Domestic and home care work: when minimum wage and overtime apply to you

Who counts as a domestic service worker

The U.S. Department of Labor says it without hedging: people employed in domestic service in private homes **are covered by the FLSA**. This is not a gray area.

Fact Sheet 79 names them: companions, babysitters, cooks, waiters, maids, housekeepers, nannies, nurses, janitors, caretakers, handymen, gardeners, home health aides, personal care aides and family chauffeurs. The list is illustrative, not exhaustive.

The requirement is that the work be of a household nature and performed **in or about a private home**. Services not performed in a private home are not "domestic service employment" under the FLSA, and that is where the first trap sits.

What counts as a private home, and what does not

A private home may be a fixed place of abode or a temporary dwelling, a family on vacation, for instance. A separate and distinct dwelling maintained by a person or family in an apartment building, condominium or hotel may be a private home.

But a nursing home, residential treatment facility, residential care home or facility, or other similar residence is **not** considered a private home for these purposes. What gets evaluated is the living unit of the person receiving services, and the Department of Labor publishes six factors for deciding it:

• Whether the client lived there before receiving services. If they already lived there, it points to a private home; if they would not live there but for the services, it points the other way.
• Who owns the living unit. Owned or leased by the client or their family points to a private home; owned or leased by the service provider points away.
• Who manages and maintains the residence; who pays mortgage, rent, utilities and food.
• Whether the client would be allowed to live there without contracting for services.
• The relative difference between the cost of the services and the total cost of maintaining the unit. Incidental cost points to a private home; a substantial portion points away.
• Whether the provider uses any part of the residence for its own business purposes, as an office, for example.

The "companionship services" exemption and its 20% limit

The law exempts casual babysitters and workers providing "companionship services" to an elderly person or a person with an illness, injury or disability from minimum wage and overtime, but only if specific regulatory requirements are met, as revised and effective January 1, 2015.

"Companionship services" means providing **fellowship and protection**. Fellowship means engaging the person in social, physical and mental activities: conversation, reading, games, crafts, walks, errands, appointments or social events. Protection means being present with the person at home, or accompanying them outside, and monitoring their safety and well-being.

The term also includes **care**, but with a strict cap: only when that care is attendant to and in conjunction with fellowship and protection, and **does not exceed 20 percent of total hours worked** per consumer per workweek. Care means assisting with activities of daily living (dressing, grooming, feeding, bathing, toileting, transferring) and with instrumental activities such as meal preparation, driving, light housework, managing finances, assistance with physically taking medications, and arranging medical care.

If in a given week you go past 20 percent doing care, the exemption does not apply that week and you are owed minimum wage and overtime.

The two things that knock out the exemption entirely

**Household work for the rest of the family.** Companionship services exclude domestic work performed primarily for the benefit of other household members. The Department of Labor's own example: if Monday through Thursday you provide fellowship and protection to an elderly person, but spend Friday doing housework for the household as a whole, **the exemption is lost for that entire workweek** and you must be paid minimum wage for all hours and time and a half over 40. Cooking for the whole family or doing another member's laundry falls here.

**Medical tasks.** The definition of companionship services does not include medical tasks that typically require training and are performed by medical personnel. The regulation names examples: catheter care, turning and repositioning, ostomy care, tube feeding, treating bruising or bedsores, and physical therapy. Performing any of those **knocks out the exemption for that whole workweek**, and minimum wage and overtime apply to every hour of it.

And here is the detail almost nobody knows, straight from the regulation: whether a task is medically related **does not depend on the worker's actual training or occupational title**, but on whether the task typically requires and is performed by trained personnel. So being called a "companion" and holding no certification changes nothing: if they have you turning patients or handling a catheter, the exemption is gone.

If an agency employs you, the exemption does not exist

This is the most important part of the whole guide for anyone doing home care work in Puerto Rico, and the revised regulation states it without ambiguity.

The companionship services exemption is available only to **the individual, family or household** employing the worker, solely or jointly, and only if the duties test above is met.

**Third party employers** of direct care workers (home care staffing agencies) **may not claim the exemption**. They may not claim it even when the employee performs companionship services and is jointly employed by the agency and the family receiving the service.

The consequence is direct: third party employers must pay minimum wage for all hours worked and overtime at time and a half over 40 hours in a workweek. If your check comes from an agency, the companionship exemption is not a defense available to them.

The right figure in Puerto Rico is not the one on the federal fact sheet

Fact Sheet 79A says the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. That is not the figure that applies here.

Puerto Rico stopped depending on the federal minimum with Act 47-2021, which created its own state minimum: **$10.50 per hour since July 2024**. That is the floor for most private-sector employees. We explain it in full in the minimum wage guide.

So when the federal fact sheet says you must be paid "the federal minimum wage", the practical reference in Puerto Rico is the higher state minimum. Anyone reading the federal sheet blindly falls short by more than three dollars an hour.

If you think you are being underpaid

First and most useful: keep your own record of hours. Date, clock-in, clock-out, and a note of what you did, particularly care hours versus companionship hours, and any medical task or housework for the rest of the family. That record is what decides a case when the employer keeps none.

The Wage and Hour Division helpline is **1-866-487-9243**, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in your time zone, and the office serving Puerto Rico is the Caribbean District Office in Guaynabo. The complaint is confidential and costs nothing to file; we walk through it step by step in another guide.

This guide is about pay, not certification. If you are looking for HHA or CNA requirements in Puerto Rico, we do not publish them because we have not been able to verify them in an official source; we would rather tell you that than invent them.

The Department of Labor warns that its fact sheets are general information, not official statements of position like the regulations, and that their contents do not have the force and effect of law.