day on which the spread of hours exceeds 10, the employee receives one additional hour of pay at the basic minimum hourly rate. In restaurants and all-year hotels this applies to all employees, whatever their regular rate of pay, and the extra hour cannot be offset by credits for meals or lodging.

The wage order gives two examples. Working 7 am to 10 am and then 7 pm to 10 pm is 6 hours worked and a spread of 15 hours. Working 11:30 am to 3 pm and then 4 pm to 10 pm is 9½ hours worked and a spread of 10½ hours.

Who is left out. The section covers restaurants and all-year hotels. A resort hotel, as the wage order defines it, is not an all-year hotel.

On the schedule. The spread is measured across the whole day, not per shift. Someone who works lunch and dinner with a break between the two, and someone on one long shift with a long break, are both measured from the first start to the last finish. More than 10 hours means one more hour of pay for that day, at the minimum rate.

Source. Hospitality Industry Wage Order, 12 NYCRR Section 146-1.6, published by the New York State Department of Labor as CR 146, and its Hospitality Wage Order Frequently Asked Questions.

Call-in pay: at least three hours for reporting to work

The rule. An employee who reports for duty on any day at the request or with the permission of the employer, whether or not they are given work, is paid for at least three hours for one shift, or for the number of hours in their regularly scheduled shift if that is less. For two shifts totaling six hours or less the minimum is six hours, and for three shifts totaling eight hours or less it is eight hours, each with the same limit of the regularly scheduled shift.

Time actually worked is paid at the regular or overtime rate, less any customary tip credit. The rest of the period is paid at the basic minimum hourly rate with no tip credit. Call-in pay cannot be offset by credits for meals or lodging, and it applies to all employees, whatever their regular rate of pay.

A regularly scheduled shift is a fixed, repeating shift that the employee normally works on the same day of each week. If a person's hours on a given day of the week change from week to week, there is no regularly scheduled shift, and the three, six and eight hours apply.

On the schedule. A two-hour shift is paid as three, unless it is that person's fixed shift on that day every week. Sending someone home one hour into an eight-hour shift does not bring the pay for that day below three hours. An employee who leaves early by their own choice is not owed call-in pay for it, as long as the employer did not influence them to leave.

Source. Hospitality Industry Wage Order, 12 NYCRR Section 146-1.5 (CR 146), and the Hospitality Wage Order Frequently Asked Questions.

What Schedio does with these four rules

Schedio is scheduling software, and we make it. For a location in New York you can turn on a set of checks called New York labor rules, under Settings → Scheduling rules. From then on, each shift is checked when it is saved:

• Day of rest. A shift on a person's designated day of rest is flagged. So is a calendar week, Sunday to Saturday, that leaves a person without 24 hours in a row.
• Meal periods. A shift that calls for a 30-minute, a 45-minute or a further 20-minute meal period is flagged when no break of that length is on it. Schedio checks that the break is there and long enough. Where in the shift it falls is yours to place.
• Spread of hours. A day that runs more than 10 hours from the first start to the last finish is flagged, with a note that an extra hour of pay may be due.
• Short shifts. A shift of less than three hours of work is flagged, with a note that call-in pay may still be due for three.

Each of these arrives as a warning. Schedio flags it and you decide: you can save the shift as it is, change it, or set a rule to stop the save.

Three limits, so that nobody reads more into this than is there. Schedio works from the schedule: it is not a time clock, it does not run payroll, and it does not know the hours a person actually worked. The checks follow the four rules above and not their exceptions, so a business with a variance, a permit or a union agreement will see flags that do not apply to it. And a schedule with no flags is not a statement that the schedule is lawful.

A one-page checklist

The checklist puts the four rules on one page, as lines to tick before a week is posted, with the sources at the bottom. Like this page, it is general information and not legal advice.

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