Exemption has two halves: a salary test and a duties test. This unit is the salary half, and the figures are the ones currently in force in the CFR.
The standard salary level
- $684 per week, equal to $35,568 per year (684 x 52 = 35,568), under 29 CFR 541.600 and DOL Fact Sheet #17A.
- The 2024 rule raised this, but its levels were vacated nationwide in November 2024, and DOL restored $684 in the CFR in May 2026. Any answer quoting the 2024 figures is wrong.
- The pre-2020 level of $455 per week applies only in CNMI, Guam, Puerto Rico and the USVI.
Paying it less often than weekly
29 CFR 541.600 allows equivalent amounts over longer periods. Monthly minimum = $684 x 52 / 12 = $2,964.
- Worked example: 684 x 52 = 35,568; 35,568 / 12 = $2,964 per month.
- Biweekly is 684 x 2 = $1,368; semimonthly is $1,482.
- The trap is multiplying 684 by four weeks to get $2,736. That understates the month, because a month averages more than four weeks.
Highly compensated employees
- $107,432 in total annual compensation under 29 CFR 541.601, and at least $684 per week paid on a salary or fee basis, and the employee must customarily and regularly perform at least one exempt EAP duty.
- The pre-2020 HCE figure and the vacated 2024 figures are the distractors.
Computer employees and outside sales
- The computer employee exemption can be met by $27.63 per hour under 29 CFR 541.400(b), as an alternative to $684 weekly on a salary or fee basis. Do not compute 684 / 40 = $17.10; that is the salary level expressed hourly, not the regulatory alternative.
- Outside sales carries no salary requirement at all — 29 CFR 541.500(c) says subpart G's salary requirements do not apply.
Outside sales is the only one of the four with no salary floor.