Your Painter Is Not a "Mechanic" Under Federal Overtime Law
Short answer: the federal overtime exemption people mean when they say "mechanics are exempt" is 29 U.S.C. 213(b)(10)(A), and it has two gates. Both have to be passed.
- The establishment gate. The employer must be "a nonmanufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of selling such vehicles or implements to ultimate purchasers." That is a dealership. An independent body shop is not one.
- The occupation gate. The employee must be a salesman, partsman or mechanic, and the regulation defines mechanic in a way that excludes painting by name.
So a painter at an independent collision shop is outside the exemption twice over. A painter at a dealership body shop is outside it once, which is still outside it.
This page sets out what the statute and the regulation actually say. It is not legal advice, and wage and hour exposure is the kind of thing where the cost of being wrong is back pay plus liquidated damages, so it is worth an actual employment lawyer rather than a web page.
Gate one: the establishment has to be selling vehicles
29 U.S.C. 213(b)(10)(A), in full:
"any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles, trucks, or farm implements, if he is employed by a nonmanufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of selling such vehicles or implements to ultimate purchasers"
Read the condition after the comma. The exemption does not attach to the job. It attaches to the job at a particular kind of employer. The Department of Labor's own regulation restates the point at 29 CFR 779.372(a), describing the exemption as one "for certain employees of nonmanufacturing establishments engaged in the business of selling automobiles, trucks, farm implements, trailers, boats, or aircraft."
And the Wage and Hour Division's Fact Sheet #11 is titled, in terms, Automobile Dealers Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and defines its subject as "non-manufacturing establishments engaged in the business of selling new or used automobiles and trucks to the ultimate purchaser."
An independent collision repair business does not sell vehicles to ultimate purchasers. It repairs them. On the face of the statute, 213(b)(10)(A) is not available to it at all, for any employee, including the ones who genuinely are mechanics.
That is the part most likely to be assumed wrong, because the exemption is universally described in the trade as "the mechanic exemption" rather than "the dealership exemption," and the shorthand drops the half that does most of the work.
Gate two: what a "mechanic" is, and what it is not
Even inside a dealership, the exemption reaches three occupations. 29 CFR 779.372(c)(3) defines the third:
"a mechanic is any employee primarily engaged in doing mechanical work (such as get ready mechanics, automotive, truck, or farm implement mechanics, used car reconditioning mechanics, and wrecker mechanics) in the servicing of an automobile, truck or farm implement for its use and operation as such. This includes mechanical work required for safe operation, as an automobile, truck, or farm implement."
Then the sentence that decides this page:
"The term does not include employees primarily performing such nonmechanical work as washing, cleaning, painting, polishing, tire changing, installing seat covers, dispatching, lubricating, or other nonmechanical work."
Painting is on the excluded list, by name, in the middle of a list of things the regulation calls nonmechanical.
So a refinish technician whose primary work is painting is not a mechanic for this purpose. Not because anyone decided painting is unskilled, and the regulation makes no such claim. The exclusion sits beside washing and polishing because the regulation is drawing a line around mechanical work in the servicing of a vehicle for its use and operation, and it put painting on the other side of that line.
For completeness, 29 CFR 779.372(c)(2) defines the second occupation: "a partsman is any employee employed for the purpose of and primarily engaged in requisitioning, stocking, and dispensing parts."
The honest gap: body and structural technicians
Here is what the regulation does not say, and we are not going to fill it in.
The definition names get ready mechanics, automotive, truck and farm implement mechanics, used car reconditioning mechanics, and wrecker mechanics as inside. It names washing, cleaning, painting, polishing, tire changing, seat covers, dispatching and lubricating as outside.
It does not name body repair or structural repair in either list.
A structural technician sectioning a rail, measuring a unibody, or welding a quarter panel is doing something that is plainly skilled, plainly not washing or polishing, and plainly not what most people picture when they say "automotive mechanic." Whether that work is "mechanical work... in the servicing of an automobile... for its use and operation as such" is a real question, and the answer will turn on what the individual is primarily engaged in rather than what is printed on their badge.
We have not found a Wage and Hour Division interpretation or opinion letter resolving it for collision technicians specifically, and we are not going to guess at one. If you are relying on 213(b)(10)(A) for a body technician at a dealership, that is the question to put to counsel, and the phrase to put to them is "primarily engaged."
Note also that "primarily engaged" is a facts question about how someone actually spends their time, not about their job title. A technician who paints most of the week is described by the painting exclusion whatever the badge says, and the reverse is equally true.
What may actually apply instead: the commission exemption
If 213(b)(10)(A) is unavailable, there is a separate provision that can reach a repair business, and it is the one worth knowing about. 29 U.S.C. 207(i):
"No employer shall be deemed to have violated subsection (a) by employing any employee of a retail or service establishment for a workweek in excess of the applicable workweek specified therein, if (1) the regular rate of pay of such employee is in excess of one and one-half times the minimum hourly rate applicable to him under section 206 of this title, and (2) more than half his compensation for a representative period (not less than one month) represents commissions on goods or services."
Three things about it that matter to a collision shop:
- It is not limited to dealerships. It applies to a "retail or service establishment."
- It has two conditions and both must hold. The regular rate must exceed one and one-half times the applicable minimum wage, and more than half of compensation over a representative period must be commissions.
- The representative period is "not less than one month." It is not a single week and it is not a single pay period chosen after the fact.
Flat rate pay is the reason this is interesting to collision shops, and it is also the reason to be careful: whether a given flat rate plan produces "commissions on goods or services" within 207(i) is a question about the plan, not about the phrase "flat rate." We are not answering it here for anyone's plan.
Two more things worth knowing before anyone relies on this
Federal law is a floor, not the answer. State overtime law can be more generous and often is, with daily overtime thresholds, different exemption tests, or none at all. Nothing on this page tells you what your state requires. Checking the federal exemption and stopping is how shops get the arithmetic wrong in the other direction.
Exemptions are no longer read narrowly. For decades courts applied a canon that FLSA exemptions were construed narrowly against the employer. In Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro (2018) the Supreme Court held that service advisors at a dealership fall within 213(b)(10)(A), and rejected that narrow-construction canon in favour of a fair reading of the text. That cuts against employees on the margins. It does not help with painting, because painting is not a marginal reading question: the regulation excludes it in a list.
What we are not saying
- We are not saying any particular worker is owed overtime. That depends on the establishment, on what the person is primarily engaged in, on the pay plan, and on state law. This page is not legal advice.
- We are not saying painting is unskilled work. The regulation groups it with washing and polishing for the purpose of one exemption. That is a drafting choice about the scope of "mechanical work," not an assessment of the trade, and this page makes no such assessment.
- We are not claiming body technicians are inside or outside the exemption. The regulation does not name them and we did not find an interpretation that does.
- We do not claim flat rate pay qualifies under 207(i). It might. That turns on the plan.
What to do with this
If you run a shop. The first question is not what your technicians do. It is what your establishment is. If you are not primarily selling vehicles to ultimate purchasers, 213(b)(10)(A) is not the provision you are operating under, and whatever you are actually relying on should be identified by name.
If you are a refinish technician. The words in the regulation are "washing, cleaning, painting, polishing." If someone has told you that you are exempt because you are a mechanic, that is the sentence to ask about.
If you are a body or structural technician. The regulation does not mention your work either way, so anyone who tells you the answer is obvious in either direction is telling you more than the text does.
What we could not verify
- Whether the Wage and Hour Division has interpreted "mechanic" as reaching collision or structural repair. We read the statute, the regulation and Fact Sheet #11. We did not locate an opinion letter or Field Operations Handbook passage resolving it, and the Handbook's Chapter 24 exists and was not read in full this pass.
- How courts have applied the painting exclusion. We read the regulation. We did not search case law, and a published decision could refine what "primarily performing" means in practice.
- Whether any state treats collision technicians differently for its own overtime exemption. This page is federal only.
- How 207(i) has been applied to collision flat rate plans specifically. We quote the statute. We did not trace the case law or the regulations at 29 CFR part 779 subpart D that gloss "retail or service establishment."
- Whether Fact Sheet #11 has been revised since November 2018, which is the revision date printed on the version we read.
Sources
- 29 U.S.C. 213(b)(10)(A), read first-party on 2026-08-19 from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel's United States Code, prelim edition: "any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles, trucks, or farm implements, if he is employed by a nonmanufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of selling such vehicles or implements to ultimate purchasers."
- 29 U.S.C. 207(i), same source and date, quoted in full above.
- 29 CFR 779.372, read first-party on 2026-08-19 from the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Subsection (a) for the establishment test, (c)(2) for partsman, and (c)(3) for the mechanic definition and the exclusion list containing painting. Note on access: eCFR blocks automated page fetches with a bot check and documents an API for programmatic access; this section was read in a browser.
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #11, Automobile Dealers Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), revised November 2018, read 2026-08-19: dealerships are "non-manufacturing establishments engaged in the business of selling new or used automobiles and trucks to the ultimate purchaser", and 213(b)(10)(A) "exempts certain mechanics and sales and parts personnel, including service writers, service advisors, service managers, and service salesmen from the overtime requirements of the Act." The fact sheet carries its own caveat that it "is for general information and is not to be considered in the same light as official statements of position contained in the regulations."
- Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 2018, for the holding that service advisors fall within 213(b)(10)(A) and for the Court's rejection of the narrow-construction canon for FLSA exemptions. Cited from the decision's holding as commonly reported; we did not read the slip opinion first-party this pass.
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General consumer information: not legal, insurance, or financial advice. Requirements, coverage, and practices vary by state, policy, and manufacturer.