Live-In Caregiver in California: Overtime and Pay Rules (2026)

A live-in caregiver in California who looks after an older parent is owed overtime after 9 hours in a day or 45 hours in a week, even though the caregiver lives in the home.1 That is California's Domestic Worker Bill of Rights, and it is stricter than federal law, which lets a family that employs a live-in directly claim an exemption from federal overtime.2 If your parent gets care through California's In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program instead, a different set of rules applies: the county sets the paid hours, and a provider who lives with the recipient can keep those wages out of income tax.

In This Guide

• Which California Rule Covers Your Live-In Caregiver?
• When Does a Live-In Caregiver in California Earn Overtime?
• Pay the State Minimum Wage for Every Hour Worked
• Room and Meals Are a Credit, Not a Wage
• Sleep Time and Keeping Track of Hours
• What a Lawful Live-In Week Costs
• Hiring Through an Agency
• Workers' Compensation for a Household Employee
• When the Caregiver Is Paid Through IHSS
• The IHSS Live-In Tax Exclusion (SOC 2298)
• What to Do This Week
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Learn More

Which California Rule Covers Your Live-In Caregiver?

California sorts household workers by what they spend their time doing. Under California Labor Code section 1451, a personal attendant is anyone employed by a private householder, or by a third-party employer recognized in the health care industry, to work in a private household supervising, feeding or dressing a person who needs supervision because of advanced age, physical disability or mental deficiency. The label holds only while other work stays at or under 20 percent of the caregiver's total weekly hours.1

So a caregiver who helps your father bathe, dress and eat, and does a little laundry, is a personal attendant. A live-in who spends most of the week cleaning and cooking for the household is a domestic worker who is not a personal attendant, and a different overtime schedule applies. California's Domestic Worker Bill of Rights defines a domestic work employee to expressly include live-in workers, so living in the home does not move anyone out of either group.1

The overtime and exclusion rows come from the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights and Wage Order 15,1 the minimum wage column from the state's 2026 wage order,3 the IHSS overtime rule from the Welfare and Institutions Code,4 and county wage-setting from the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), which says all IHSS provider rates are set by individual counties.6

When Does a Live-In Caregiver in California Earn Overtime?

A personal attendant may not be employed more than 9 hours in any workday or more than 45 hours in any workweek unless the attendant gets one and a half times the regular rate of pay for the hours past those lines, under Labor Code section 1454.1 Two separate lines apply: the 10th hour of any single day, and the 46th hour of the week.

For a live-in who is not a personal attendant, the Department of Industrial Relations points to Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order No. 15 instead: overtime for hours over 9 in a day and for the first 9 hours worked on the sixth and seventh consecutive day of the workweek.1

The California rule matters because the federal rule is looser for a household employer. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, a family that employs a live-in directly can claim the live-in overtime exemption, and the U.S. Department of Labor says a household that properly claims it is not liable for federal overtime pay.2 The federal FLSA live-in exemption covers overtime only. A federal live-in must still be paid at least the minimum wage for every hour worked, and DOL's Fact Sheet #79B notes the worker may be owed a higher hourly wage under state law.2 In California, the state overtime statute names live-in domestic workers as covered, so plan the schedule around 9 and 45.1

The exclusions are narrow and specific. The Domestic Worker Bill of Rights does not cover a caregiver who is the employer's parent, grandparent, spouse, sibling, child or legally adopted child, and it does not cover anyone who performs services through IHSS. A niece, a cousin or a family friend you pay privately is not on the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights exclusion list, so the same overtime rules apply to them as to any other caregiver: the 9-hour and 45-hour rule if they work as a personal attendant, and Wage Order 15 if they do not.1

Pay the State Minimum Wage for Every Hour Worked

California's minimum wage is $16.90 an hour for all hours worked, effective January 1, 2026, and it applies to every employer regardless of the number of employees.3 Wage Order 15, the order for household occupations, keeps its minimum wage section in force for personal attendants even though most of its other provisions do not reach them.3

The California Labor Commissioner's Office says the $16.90 rate applies unless a higher industry or local minimum covers the worker, and that several cities have adopted ordinances setting a higher minimum wage for people working within their limits.3 Check your city's and county's rate before you set the pay. Whichever is higher is the floor.

California's minimum wage order does not apply to a worker who is the employer's parent, spouse or child.3

Room and Meals Are a Credit, Not a Wage

A live-in has a room and usually eats with the household, and families often ask whether that can stand in for pay. In California, meals or lodging may not be credited against the minimum wage without a voluntary written agreement between the employer and the employee.3 Even with an agreement, the credit can cover only part of the wage, and only up to these 2026 maximums:

These caps come from the Department of Industrial Relations' Minimum Wage Order MW-2026 and Wage Order 15, and they apply to all employers regardless of size.3 Wage Order 15 also defines lodging as living accommodations available for full-time occupancy that are adequate, decent and sanitary, and it says employees shall not be required to share a bed.3

Put the numbers side by side. In California in 2026, a 45-hour week at the $16.90 state minimum is $760.50 in minimum wages, and the most a private room can be credited is $79.46 of it.3 A room-for-care arrangement with no paycheck does not come close to the floor.

Sleep Time and Keeping Track of Hours

Federal rules let a household and a live-in agree to leave sleeping time, meal time and other periods of complete freedom from duty out of hours worked. Under 29 CFR 552.102, any interruption of that time by a call to duty counts as hours worked, DOL's guidance says the agreement must be reasonable and should be in writing, the employer must provide private quarters in a homelike environment, and no more than 8 hours of sleep a night may be excluded, under conditions that depend on how long the worker lives on site.2

That is the federal rule. California's personal-attendant overtime law counts hours worked over 9 and 45, and none of the California sources cited here sets out a California sleep-time agreement for a live-in attendant. Before you build a schedule around a federal sleep agreement, ask the Labor Commissioner's Office or an employment lawyer how California treats sleep time for your arrangement.

Whatever you agree, keep a record of the hours actually worked. A 2013 federal rule requires a household to keep the hours agreement and a record of the exact hours a live-in works. DOL has suspended enforcement of the provisions that rule introduced until any final rule on its July 2025 proposal takes effect, but DOL also says the worker must be paid for all hours actually worked, and a family that keeps no records may face back-wage liability.2 In California, a daily record is the only way to know when the 10th hour of a day or the 46th hour of a week arrives.

What a Lawful Live-In Week Costs

The arithmetic below uses the 2026 state minimum wage and the personal-attendant overtime rule, with every hour on the schedule counted as hours worked.3,1

The same caregiver working five 9-hour days stays at 45 hours and earns no overtime. A family that needs coverage beyond that, such as a longer sixth day or a 12-hour day, either pays the overtime or brings in a second caregiver. In a city with a higher local minimum wage, rerun the numbers at that rate.3 For what agencies and hourly caregivers charge in California, see Brevy's guide to the cost of senior care in California.

Hiring Through an Agency

At the federal level, the rule for agencies is in flux. DOL's 2013 rule bars home care agencies and other third-party employers from claiming the live-in overtime exemption, but DOL proposed rescinding that rule on July 2, 2025, and its Wage and Hour Division has said it will not enforce the bar against agencies until any final rule takes effect.2

California's definition of a personal attendant includes a worker employed by a third-party employer recognized in the health care industry to work in a private household.1 When an agency quotes a flat daily rate for a live-in, ask in writing how it pays that caregiver for hours over 9 in a day and over 45 in a week, and whether the quote includes that cost. The national guide to live-in caregivers covers the federal agency rules in more detail.

Workers' Compensation for a Household Employee

A caregiver you hire directly can count as your employee for workers' compensation. California Labor Code section 3351 treats a person employed by the owner or occupant of a home, whose duties are personal and not part of the owner's business, as an employee, and Cal/OSHA's guidelines for domestic workers say employers need workers' compensation insurance.7

California's workers' compensation law leaves out a household worker who, in the 90 days before an injury, worked fewer than 52 hours for the employer or earned no more than $100, and it leaves out a worker employed by their own parent, spouse or child.7 Ask an insurance agent about workers' compensation coverage before the start date, and read Brevy's guide to workers' comp and liability for family caregivers.

When the Caregiver Is Paid Through IHSS

If your parent has full-scope Medi-Cal and needs help at home, California's IHSS program may pay a provider, including one who lives with them. The recipient is the provider's employer: CDSS says an approved recipient must hire an individual provider and is responsible for hiring, training, supervising and firing that person.6 The Domestic Worker Bill of Rights does not apply to IHSS work, so IHSS's own hour and overtime rules govern instead.1

IHSS pays for assessed hours, not for the hours a live-in spends in the home. Welfare and Institutions Code section 12303.4 caps IHSS services at 195 hours a month, or 283 hours a month for a recipient the county welfare department determines needs at least 20 hours a week of the listed services. The 195-hour and 283-hour IHSS limits are ceilings, not an entitlement: a county social worker's in-home assessment sets the hours your parent actually gets.8

The provider's paid hours are tied to that authorization. Under Welfare and Institutions Code section 12300.4, the provider's services to a recipient may not exceed the recipient's authorized weekly hours, with one flexibility: the recipient may let the provider work beyond the weekly hours without notifying the county only if that stays at or under 40 authorized hours a week and within the monthly authorization.4 The rest of the provider rules:

• IHSS pays a provider's hours over 40 in a workweek at one and a half times the provider's hourly wage.4
• An IHSS provider serving more than one recipient may not work more than 66 hours in a workweek in total.4
• If one IHSS provider cannot cover all of a recipient's authorized hours because of the workweek limit, the recipient must employ another provider.
• CDSS says a provider can never claim more hours for a recipient than that recipient is authorized in a month.4

A son who moves in with his mother and becomes her IHSS provider is paid for her authorized hours and no more, whatever time he spends with her the rest of the day.4 For the IHSS application, provider enrollment and paid spouses, see Brevy's guides to how IHSS pays family caregivers, how to get paid as a family caregiver in California and getting paid to care for your spouse in California.

The IHSS Live-In Tax Exclusion (SOC 2298)

A live-in IHSS provider has a tax option a privately paid caregiver does not. CDSS says that on March 1, 2016 it received a ruling from the IRS that IHSS wages received by providers who live in the same home as the recipient are excluded from gross income for federal income tax, and that the ruling applies to state income tax as well.5

The provider claims it with the Live-In Self Certification form, SOC 2298, on paper or through the IHSS Electronic Services Portal. How it works, per the CDSS live-in self-certification page:5

• A live-in provider's IHSS wages stay taxable until a correct, complete SOC 2298 is processed, which may take up to 30 days after CDSS receives it.5
• The IHSS live-in tax exclusion continues each year the provider keeps working for, and living with, the recipient, with no annual re-certification.5
• An IHSS provider who lives with and works for more than one recipient files a separate SOC 2298 for each.5
• If the recipient no longer lives with the provider, the provider files the cancellation form, SOC 2299.
• SOC 2298 covers federal and state income tax only. CDSS's IHSS Income Tax Fact Sheet says non-family live-in providers who file it still have Social Security, FICA and Medicare taxes withheld.5

CDSS and county staff do not give tax advice, so take questions about your own return to a tax preparer or the IRS.

What to Do This Week

1. Write down the caregiver's duties for a typical week and estimate the share that is housework. Over 20 percent means Wage Order 15, not the personal-attendant rule.1
2. Look up your city's and county's minimum wage and use whichever is higher than $16.90.3
3. Draft a schedule that keeps each day at 9 hours or less and the week at 45, or budget the overtime.
4. If room or meals will count toward pay, sign a voluntary written agreement first and stay within the 2026 caps.3
5. Set up a daily hours log the caregiver and you both sign.
6. Arrange workers' compensation coverage before the first day.7
7. If your parent may qualify for Medi-Cal, apply for IHSS through the county, and if a relative will be the live-in provider, have them file SOC 2298 once they start.5

Learn More

Find personalized help setting up lawful pay and hours for a live-in caregiver in California at brevy.com.

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.