Sponsors
The bill raises pay and enforcement for employees who work federal holidays—benefiting workers—while increasing labor costs, compliance burdens, and legal uncertainty for employers, with particular transitional impacts in U.S. territories.
FLSA-covered employees who work on federal legal public holidays will receive at least 1.5× pay for those hours, increasing holiday earnings for workers and households who work holiday shifts.
Employees gain an enforceable private right to recover unpaid holiday pay using existing FLSA remedies (including liquidated damages and injunctions), strengthening workers' ability to collect owed compensation.
State and local laws that require higher holiday pay remain effective, preserving stronger worker protections in jurisdictions that already mandate enhanced premium pay.
Employers—particularly small businesses—must pay higher wages for holiday staffing, which could lead them to raise prices, cut hours, reduce hiring, or shift scheduling practices.
Expanding recoverable unpaid compensation and altering statute-of-limitations language increases litigation risk and compliance costs for employers, potentially raising legal expenses and administrative burdens.
Repealing 29 U.S.C. §210 changes review procedures for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands wage order reviews, creating transitional uncertainty for employers and workers in those territories about applicable rules and enforcement.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires FLSA-covered employers to pay at least 1.5x the regular rate for work on federal legal public holidays and treats unpaid holiday pay like unpaid minimum wage and overtime for enforcement.
Introduced February 12, 2026 by Ruben Gallego · Last progress February 12, 2026
Requires employers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act to pay at least 1.5 times an employee’s regular rate for work performed on any federal legal public holiday. It treats unpaid holiday pay the same as unpaid minimum wage and unpaid overtime for purposes of prohibited acts, civil remedies, damages, enforcement, and accrued-claim procedures, preserves higher State or local holiday-pay rules, and makes related conforming changes to the FLSA enforcement provisions.