The Department of Labor has stopped defending the Biden-era overtime (OT) salary rule in court, leaving the pre-2024 Trump-era overtime thresholds as the governing standard for now.
In early May 2026, the DOL filed papers in the Fifth Circuit to end its appeals in key lawsuits challenging the 2024 overtime rule, formally abandoning its legal defense of that regulation. Those lawsuits had already produced rulings from Texas federal courts vacating the Biden-era rule before its higher thresholds could fully take effect.
Separately, the DOL has now issued a formal rescission and technical amendments that remove the 2024 rule from the books and restore the prior regulations. In practical terms, that means employers are back under the 2019 overtime rule that was finalized during the first Trump administration.
The 2024 rule issued under the Biden administration was designed to expand overtime eligibility for millions of additional salaried workers by sharply raising the white-collar salary threshold. Under that rule, the minimum salary for exemption would have increased in two steps, from the old level of 35,568 dollars per year to 43,888 dollars on July 1, 2024, and then to 58,656 dollars on January 1, 2025.
The rule also would have updated the “duties test” framework for who counts as a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional employee and introduced automatic updates to the salary threshold every three years. Business groups and small employers argued that the rule improperly emphasized salary over job duties and mirrored an Obama-era expansion that had been struck down by the same Texas court.
Almost as soon as the 2024 OT rule was finalized, employer groups and business associations sued, arguing that the DOL had exceeded its authority under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Several of those cases landed in Texas federal courts, where judges concluded that the rule was unlawful and vacated it, preventing the higher threshold from being fully implemented nationwide.
One prominent case, Flint Avenue, LLC v. U.S. Department of Labor, resulted in a district court ruling against the rule, and the DOL initially appealed to the Fifth Circuit before later agreeing to dismiss that appeal. By November 2024, at least one court ruling had already invalidated the rule and caused the minimum salary threshold to revert to 35,568 dollars, with the “highly compensated employee” threshold returning to 107,432 dollars.
In May 2026, the DOL formally told the Fifth Circuit that it would no longer defend the Biden-era overtime expansion in ongoing appeals. That move came alongside a new rulemaking action rescinding the 2024 overtime rule and confirming that the pre-2024 standards are once again the governing federal regulations.
DOL officials indicated that it is “critical” for overtime exemption criteria to be clearly framed and that the agency wants its regulations to accurately reflect the standards it can enforce after the court decisions. The rescission effectively acknowledges that the agency could not salvage the 2024 rule in its existing form given the adverse rulings and legal landscape.
With the Biden-era rule vacated and rescinded, employers are back under the 2019 overtime rule from the first Trump administration. That rule sets the minimum salary threshold for the standard white-collar exemptions at 684 dollars per week, which equates to 35,568 dollars per year.
The 2019 rule also sets the “highly compensated employee” exemption level at 107,432 dollars annually, a figure that likewise remains in force now that the 2024 updates have been wiped off the books. There are no automatic triennial increases under the restored regime, so any future threshold changes will require a new rulemaking.
For employers, especially small businesses and regional organizations, the DOL’s retreat removes immediate pressure to lift salaries to the 58,656-dollar level to preserve exempt status. Companies that had already preemptively adjusted salaries or reclassified employees in anticipation of the 2024 rule may now find themselves out of sync with what is legally required, even if those changes still make sense from a retention or equity standpoint.
For employees, particularly lower-paid salaried staff who would have gained overtime eligibility under the higher thresholds, the abandonment of the rule means fewer workers will qualify for time-and-a-half pay under federal law. Some may still be protected by state-law overtime standards if their states impose higher salary thresholds than the federal floor, but in many jurisdictions the 35,568-dollar federal level is the controlling standard.
Although the current administration has rescinded the 2024 overtime expansion, the political and legal debate over salary thresholds is far from settled. Employer groups will likely push to cement a duties-focused interpretation of the exemptions, while worker advocates may look to Congress or to state legislatures for higher protected thresholds and more predictable overtime coverage.
The DOL has signaled a desire for clearer regulations, so it is possible that a new, more modest overtime proposal could eventually emerge that attempts to address the courts’ concerns while still updating the 2019 levels. In the meantime, organizations should review their classifications and pay practices under the 2019 rule and monitor federal and state developments so they can adapt quickly if a new overtime proposal appears.
For your purposes, do you want this topic framed more for an employer audience (compliance and strategy) or as a more general news-style explainer for a broader business readership?
