Holiday Pay Laws by State and Federal Rules

State holiday-pay rules. Hover any state for the operative authority.

Search "holiday pay by state" and most articles will hand you a 50-row table that looks comprehensive. The reality is one row. Rhode Island is the only state with a general statutory requirement to pay a holiday premium — at least 1.5× the regular rate for work on Sundays and designated holidays under R.I. Gen. Laws §25-3-3, subject to statutory exemptions for several non-retail employer categories. Massachusetts had a similar retail Sunday/holiday law but phased it out under Chapter 121 of the Acts of 2018 (the "Grand Bargain"); the premium dropped from 1.5× in 2018 to 1.1× in 2023 and was then eliminated. The other 48 states and DC have NO general holiday-pay statute. The Fair Labor Standards Act doesn't fill the gap either — 29 U.S.C. §207 contains no provision requiring payment for hours not worked on a holiday OR a premium for hours worked on a holiday. The DOL's public FAQ is explicit: "The FLSA does not require payment for time not worked, such as vacations, sick leave or federal or other holidays."

The genuinely cite-worthy content sits inside the topic, not at the state level. The federal regular-rate trap under 29 CFR §778.211 catches the small minority of holiday-pay decisions that ARE legally binding: when an employer pays a non-discretionary holiday bonus (anything announced in advance, in a handbook, by contract, or by past practice) and the employee worked overtime that workweek, the bonus has to be included in the regular rate used to compute the OT premium. Most payroll teams pay the bonus + the standard OT premium and miss the additional premium owed because the bonus increased the regular rate. The shortfall is small per employee per workweek (often $20–$100); multiplied across an hourly workforce in a bonus quarter, it's the FLSA wage-and-hour settlement pattern. Federal contractors face an additional binding layer under Davis-Bacon and the Service Contract Act, and post-Groff v. DeJoy (2023) the Title VII religious-accommodation analysis for non-standard holidays has changed materially.

Try the holiday pay calculator with the §778.211 bonus-trap mode →

Quick reference

• Federal floor: No FLSA requirement for paid holidays. Holiday pay is purely employer policy in 49 states and DC.
• Rhode Island (R.I. Gen. Laws §25-3-3): At least 1.5× the regular rate for Sunday and holiday work, subject to statutory exemptions (manufacturers operating seven days per week, wall-covering manufacturers, certain taxi/limousine companies, airport car rental agencies, and others). In practice the requirement applies most prominently to retail because most non-retail businesses fall within the listed exemptions.
• Massachusetts (historical): Chapter 121 of the Acts of 2018 phased out the retail Sunday/holiday premium incrementally — 1.5× → 1.4× → 1.3× → 1.2× → 1.1× → eliminated. No premium required as of 2024.
• FLSA §778.211 regular-rate trap: Non-discretionary bonuses (announced in advance, by handbook, by contract, or by past practice) MUST be included in the regular rate used to compute the OT premium for the workweek they're paid in. The 0.5× OT premium is recomputed at the new regular rate; the difference is additional OT owed. Most calculators miss this.
• §778.211(b) discretionary test (strict): A bonus is discretionary only when BOTH the fact of payment AND the amount are determined at the employer's sole discretion "quite close to the end of the period." An announced bonus is non-discretionary regardless of how the employer labels it.
• Federal contractors (Davis-Bacon, SCA): Locality-specific wage determinations may include holiday-pay fringe benefits. SCA service contracts default to a holiday-pay framework where working ON a designated holiday triggers BOTH holiday pay AND pay for hours worked (29 CFR §4.174).
• Title VII religious accommodation (post-Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447, 2023): Employers must show "substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business" to deny accommodation. The pre-2023 "de minimis cost" standard from TWA v. Hardison is gone.
• Multi-state employers: Holiday-pay policy generally follows employer policy + applicable state law for the work location. Only Rhode Island's statute attaches to a specific work location.

The 5 Most Expensive Holiday-Pay Mistakes

The compliance failures that drive FLSA wage-and-hour settlements, regulatory back-wage recoveries, and Title VII enforcement actions. Each is concrete; each has a specific fix.

1. Paying a non-discretionary holiday bonus + standard OT premium, without recomputing the regular rate (the §778.211 trap). This is the single most common payroll error in November–December and the foundation of most FLSA bonus-related settlements. The mechanics are straightforward but routinely missed: a $500 announced holiday bonus paid to an employee who worked 50 hours that week increases the regular rate from $20/hr to $30/hr; the over-40 OT premium goes from $100 to $150; the employer owes an additional $50 of OT premium for that workweek. The DOL's regular-rate examples at 29 CFR §778.209 are explicit: "The amount of the bonus is merely added to the other earnings of the employee (except statutory exclusions) and the total divided by total hours worked." Skip the recomputation and the employer is short on every employee who got the bonus + worked overtime — a class-action pattern that scales with the bonus and the workforce.

2. Labeling a bonus "discretionary" without meeting the §778.211(b) test. Most "holiday bonuses" are NOT discretionary in the FLSA sense. The §211(b) test is strict: discretionary requires BOTH the fact of payment AND the amount to be determined at the employer's sole discretion "quite close to the end of the period." Once announced — in a handbook, on hire, in a contract, by collective bargaining, or by past practice across multiple years — discretion is abandoned. The DOL's §211(c) examples list bonuses "promised to employees upon hiring," "result of collective bargaining," and "most attendance bonuses, individual or group production bonuses, bonuses for quality and accuracy of work, bonuses contingent upon the employee's continuing in employment" — all non-discretionary, all required to be included in the regular rate. A handbook line that says "the Company may, in its sole discretion, pay an annual holiday bonus" doesn't make the actual bonus discretionary if the company has paid one every December for five years.

3. Working a federal contractor on a designated SCA holiday without paying both holiday pay AND work pay. 29 CFR §4.174 governs holiday pay under the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act, which covers federal service contracts over $2,500 (janitorial, food service, security guards, IT services on federal property, etc.). When the wage determination includes a holiday fringe benefit, an employee who works on a designated holiday is entitled — verbatim from the regulation — to "be paid, in addition to the amount he ordinarily would be entitled to for that day's work, the cash equivalent of a full-day's pay up to 8 hours or be furnished another day off with pay." Many contractors assume the holiday pay is a substitute for work pay (one or the other); the regulation requires both. The penalty is back-wage recovery + potential debarment from federal contracting under the SCA's enforcement framework.

4. Denying a religious-holiday accommodation under the pre-2023 "de minimis" framework. Before Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447 (June 29, 2023), an employer could often deny a religious-holiday accommodation by pointing to almost any cost — a coworker's voluntary shift swap, scheduling administrative effort, even hypothetical morale impact. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected that approach. The new standard from Groff, verbatim: "Title VII requires an employer that denies a religious accommodation to show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business." Voluntary shift swaps, floating-holiday substitution, and flexible scheduling are no longer presumptively burdensome. Employers operating on the old Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977), "more than de minimis" framework are exposed in every refused religious-holiday accommodation.

5. Treating the §207(e)(6) holiday-premium credit incorrectly toward weekly OT. The 0.5× premium portion of a 1.5× holiday-rate paid for hours worked on a designated holiday is EXCLUDABLE from the regular rate under 29 U.S.C. §207(e)(6) IF the premium rate is at least 1.5× the regular rate. The corollary at §207(h)(2) — verbatim — is that "Extra compensation paid as described in paragraphs (5), (6), and (7) of subsection (e) shall be creditable toward overtime compensation payable pursuant to this section." Most employers either (a) include the holiday-premium portion in the regular rate (over-paying OT), or (b) fail to credit it toward weekly OT (paying OT premium twice on hours that satisfy both the holiday-policy obligation AND the FLSA 40-hour requirement). The single-rate-satisfies-both treatment is the correct outcome for hours that are simultaneously over-40 AND on the designated holiday.

Federal Baseline: No FLSA Holiday-Pay Requirement

The Fair Labor Standards Act doesn't require paid holidays. It doesn't require a premium for working on a holiday. The DOL Wage and Hour Division's public FAQ is explicit on both points:

"Extra pay for working weekends or nights is a matter of agreement between the employer and the employee (or the employee's representative). The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require extra pay for weekend or night work. However, the FLSA does require that covered, nonexempt workers be paid not less than time and one-half the employee's regular rate for time worked over 40 hours in a workweek."

"The FLSA does not require payment for time not worked, such as vacations, sick leave or federal or other holidays. These benefits are matters of agreement between an employer and an employee (or the employee's representative)."

What FLSA DOES regulate is how holiday-related payments interact with the regular rate used to compute overtime. That interaction — buried in 29 CFR Part 778 — is where the binding holiday-pay rules actually live.

The three distinct holiday-payment types

"Holiday pay" can mean three different things in payroll practice, and each gets a different FLSA regular-rate treatment:

Situation	Common multiplier	Regular-rate treatment	Source
Holiday off, paid (paid time off)	1× (full day)	Excluded from regular rate	§207(e)(2)
Premium pay for working on a holiday	1.5× or 2×	Excluded if premium ≥ 1.5×	§207(e)(6)
Non-discretionary holiday bonus	Lump sum	Included in regular rate	§778.211
Discretionary holiday bonus (true gift)	Lump sum	Excluded if §211(b) test met	§207(e)(1), (3)

Paid time off for a holiday not worked (§207(e)(2)). Pay for "occasional periods when no work is performed due to vacation, holiday, illness, failure of the employer to provide sufficient work, or other similar cause" is excluded from the regular rate. The same payment also CANNOT be credited toward overtime owed under 29 CFR §778.216 — verbatim, "no part of such payments can be credited toward overtime compensation due under the Act." Paying an employee 8 hours of holiday pay for Thanksgiving doesn't affect OT calculations for the surrounding workweek, and doesn't offset OT premium owed for hours actually worked.

Premium pay for working on a holiday (§207(e)(6)). The premium PORTION of holiday/weekend premium pay (the part over the regular rate) is excluded from the regular rate IF the premium rate is at least 1.5× the regular rate AND is paid because the work is on a designated holiday or weekend. Statutory text: "extra compensation provided by a premium rate paid for work by the employee on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, or regular days of rest...where such premium rate is not less than one and one-half times the rate established in good faith for like work performed in nonovertime hours on other days." The §207(h)(2) corollary: the same §207(e)(6) premium CAN be credited toward overtime premium otherwise owed for that workweek. A single 1.5× rate for hours worked on a holiday often satisfies BOTH the holiday-policy obligation AND the FLSA OT requirement for those hours.

Non-discretionary holiday bonus (§778.211). This is where most holiday-pay litigation lives. Verbatim from 29 CFR §778.211(c): "Any bonus which is promised to employees upon hiring or which is the result of collective bargaining would not be excluded from the regular rate...Most attendance bonuses, individual or group production bonuses, bonuses for quality and accuracy of work, bonuses contingent upon the employee's continuing in employment until the time the payment is to be made and the like are in this category; in such circumstances they must be included in the regular rate of pay." The inclusion mechanic is at §778.209: "The amount of the bonus is merely added to the other earnings of the employee (except statutory exclusions) and the total divided by total hours worked."

The §778.211 trap, worked

The pattern that catches payroll teams every November and December. Inputs: an employee at $20/hr who works 50 hours in the bonus week, and a $500 holiday bonus announced in October (non-discretionary because announcement abandoned discretion).

Step	Math	Result
Straight-time pay	50h × $20	$1,000
Non-discretionary bonus	(announced in October)	$500
OT hours	max(0, 50 − 40)	10h
OT premium without recompute	$20 × 0.5 × 10	$100
Naive total (the wrong number)	$1,000 + $500 + $100	$1,600
New regular rate	($1,000 + $500) ÷ 50	$30/hr
OT premium at new rate	$30 × 0.5 × 10	$150
Correct total	$1,000 + $500 + $150	$1,650
Additional OT owed	$150 − $100	$50

$50 per employee per bonus week. Multiplied across a 200-person hourly workforce that received a $500 holiday bonus, $10,000 of unpaid OT in a single workweek. Multiplied across multiple bonus cycles, multiple years, with FLSA's two- or three-year statute of limitations + liquidated damages, that's the back-wage settlement pattern. Every modern payroll system can run the §778.211 recomputation; many configurations don't, by default.

Try the §778.211 bonus-trap mode on your own numbers. The default loads the canonical case: 50 hours at $20 base + a $500 announced holiday bonus. The corrected total is $1,650; the additional OT owed because of the bonus is $50.

Pick the calculation you need

Simple holiday payCompute the dollar amount for hours worked on a holiday at 1×, 1.5×, 2×, or a custom multiplier.Regular-rate impact of a bonusDid a non-discretionary holiday bonus change the overtime owed for that workweek? The FLSA §778.211 case most calculators miss.

Your inputs

Base hourly rate ($)Total workweek hoursNon-discretionary bonus ($)

A bonus is non-discretionarywhen announced in advance, promised on hire, set by collective bargaining, or based on past practice (production / attendance / quality / continued-employment bonuses all qualify). A true gift — decided ad-hoc by the employer near period end, both fact and amount — is discretionary and excluded from the regular rate (and this calculation).

Correct weekly total

$1650.00

50.0h at $20.00 + $500.00 bonus + corrected OT premium

---

Math

Straight-time pay (50.0h × $20.00)

$1000.00

Non-discretionary bonus

$500.00

OT hours (over 40h: 10.0h)

10.0h

New regular rate ((straight-time + bonus) ÷ hours)

$30.0000/h

OT premium owed (0.5× × 10.0h × new regular rate)

$150.00

Corrected total

$1650.00

---

FLSA §778.211 trap

Without the regular-rate recomputation, you'd pay $1600.00 (straight-time + bonus + base-rate OT premium). The correct total is $1650.00 — an additional $50.00 of OT premium owed because the bonus is included in the regular rate for this workweek. The shortfall multiplied across all eligible employees and workweeks where bonuses landed is what FLSA wage-and-hour audits surface.

Nothing typed here is sent or saved — close the tab and your inputs are gone. The regular-rate-impact mode follows 29 CFR §778.211: a non-discretionary bonus is included in the regular rate for that workweek, recomputing overtime premium owed for any hours over 40. For state-stacked overtime rules (California daily + weekly + double-time + 7th-day; Kentucky 7th-day), use the state overtime calculator; for weekly hours math from clock-in / clock-out, use the time card calculator. Read the full methodology →

Discretionary vs non-discretionary — the §211(b) test

29 CFR §778.211(b) is the gating test: a bonus is "discretionary" (and therefore excludable under §207(e)(3)) only when, verbatim, "The employer must retain discretion both as to the fact of payment and as to the amount until a time quite close to the end of the period for which the bonus is paid." Three requirements, all required:

1. The fact of payment determined at employer's sole discretion;
2. AND the amount determined at employer's sole discretion;
3. AND the decision made "quite close to the end of the period."

Once any one of those three fails, the bonus is non-discretionary and must be included in the regular rate. The DOL's §211(c) examples of NON-discretionary bonuses include:

• Bonuses promised on hiring
• Bonuses from collective bargaining agreements
• Bonuses announced in advance to encourage steady work
• Attendance bonuses
• Production bonuses (individual or group)
• Quality and accuracy-of-work bonuses
• Continued-employment bonuses

A handbook line that says "the Company may, in its sole discretion, pay an annual holiday bonus" doesn't make the actual bonus discretionary if the company has paid one every December for five years. Past practice itself communicates expectation, and the §778.211(b) test fails on the "fact of payment" prong.

State Law: The Near-Empty Map

49 states and DC have no general statutory holiday-pay requirement. Rhode Island is the one outlier. Massachusetts had a similar retail Sunday/holiday rule that was phased out entirely by 2024. No other state has a general statute. State law that affects holiday-pay PRACTICE — wage-statement details, final-paycheck timing for accrued-but-unpaid holiday pay (analogous to the vacation payout framework) — exists, but it isn't a holiday-pay requirement.

Rhode Island — R.I. Gen. Laws §25-3-3

The only state with a general statutory requirement. Verbatim operative text: "Work performed by employees on Sundays and holidays must be paid for at least one and one-half (1½) times the normal rate of pay." The statute's plain text applies broadly to employees on Sundays and designated holidays; the practical scope skews retail because most non-retail businesses fall within the statute's enumerated exemptions:

• Manufacturers operating seven days per week
• Wall-covering manufacturers
• Certain taxi/limousine companies
• Airport car rental agencies
• Additional categories listed in the operative text

The Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training enforces. The statute was amended in 2021 (P.L. 2021, ch. 32 and ch. 36); several pre-2021 grandfathered exemptions remain in effect. Updated DLT regulations clarifying the "retail employer" definition took effect during 2025. Holiday-pay practitioners in Rhode Island treat the statute as binding for retail and verify exemption status case-by-case for non-retail.

Massachusetts — Chapter 121 of the Acts of 2018 (phased out)

Massachusetts historically required 1.5× the regular rate for hours worked on Sundays and certain holidays in retail establishments — blue-laws-era legislation predating the FLSA. Chapter 121 of the Acts of 2018 (the "Grand Bargain": "An Act Relative to Minimum Wage, Paid Family Medical Leave and the Sales Tax Holiday") phased the premium out incrementally:

Year	Required premium
2018 (baseline)	1.5×
2019	1.4×
2020	1.3×
2021	1.2×
2022	1.1×
2023+	Eliminated

As of 2024, Massachusetts has no retail Sunday/holiday premium-pay requirement. The trajectory matters for the article's central claim: state holiday-pay laws are mostly being repealed, not added. The political economy of the era (rising minimum wages, expanded paid family leave) absorbed the bargaining chip.

Every other state

Despite the persistent November/December search volume for "holiday pay by state," no other state has a general statutory holiday-pay requirement. California — strictest state on most wage-and-hour issues — has no holiday-pay statute. Labor Code §510 covers daily and weekly overtime but doesn't require paid holidays or holiday premiums. Wage Order §3 (and the other Wage Orders) doesn't either. New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Washington, Oregon — same.

State laws that touch holiday pay indirectly:

• Wage statement laws. Several states require pay-stub itemization of hours and rates IF the employer pays a holiday premium (CA Labor Code §226; see pay stub requirements by state for the §226 derivative-claim mechanics). The state isn't requiring the holiday premium; it's requiring transparency about whatever the employer's policy is.
• Final paycheck statutes. State final-paycheck laws (varying from California's same-day requirement to Texas's flexible-by-circumstance approach) apply to accrued-but-unpaid holiday pay if the employer's policy or contract treats holiday pay as accrued. The analogous framework is more developed for vacation; see vacation payout laws by state.
• Hiring notice requirements. New York Labor Law §195 requires written notice at hire of pay rate and pay-day frequency. California Labor Code §2810.5 requires similar disclosure. Changes to an employer's holiday-pay policy generally require notice in these jurisdictions — but the statutes don't require any particular policy.

For most readers, the practical answer is: holiday-pay policy is whatever the employer's handbook says, plus whatever past practice or contract has established, plus the federal regular-rate framework for bonuses and premium pay. State law is mostly off the picture.

Federal Contractors: Davis-Bacon and the Service Contract Act

Federal contractors operate under two statutory regimes that DO require holiday-pay practice — but indirectly, through prevailing-wage determinations rather than through a flat statutory mandate. Most generic holiday-pay articles skip this layer entirely; for federal contractors it's binding.

Davis-Bacon Act (40 U.S.C. §§3141–3148)

Covers construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works funded by federal contracts in excess of $2,000. The 29 CFR §5.5 contract-clauses regulation requires contractors to pay the locality's prevailing wage, including any "bona fide fringe benefits" specified in the wage determination. Verbatim from §5.5: "Contributions made or costs reasonably anticipated for bona fide fringe benefits under the Davis-Bacon Act...on behalf of laborers or mechanics are considered wages paid to such laborers or mechanics." The contractor may "pay the benefit as stated in the wage determination or may pay another bona fide fringe benefit or an hourly cash equivalent thereof."

Holiday pay, when included, appears in the locality- and classification-specific wage determination — not in §5.5 itself. For a contractor on a federal construction project, the steps are: (1) pull the applicable WD; (2) read the fringe-benefit composition for each labor classification; (3) if the fringe includes a holiday-pay component, provide either paid holidays of equivalent value OR cash-equivalent in the hourly rate.

The 2024 Davis-Bacon Final Rule (published 89 FR 4444; effective October 23, 2023) restored the three-step prevailing-wage methodology, strengthened anti-retaliation provisions, and expanded coverage to some trucking activities. It didn't change the holiday-pay fringe-benefit framework, but it's the most recent material Davis-Bacon update.

McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act (41 U.S.C. §§6701–6707)

Covers federal service contracts over $2,500. Janitorial, food service, security, IT on federal property — broadly, any service work performed under a federal contract. Like Davis-Bacon, the wage determination for the specific locality + occupation typically includes a "vacation and holiday" fringe-benefit specification.

The SCA's holiday-pay framework is more prescriptive than Davis-Bacon's. 29 CFR §4.174 (verbatim):

• Entitlement: "an employee who performs any work during the workweek in which a named holiday occurs is entitled to the holiday benefit."
• Non-workday treatment: holiday benefits apply "regardless of whether the named holiday falls on a Sunday, another day during the workweek on which the employee is not normally scheduled to work, or on the employee's day off."
• Working on holiday: "a full-time employee who works on the day designated as a holiday must be paid, in addition to the amount he ordinarily would be entitled to for that day's work, the cash equivalent of a full-day's pay up to 8 hours or be furnished another day off with pay."

The "in addition to" is the binding language. SCA employees who work on a designated holiday receive BOTH holiday pay AND pay for the hours worked — not one in lieu of the other. The penalty for getting this wrong is back-wage recovery, plus potential debarment from federal contracting under the SCA's enforcement framework.

Federal holiday set used in most SCA wage determinations (current OPM list, 11 holidays): New Year's Day, MLK Day, Washington's Birthday (Presidents Day), Memorial Day, Juneteenth (added by the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, signed June 17, 2021), Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas. The exact list varies by WD; this is the typical configuration.

Title VII Religious Accommodation — Post-Groff

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits religious discrimination AND requires reasonable accommodation for an employee's "sincerely held religious belief." That obligation extends to observance of religious holidays not on the employer's standard holiday schedule. For nearly 50 years the governing standard was TWA v. Hardison; in 2023 the Supreme Court replaced it.

The Hardison "de minimis" standard (1977–2023)

Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977), held that an employer is not required to accommodate an employee's religious practice if doing so would impose "more than a de minimis cost" on the operation of the employer's business. For decades, employer-side counsel relied on the Hardison framing to deny accommodations on the basis of almost any cost — a coworker's voluntary shift swap, scheduling administrative effort, even abstract concerns about morale. Plaintiff-side counsel argued the standard had drifted far from Title VII's actual text. The Supreme Court eventually agreed.

Groff v. DeJoy (June 29, 2023) — the new standard

Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447 (June 29, 2023), was a unanimous Supreme Court decision rejecting the de minimis framing of Hardison. The new standard, verbatim from the opinion: "Title VII requires an employer that denies a religious accommodation to show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business." The Court was explicit: showing "more than de minimis cost" is no longer enough; employers must prove the burden is "substantial in the overall context of an employer's business."

The practical impact for holiday-pay decisions:

• Voluntary shift swaps no longer presumptively burdensome. Pre-Groff, an employer could deny an accommodation by noting that a coworker would have to volunteer. Post-Groff, the volunteer-swap mechanism IS the accommodation; declining to use it requires a substantial-cost justification.
• Floating-holiday substitution is a near-certain accommodation. Letting an employee use a floating holiday or PTO day for religious observance imposes no marginal cost beyond the holiday pay the employer would owe anyway.
• Required attendance on a religious-observance day without analysis is high-risk. Post-Groff EEOC enforcement has emphasized that the accommodation analysis must actually happen — undocumented denials are vulnerable.

The Hardison framework persists in old case law and lower-court opinions that haven't been refreshed against Groff. Employer policies drafted before June 2023 likely codify the de minimis standard and need updating.

State-level analogs

Several states have analogous religious-accommodation statutes that apply Groff's standard or stricter:

• California FEHA (Fair Employment and Housing Act): Cal. Gov. Code §12940(l) requires reasonable accommodation absent "significant difficulty or expense" — a standard CA courts have read as stricter than the pre-Groff federal standard.
• New York Human Rights Law: N.Y. Exec. Law §296(10) is structurally similar to Title VII; post-Groff, the standards have effectively converged.
• Illinois Human Rights Act: 775 ILCS 5; applies the substantial-cost framing.

For multi-state employers, the safer posture is to apply Groff company-wide regardless of which state the employee is in — the state-law floors are at least as strict as Groff in jurisdictions that have one.

Multi-State Employers and Remote Workers

Holiday-pay policy is generally an employer-policy question rather than a jurisdiction-of-work question — which simplifies the multi-state and remote-worker analysis compared to overtime, breaks, or wage-statement compliance. Two operational pieces matter:

1. Rhode Island work attaches RI law. An employee physically working in Rhode Island on a designated holiday or Sunday is subject to R.I. Gen. Laws §25-3-3 regardless of where the employer is headquartered, subject to the statute's exemption categories. A California-headquartered company with retail operations in Providence owes the 1.5× premium for Sunday/holiday work performed in Providence.
2. The federal §778.211 trap applies everywhere. The regular-rate recomputation for non-discretionary bonuses is federal — there's no state variation. An employer paying an announced holiday bonus to an employee anywhere in the country who worked overtime that week owes the §211 recomputation.

For practical compliance, the recommended posture for a multi-state employer is:

• One company-wide holiday-pay policy that meets or exceeds the most-generous jurisdiction's requirement (which is functionally Rhode Island's 1.5× for the small subset of employees actually working in RI on relevant days).
• Per-payroll-cycle §778.211 reconciliation when announced bonuses are paid in workweeks that include overtime hours for any employee.
• Documented religious-accommodation analysis for every denial of a religious-holiday accommodation request, applying Groff's substantial-cost standard.

The compliance overhead is small; the documentation discipline is what matters in an audit or a Title VII charge.

Recent Changes (2024–2026)

The materially significant developments in holiday-pay law and adjacent doctrine since 2023.

Groff v. DeJoy (June 29, 2023) — the doctrinal reset

Already covered above. The biggest holiday-pay-adjacent legal development of the decade. Employer policies drafted before June 2023 codified the Hardison "de minimis" standard; those policies need to be reviewed against the new "substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business" standard from Groff.

Davis-Bacon Final Rule (89 FR 4444; effective October 23, 2023)

The Biden DOL's overhaul of Davis-Bacon Act regulations — the first material update in 40 years. Restored the three-step prevailing-wage methodology that was the practice before 1983; strengthened anti-retaliation provisions for workers reporting Davis-Bacon violations; expanded prevailing-wage coverage to additional trucking activities. The rule didn't change the holiday-pay fringe-benefit framework but did update the broader Davis-Bacon compliance posture. Federal-construction contractors should review their compliance posture against the post-2023 regulation.

Camp v. Home Depot (pending at California Supreme Court)

Camp v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 84 Cal. App. 5th 638 (2022), is California's leading case on time-clock rounding. Review granted at the California Supreme Court (S277518) in February 2023; as of mid-2026 the case is still pending. The case's holding — that rounding is impermissible when an employer's timekeeping system can capture exact minutes — would, if affirmed, extend to holiday-rate hours just as it would to regular hours. California's "every minute paid" precept doesn't carve out holiday work. Holiday-pay practitioners with California exposure should track the case alongside the broader rounding analysis. See time clock rounding rules for the full doctrinal chain.

Rhode Island DLT regulatory updates (2025)

The Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training issued updated regulations clarifying the "retail employer" definition for purposes of R.I. Gen. Laws §25-3-3 during 2025. The regulations don't change the statute's operative requirement (1.5× for Sunday/holiday work) but refine the definitional scope. Rhode Island employers should review their classification against the updated definition.

Massachusetts repeal complete (2024+)

Chapter 121 of the Acts of 2018 phased out Massachusetts' retail Sunday/holiday premium-pay requirement on the schedule above. As of 2024, no premium is required. The repeal is complete; Massachusetts joins the 47 other states with no holiday-pay statute.

FAQ

If You Discover You've Been Doing This Wrong

Every employer who has paid an announced holiday bonus to employees who worked overtime has at least some §778.211 exposure. The pattern is so common that the DOL Wage and Hour Division's enforcement playbook explicitly looks for it. If a payroll audit surfaces the gap, the remediation playbook is straightforward:

1. Pull bonus records for the past two years (or three with willful-violation exposure). FLSA's statute of limitations is two years for non-willful violations, three years for willful. "Willful" means the employer knew or showed reckless disregard for FLSA's requirements — a standard met by ignoring the §778.211 framework after being notified.

2. For each bonus, identify recipients who worked overtime in the workweek the bonus was paid. This is the §211 calculation universe. Recipients who didn't work overtime in the bonus week aren't owed additional amounts; only those who crossed 40 hours that week.

3. Run the §778.209 recomputation per recipient per bonus. New regular rate = (workweek straight-time pay + bonus) ÷ workweek hours. Additional OT premium = (new regular rate − old regular rate) × 0.5 × OT hours. The arithmetic is mechanical once the data is assembled.

4. Voluntarily pay the back-wage shortfall with a clear written explanation. DOL Wage and Hour Division's enforcement framework strongly favors employers who self-identify and self-correct under §216(c) — the agency may waive liquidated damages (a 100% additional penalty) when the employer demonstrates good-faith correction. Plaintiff-side counsel similarly discount cases where the employer has already made workers whole. The cost of voluntary correction is the back-wage amount; the cost of an enforcement action is the back-wage amount + liquidated damages + attorney's fees + reputational exposure.

5. Fix the payroll-system configuration so the §778.209 recomputation runs by default on every bonus-bearing workweek going forward. Most modern payroll systems can be configured for this — the omission is usually a default setting, not a system limitation. Document the configuration change so a future audit can verify the corrective action.

If the total back-wage exposure exceeds $10,000–$25,000 across the workforce, consult employment counsel before making payments. The structure of the corrective payments (lump sum vs payroll-cycle, tax treatment of back-wage payments, release language if any) has implications beyond the wage-and-hour question.

The Bottom Line

The state-by-state map is mostly empty: Rhode Island has a rule, Massachusetts had one that's been phased out, the other 48 states and DC don't regulate holiday pay at all. Federal law doesn't fill the gap either — the FLSA leaves holiday-pay policy entirely to the employer. The real holiday-pay rules — the binding ones, the ones that drive litigation and back-wage recoveries — are in three places: 29 CFR §778.211 for non-discretionary bonuses and the regular-rate recomputation, 29 CFR §4.174 for federal Service Contract Act employees, and Groff v. DeJoy (2023) for Title VII religious-accommodation analysis. The first one catches the most employers, costs the most in aggregate, and is the easiest to fix: configure the payroll system to recompute the regular rate when an announced bonus lands in an overtime workweek, then run the historical reconciliation for prior years to surface and pay any existing shortfall. The compliance cost is small; the audit exposure of not fixing it is not.

Sources

Federal statute and regulation

• 29 U.S.C. §207 — FLSA maximum hours, overtime, regular-rate framework (Cornell LII)
• 29 CFR §778.209 — Method of computing regular rate with bonuses (Cornell LII)
• 29 CFR §778.211 — Non-discretionary bonuses (Cornell LII)
• 29 CFR §778.216 — Vacation/holiday/illness pay exclusions (Cornell LII)
• 29 CFR §4.174 — McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act holiday pay (Cornell LII)
• 29 CFR §5.5 — Davis-Bacon contract clauses, including fringe-benefit treatment (Cornell LII)
• 85 FR 2014 — Regular Rate Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (2020 Final Rule) (Federal Register)
• 89 FR 4444 — Updating Davis-Bacon and Related Acts Regulations (2023 Final Rule) (Federal Register)
• DOL Wage and Hour Division FAQ — holiday pay treatment under FLSA (DOL WHD)

Supreme Court cases

• Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447 (June 29, 2023) — Title VII religious accommodation; "substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business" standard
• Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977) — pre-Groff "de minimis cost" standard for religious accommodation (replaced)

State statutes

• Rhode Island General Laws §25-3-3 — Sunday and holiday work premium pay (RI Legislature)
• Massachusetts Acts of 2018, Chapter 121 — phase-out of retail Sunday/holiday premium pay (Mass. Legislature)

Related Clockspot articles

• Overtime Rules by State — the regular-rate framework in detail; state-by-state daily and weekly OT
• Recordkeeping Requirements by State — FLSA §516 + state recordkeeping rules
• Pay Stub Requirements by State — itemization rules for holiday-premium hours
• Vacation Payout Laws by State — analogous "states with laws / states without" framework
• Time Clock Rounding Rules — Camp trajectory in California