Do you owe your live-in caregiver overtime in Washington?

What the court actually decided

On 9 July 2026 the Washington Supreme Court decided Bolina v. AssureCare Adult Home LLC by 8 to 1. It struck down the long-standing Minimum Wage Act exemption for live-in caregivers, as applied to adult family homes.

The practical effect is straightforward. A live-in caregiver at an adult family home is entitled to the Washington minimum wage for the hours that count as work, and to overtime for hours beyond 40 in a week. The exemption that used to sit between those caregivers and the Minimum Wage Act is gone.

Which hours count

This is the part that decides the bill, and it is the part most often argued over. Hours generally count when the caregiver has to be available to residents, rather than being genuinely free to leave and do as they please. Being on the premises and on call is not the same as being off duty.

Two caregivers in the same house, on the same rota, can end up with very different compensable hours depending on how the arrangement is actually structured and recorded. If you have never written down which hours are which, that is the first job — not the pay calculation.

What it costs

The Adult Family Home Council has estimated the ruling adds somewhere between $70,000 and $150,000 a year for a home. That is a range across homes, not a figure for yours; what you owe depends entirely on your hours and current pay.

Work it out on your own numbers rather than on an average. A caregiver on 60 compensable hours a week, paid a flat $900, is being paid about $15 an hour — below the state minimum before overtime is even counted, and the overtime on those 20 extra hours is owed at time and a half on top.

Does it reach backwards?

Whether the ruling applies to pay periods before the decision is still being decided by the trial court. That question is open, and nobody can honestly tell you today how it lands.

What that uncertainty does mean is that the records you keep from here matter more than usual. If the figures for the period you can still control are clean and defensible, you are in a far better position whichever way the retroactivity question is answered.

What to do now

Four things, in this order:

1. Write down, for each caregiver, which hours in a week are compensable and which are genuinely free time.
2. Work out the required pay for those hours at minimum wage, with overtime past 40, and compare it with what you pay today.
3. Start recording actual hours worked and the rate paid, every pay period, in a form you could hand to someone who asks.
4. Take the gap, if there is one, to an employment lawyer before deciding what to do about past periods.

Washington requires employers to keep payroll records, including actual hours worked and rates of pay, for at least three years, and employees may ask to see them. Separately, an adult family home must keep its staff records where DSHS can get to them readily, and for at least two years after someone leaves.