Are paralegals exempt from overtime in Washington?

The starting point in Washington is the same federal rule every state starts from.

29 CFR 541.301(e)(7), the learned-professional exemption's paralegal provision, says paralegals and legal assistants "generally do not qualify as exempt learned professionals" because "an advanced specialized academic degree is not a standard prerequisite for entry into the field."

Where no exemption fits, the overtime rules apply to the seat.

Our guide to the federal paralegal overtime rules walks through the federal tests in detail; this page covers what Washington adds.

Washington adds its own white-collar exemption rules, and two differences matter for a paralegal seat.

The first is the salary level: Washington is one of the states that sets its own salary threshold above the federal one — our research notes California, New York and Colorado alongside it — so an exemption that clears the federal level can still fail in Washington.

The second is that the threshold is a formula, not a fixed number: it is defined as 2.25 times the state minimum wage for a 40-hour week (WAC 296-128-545), an amount the rule states for a calendar-year window rather than as a standing figure.

What does not differ is the carve-out for lawyers.

Washington exempts licensed lawyers actually practicing law from its overtime salary threshold, matching federal law (WAC 296-128-530).

That carve-out covers the firm's attorneys — it is not a route for the staff seats, which is why a paralegal classification in this state cannot use it to skip the salary threshold question.

The figures for 2026: Washington's minimum wage is $17.13 per hour, and the exempt salary threshold is 2.25 times that wage for a 40-hour week — $1,541.70 per week, or $80,168.40 per year — and it applies to all employer sizes (WAC 296-128-545).

The rule's own text runs "Beginning January 1, 2026, and through December 31, 2026," so treat the dollar figure as a calendar-2026 number.

Because the threshold is a multiple of the minimum wage, it moves when the minimum wage does; confirm the current-year figure with the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) before you build payroll on it.

Against the federal baseline: the Department of Labor's salary-levels page listed the standard salary level at $684 per week — equivalent to $35,568 a year — as of October 2, 2026, and that is the level an exemption must clear federally.

If a planning document still carries the higher figures from the DOL's 2024 overtime rule, $844 a week and then $1,128 a week, it is out of date; those levels are not in force.

Clearing the salary figure is necessary but not sufficient.

The duties test has to be met too, and the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet 17D is explicit: "Job titles do not determine exemption status."

Our research verified Washington's salary threshold itself; it did not verify the wording of the state's own duties test, so how that analysis runs under Washington's rules is a question to put to L&I's guidance or employment counsel rather than to assume from the federal text.

The same two-layer analysis reaches every seat a firm staffs, and a few come up often.

Law clerks and law graduates are the first: the lawyer carve-out — federal and Washington's — runs on a valid license and actual practice, so a law graduate awaiting bar results or an unlicensed law clerk does not fit it.

The federal rule describes the exempt lawyer as "Any employee who is the holder of a valid license or certificate permitting the practice of law" (29 CFR 541.304), and that person must meet another exemption's salary and duties tests or be paid overtime.

Paralegals with an advanced specialized degree from another professional field are the deliberate exception.

The federal provision's own example: "if a law firm hires an engineer as a paralegal to provide expert advice on product liability cases or to assist on patent matters, that engineer would qualify for exemption" (29 CFR 541.301(e)(7)).

Both parts have to be present — the degree from another professional field and its use in the work — and the salary threshold still applies to the seat, at Washington's higher figure, because the no-salary carve-out belongs to licensed practicing lawyers.

How far this provision reaches beyond the regulation's own examples is not settled in the sources we read.

eDiscovery and litigation-support roles with a real IT component touch a different provision: the computer-employee rules let the compensation requirement be met on an hourly basis "at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour" (29 CFR 541.600).

That is the federal figure: our research did not verify how Washington's rules treat computer employees, and the computer-employee duties test is its own regulation that was not part of our research either, so treat that route as a question for counsel rather than a default.

Everyone else — legal secretaries, intake specialists, billing staff, docketing clerks — gets the same two questions as a paralegal: what does the seat actually do, and what is it paid?

Titles do not decide it.

Our guide to classifying legal staff walks the exempt-versus-non-exempt decision across the common law firm seats.

The direct exposure is the one misclassification creates anywhere: a paralegal classified exempt who does not meet the tests is owed the overtime the classification avoided.

How a back-wage claim is calculated, how far back it can reach and what additional amounts Washington law can attach are enforcement questions — and our research verified the classification rules and the thresholds, not the state's penalty formulas, so we will not put numbers on them.

Two agencies hold the relevant rulebooks.

The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division publishes the federal sources behind this page — Fact Sheet 17D and the salary-levels page.

On the state side, the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries publishes the minimum wage the threshold is built from along with the state's wage-and-hour guidance, and it is the agency to check with on how Washington treats a misclassification.

The asymmetry is the practical point.

Classification turns on duties and salary — not on the title, the firm's budget or the market — so a front-loaded review against the two tests is a small task, while reclassifying after the fact reaches back into payroll records and pay periods already closed.

Put the file in front of employment counsel before the offer goes out; the rest of the hiring sequence is in our guide to hiring for your law firm.

Start from non-exempt and treat exempt as the claim you have to support, not the default.

For a Washington paralegal seat that means budgeting for overtime, and it means testing any exempt classification against the state's figure — $80,168.40 a year for 2026 — rather than the federal $35,568.

Date-stamp the worksheet: the dollar figure is calculated from the rule's 2.25 multiple and the 2026 minimum wage, and the rule sets that multiple for calendar year 2026 only.

For the market number, the federal survey is the benchmark: in the BLS's May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, paralegals and legal assistants (SOC 23-2011) in Washington had a median annual wage of $79,400.

Our Washington paralegal salary page carries the full table from the same release.

The pay range goes in the posting, too.

Since January 1, 2023, Washington has required employers with 15 or more employees to disclose the wage scale or salary range (or fixed wage) and a general description of benefits and other compensation in each job posting (RCW 49.58.110).

For postings from July 27, 2025 through July 27, 2027, an employer gets five business days after written notice to correct a noncompliant posting before applicant remedies apply — a cure window, not a reason to leave the range out.

One more piece of the package is changing: noncompetes.

Until June 30, 2027, RCW 49.62.020 voids a noncompete for an employee unless their annualized earnings exceed $100,000 — the statute's figure, which is adjusted annually under RCW 49.62.040, so confirm the current adjusted amount with L&I.

A noncompete in a paralegal offer letter is void under that earnings test unless the seat clears it.

From June 30, 2027, Washington law (2026 c 149) makes all noncompetition covenants void and unenforceable regardless of when they were signed, and employers must make reasonable efforts by October 1, 2027 to notify current and former employees and contractors with still-running noncompetes that those covenants are void.

A retention lever built into a paralegal offer letter is not one to count on here.

Employer information, not legal advice. Wage-and-hour rules and the figures on this page change — the salary threshold here is the 2026 figure — so confirm your classification and pay decisions with employment counsel, and check the current numbers with Washington L&I and the Department of Labor before you rely on them.