§ 22-2-2-3 — Definitions; exemptions

As used in this chapter:
"Commissioner" means the commissioner of labor or the
commissioner's authorized representative.
"Department" means the department of labor.
"Occupation" means an industry, trade, business, or class of work
in which employees are gainfully employed.
"Employer" means any individual, partnership, association, limited
liability company, corporation, business trust, the state, or other
governmental agency or political subdivision during any work week in
which they have two (2) or more employees. However, it shall not
include any employer who is subject to the minimum wage provisions
of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended (29 U.S.C.
201-219).
"Employee" means any person employed or permitted to work or
perform any service for remuneration or under any contract of hire,
written or oral, express or implied by an employer in any occupation,
but shall not include any of the following:
(a) Persons less than sixteen (16) years of age.
(b) Persons engaged in an independently established trade,
occupation, profession, or business who, in performing the
services in question, are free from control or direction both under
a contract of service and in fact.
(c) Persons performing services not in the course of the
employing unit's trade or business.
(d) Persons employed on a commission basis.
(e) Persons employed by their own parent, spouse, or child.
(f) Members of any religious order performing any service for that
order, any ordained, commissioned, or licensed minister, priest,
rabbi, sexton, or Christian Science reader, and volunteers
performing services for any religious or charitable organization.
(g) Persons performing services as student nurses in the employ
of a hospital or nurses training school while enrolled and
regularly attending classes in a nurses training school chartered
or approved under law, or students performing services in the
employ of persons licensed as both funeral directors and
embalmers as a part of their requirements for apprenticeship to
secure an embalmer's license or a funeral director's license from
the state, or during their attendance at any schools required by law
for securing an embalmer's or funeral director's license.
(h) Persons who have completed a four (4) year course in a
medical school approved by law when employed as interns or
resident physicians by any accredited hospital.
(i) Students performing services for any school, college, or
university in which they are enrolled and are regularly attending
classes.
(j) Persons with physical or mental disabilities performing
services for nonprofit organizations organized primarily for the
purpose of providing employment for persons with disabilities or
for assisting in their therapy and rehabilitation.
(k) Persons employed as insurance producers, insurance
solicitors, and outside salesmen, if all their services are performed
for remuneration solely by commission.
(l) Persons performing services for any camping, recreational, or
guidance facilities operated by a charitable, religious, or
educational nonprofit organization.
(m) Persons engaged in agricultural labor. The term shall include
only services performed:
(1) on a farm, in connection with cultivating the soil, or in
connection with raising or harvesting any agricultural or
horticultural commodity, including the raising, shearing,
feeding, caring for, training, and management of livestock,
bees, poultry, and furbearing animals and wildlife;
(2) in the employ of the owner or tenant or other operator of a
farm, in connection with the operation, management,
conservation, improvement, or maintenance of the farm and its
tools and equipment if the major part of the service is
performed on a farm;
(3) in connection with:
(A) the production or harvesting of maple sugar or maple
syrup or any commodity defined as an agricultural
commodity in the Agricultural Marketing Act, as amended
(12 U.S.C. 1141j);
(B) the raising or harvesting of mushrooms;
(C) the hatching of poultry; or
(D) the operation or maintenance of ditches, canals,
reservoirs, or waterways used exclusively for supplying and
storing water for farming purposes; and
(4) in handling, planting, drying, packing, packaging,
processing, freezing, grading, storing, or delivering to storage,
to market, or to a carrier for transportation to market, any
agricultural or horticultural commodity, but only if service is
performed as an incident to ordinary farming operation or, in
the case of fruits and vegetables, as an incident to the
preparation of fruits and vegetables for market. However, this
exception shall not apply to services performed in connection
with any agricultural or horticultural commodity after its
delivery to a terminal market or processor for preparation or
distribution for consumption.
As used in this subdivision, "farm" includes stock, dairy, poultry,
fruit, furbearing animals, and truck farms, nurseries, orchards, or
greenhouses or other similar structures used primarily for the
raising of agricultural or horticultural commodities.
(n) Those persons employed in executive, administrative, or
professional occupations who have the authority to employ or
discharge and who earn one hundred fifty dollars ($150) or more
a week, and outside salesmen.
(o) Any person not employed for more than four (4) weeks in any
four (4) consecutive three (3) month periods.
(p) Any employee with respect to whom the Interstate Commerce
Commission has power to establish qualifications and maximum
hours of service under the federal Motor Carrier Act of 1935 (49
U.S.C. 304(3)) or any employee of a carrier subject to IC 8-2.1.
(q) A person engaged in services as a direct seller. The term shall
include only services performed:
(1) by a person that is in the trade or business of:
(A) selling, or soliciting the sale of, consumer products or
services to any buyer on a buy-sell basis, deposit-commission
basis, or similar basis, in any place other than in a permanent
retail establishment; or
(B) selling, or soliciting the sale of, consumer products or
services in any place other than in a permanent retail
establishment;
(2) when substantially all the remuneration, whether or not paid
in cash, for the performance of the services is directly related to
sales or other output, including the performance of services,
rather than the number of hours worked; and
(3) when the services performed by the person are performed
pursuant to a written contract and the contract provides that the
person who performs the services will not be treated as an
employee for tax purposes under the contract.
(r) A person who:
(1) has entered into a contract to play baseball at the minor
league level; and
(2) is compensated under the terms of a collective bargaining
agreement that expressly provides for wages and working
conditions.
Formerly: Acts 1965, c.134, s.3; Acts 1967, c.153, s.1. As
amended by Acts 1977, P.L.259, SEC.1; P.L.37-1985, SEC.27;
P.L.246-1985, SEC.11; P.L.23-1988, SEC.110; P.L.99-1989, SEC.30;
P.L.3-1989, SEC.131; P.L.133-1990, SEC.1; P.L.23-1993, SEC.127;
P.L.8-1993, SEC.270; P.L.178-2003, SEC.8; P.L.7-2019, SEC.1;
P.L.11-2023, SEC.75; P.L.67-2025, SEC.2.