Hawaii Minimum Wage: Rate, Tip Credit, and Increases
Hawaii’s minimum wage is $16.00 an hour, effective January 1, 2026. Tip credit rules, exemptions, youth pay, posters, and the next increase.
Hawaii Minimum Wage
The state rate, the tip credit, and the next scheduled step
A restaurant owner on Maui called me in the second week of January because two of her servers had queried their pay. She had done the obvious thing on January 1 and raised the kitchen crew to the new state rate. The tipped line on her payroll never moved, because nobody had told her it was tied to the same number.
That is the trap in Hawaii. The state rate is set in statute years in advance, which makes it easy to plan for and easy to forget. There is no annual announcement, no press release in September, and no inflation calculation to watch. The increase simply arrives, and it drags the tipped cash wage and the combined pay floor along with it.
This page covers one thing: what an hour of work has to be paid for in Hawaii. Leave, overtime, health coverage and the rest of the state picture sit in the Hawaii HR compliance guide.
The Current Hawaii Rate
The Hawaii minimum wage is $16.00 per hour, effective January 1, 2026. It applies to covered employees at every employer in the state, with no exception for small businesses, part time staff or seasonal hires. The Wage Standards Division of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations publishes and enforces it.
What makes Hawaii unusual is that the whole schedule is written into section 387-2 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes rather than recalculated each year. The state legislature set the current ladder in 2022, and the department has published it unchanged ever since. The rate you pay today was known four years ago.
| Effective date | Hawaii minimum wage | Status |
|---|---|---|
| January 1, 2018 | $10.10 | Superseded |
| October 1, 2022 | $12.00 | Superseded |
| January 1, 2024 | $14.00 | Superseded |
| January 1, 2026 | $16.00 | In effect through December 31, 2027 |
| January 1, 2028 | $18.00 | Scheduled by statute |
The department also publishes a full history of the Hawaii minimum wage alongside the federal rate, going back to 1938. It is worth a glance for one reason: it shows how long each Hawaii rate has held. Two year plateaus are the norm here, not annual drift.
When the Rate Changes Next
The next Hawaii increase takes effect January 1, 2028, when the rate rises from $16.00 to $18.00 per hour. The amount is not a projection. It is already in statute and printed on the state minimum wage notice, which lists $16.00 through December 31, 2027 and $18.00 from January 1, 2028.
Nothing changes between now and then. Hawaii does not index its minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index, so there is no September calculation to watch and no autumn announcement. The department publishes the same schedule year round.
That is a rare planning advantage. A $2.00 step is a 12.5 percent jump in your hourly floor, and you can model it against real headcount today rather than guessing from a forecast. Hourly labor budgets for 2028 can be built with a known number.
Tipped Employees and the Tip Credit
Hawaii allows a tip credit, but a narrow one. The maximum credit is $1.25 per hour at the current minimum wage, which puts the lowest legal cash wage at $14.75. Two conditions both have to be met, and the second one is where employers get caught.
First, the employee has to customarily and regularly receive more than $20 a month in tips. Second, the combined amount from wages and tips has to be at least $7.00 more than the applicable minimum wage, which means $23.00 per hour today. The department sets this out in its tip credit notice and easy reference guide, which includes a cent by cent calculation table for every rate in the schedule.
| Period | Minimum wage | Maximum tip credit | Lowest cash wage | Combined wages plus tips must reach |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1, 2022 to Dec 31, 2023 | $12.00 | $1.00 | $11.00 | $19.00 |
| Jan 1, 2024 to Dec 31, 2025 | $14.00 | $1.25 | $12.75 | $21.00 |
| Jan 1, 2026 to Dec 31, 2027 | $16.00 | $1.25 | $14.75 | $23.00 |
| From Jan 1, 2028 | $18.00 | $1.50 | $16.50 | $25.00 |
The $7.00 gap is the part that surprises people arriving from a federal tip credit state. Under the federal rule, tips only have to bring an employee up to the minimum wage. In Hawaii they have to carry the employee $7.00 past it before you may keep a single cent of the credit, and a slow lunch shift can fail that test even when the week as a whole passes.
Two administrative rules go with the credit. If an employee works in two different occupations for the same employer, the credit may be taken only for hours in the occupation where the tips actually come in. And you must notify employees in writing at the time of hire if you intend to use the tip credit at all. Our guide to minimum wage for tipped employees covers how this compares to the federal structure.
County and City Rates
No county or city in Hawaii sets its own minimum wage. The state rate is the only rate, and it applies identically on Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the island of Hawaii. The department publishes one statewide schedule with no local variations attached to it.
That is genuinely simpler than the mainland pattern, where a delivery driver can cross a city line mid shift and trigger a different hourly floor. In Hawaii, the work location changes nothing about the wage you owe.
The one exception is government construction. State and county public works projects over $2,000 fall under chapter 104 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, which requires prevailing wages set by trade and published in a separate wage rate schedule. Those rates run far above the minimum wage and have their own certified payroll obligations, so treat them as a distinct regime rather than a variation on this page.
Industry Rules and Exemptions
Hawaii has no industry specific minimum wage. There is no fast food rate, no healthcare rate and no separate agricultural figure, so every sector starts from the same $16.00 floor. If you are comparing that against states that run sector minimums, our overview of the fast food minimum wage explains how those laws are built.
The exemptions that matter in Hawaii are about the individual, not the industry, and one of them is unusual. The state wage and hour law exempts an individual in any capacity who receives guaranteed compensation of $4,000 or more per month from the minimum wage, overtime and record keeping provisions. The department states this directly in its wage and hour FAQs.
The familiar categories apply too. Bona fide executive, administrative, supervisory and professional employees are exempt, as are outside salespeople, with each capacity defined in chapter 12-20 of the Hawaii Administrative Rules. Chapter 387 also lists categories of employment excluded from the law entirely, and a few touch seasonal and agricultural work, so confirm coverage with the Wage Standards Division before treating any farm or seasonal role as exempt.
Youth, Student, and Training Wages
Hawaii has no youth minimum wage and no training wage. A 15 year old and a 50 year old start at the same $16.00, and there is no 90 day probationary rate for a new hire of any age. Age by itself never justifies paying less in this state.
Reduced rates exist only under a special certificate issued in advance by the director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. The rules are published as subchapters of chapter 12-20 of the Hawaii Administrative Rules, including the one on the employment of student workers, and each sets a percentage floor rather than a flat figure, so the certificate rates rise automatically with the minimum wage.
| Worker | Floor | At the current rate | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any employee, any age | Full minimum wage | $16.00 | No youth rate, no teen rate, no training wage |
| Student learner | 75 percent of the minimum wage | $12.00 | Special certificate required in advance; bona fide vocational training program; at least 16 years old; certificate valid up to one school year |
| Student worker | 85 percent of the minimum wage | $13.60 | Special certificate required in advance; full time student under 19 working part time hours capped by rule |
| Paroled ward of the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility | 50 percent of the minimum wage | $8.00 | Special certificate required; rate specified in the certificate |
Certificates are not something a small business stumbles into. Each one takes an application signed by the employer and the worker, a statement from the school where a student is involved, and the certificate in hand before the reduced rate is paid. Almost no small employer in Hawaii uses one, and paying a percentage rate without the certificate is simply an underpayment.
Hiring a minor brings separate paperwork regardless of the wage. Hawaii requires a child labor certificate until age 18: a Certificate of Employment obtained by the employer before a 14 or 15 year old starts work, and a Certificate of Age for 16 and 17 year olds. Hours for 14 and 15 year olds are capped at 3 on a school day and 18 in a school week, with a 30 minute break after 5 consecutive hours.
Posting and Notice Requirements
Hawaii requires you to post the Notice to Employees under the Hawaii Wage and Hour Law, form HWHL-1, in a place accessible to employees. The notice itself says so, and it carries the entire statutory ladder, listing $16.00 through December 31, 2027 and $18.00 from January 1, 2028, along with the tip credit amounts for each period.
The department also publishes a combined labor law poster covering wage and hour, disability compensation, discrimination, occupational safety, unemployment insurance and dislocated worker notice. Posting the official combined poster satisfies the Hawaii posting requirements for the laws the department enforces.
| What to post or send | Where it comes from | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Notice to Employees under the Hawaii Wage and Hour Law (HWHL-1) | Wage Standards Division | Displayed where employees can access it; already lists the 2026 and 2028 rates |
| DLIR combined labor law poster | Department of Labor and Industrial Relations | Displayed at each Hawaii work location; replace when the department issues an update |
| Federal wage and hour poster | US Department of Labor | Displayed alongside the state posters |
| Written tip credit notice | Hawaii Administrative Rules chapter 12-20 | Given to the employee in writing at the time of hire, before any credit is taken |
| Written notice of a change in pay arrangements | Hawaii payment of wages law | In writing or by posted notice before the pay period in which the change starts |
The last two rows are the ones small teams miss. Hawaii treats pay rate communication as a legal obligation, not a courtesy: employees are entitled to written notice of their rate of pay and paydays at hire, and written or posted notice of any change before it takes effect.
One quiet advantage of a statutory schedule is that the poster does not expire. Because the state notice already prints the 2028 figure, the same sheet on your wall covers you through the next increase, provided the department has not reissued the form in the meantime.
Hawaii and the Federal Floor
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since July 24, 2009, and Hawaii’s own published wage history records that date in its federal column. At $16.00, the Hawaii rate is $8.75 above the federal one, so the federal figure never governs a Hawaii paycheck.
Where a state rate is higher than the federal rate, the employee gets the higher of the two, a principle the US Department of Labor applies across its consolidated state minimum wage tables. Hawaii’s own minimum wage notice says the same thing from the other direction: the state rate applies to employment covered by the federal law whenever the Hawaii standard is higher.
Federal rules still matter for everything the state rate does not displace, including the classification tests that decide who is entitled to a minimum wage at all. Our federal minimum wage guide covers that ground, and the state increase tracker shows where Hawaii sits against the rest of the country.
What to Do When the Rate Rises
A minimum wage increase is a payroll project, not a single field update. Hawaii gives you an unusually long runway, so the work below can be done months ahead of January 1, 2028 rather than in the first week of the year.
The step most employers skip is the second one. A tipped payroll built around a $23.00 combined floor does not automatically survive a move to $25.00, and the shortfall shows up as unpaid wages rather than as an error message. Our breakdown of how to calculate labor cost covers the arithmetic for modelling that ahead of time.
Keeping the rate right is the easy half. Keeping the paperwork that proves it right, offer letters, wage notices, tip credit acknowledgments and posted notices, is where small teams lose time. FirstHR keeps that documentation attached to the employee record, so an updated rate flows into onboarding materials instead of living in a folder nobody opens.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the minimum wage in Hawaii right now?
It is $16.00 per hour, effective January 1, 2026, and it holds through December 31, 2027. The rate applies statewide at every covered employer, with no small business exception and no separate figure for part time staff. No Hawaii county sets its own rate, so the same number applies on every island.
When does Hawaii's minimum wage go up again?
On January 1, 2028, when it rises to $18.00 per hour. That figure is already written into statute and printed on the state minimum wage notice, so it is a rate rather than a forecast. Hawaii does not index to inflation, so nothing changes between now and then and there is no annual announcement to watch for.
Can I count tips toward the minimum wage in Hawaii?
Yes, up to $1.25 per hour, which gives a lowest legal cash wage of $14.75. Two conditions apply: the employee must customarily and regularly receive more than $20 a month in tips, and wages plus tips must reach at least $23.00 per hour. Written notice at the time of hire is required before you take the credit.
Do any Hawaii counties set their own minimum wage?
No. Hawaii has a single statewide rate and no local wage ordinances, so work location never changes the hourly floor. The one higher standard is prevailing wages on state and county public works construction over $2,000 under chapter 104, which is a separate regime with its own published wage rate schedule.
Does Hawaii have a fast food or healthcare minimum wage?
No. One statewide rate covers every industry, including agriculture, with no sector specific figure. The exemptions in Hawaii are individual rather than industry based, including the executive, administrative, supervisory, professional and outside salesperson categories and an unusual exemption for anyone guaranteed $4,000 or more per month.
What do I pay a teenager in Hawaii?
The full $16.00 per hour. Hawaii has no youth rate and no training wage. Reduced rates exist only under a special certificate issued in advance, at no less than 75 percent for a student learner in a vocational program and 85 percent for a student worker. Employing a minor also requires a child labor certificate until age 18.
What has to be posted about the minimum wage in Hawaii?
The state Notice to Employees under the Hawaii Wage and Hour Law, form HWHL-1, in a place accessible to employees, plus the department's combined labor law poster and the federal wage and hour poster. Because the state notice already lists both the 2026 and 2028 rates, Hawaii does not require the annual poster replacement that inflation indexed states do.