Kansas Minimum Wage: Rates and Rules for Employers

The first Kansas payroll I helped set up belonged to a client with a shop in Wichita and a seasonal crew that also picked up farm work in the fall. I went looking for the state rate table, found a state statute, and then spent an hour working out whether it applied to the business at all.

It did not. Kansas has a minimum wage law of its own, and that law deliberately steps aside for any employer the federal Fair Labor Standards Act already reaches. The number is $7.25 under both, so the rate question is easy. The coverage question is the one that trips people up, because it decides your overtime threshold and which exceptions you can use.

This page covers one thing: what a Kansas employer pays per hour and what changes that number. Hiring paperwork, workers compensation, final paychecks and the rest of the state picture sit in the Kansas HR compliance guide.

The Current Kansas Minimum Wage

The minimum wage in Kansas is $7.25 per hour. The state figure comes from K.S.A. 44-1203(a)(2), which requires wages of not less than $7.25 an hour on and after January 1, 2010, and the federal figure has been $7.25 since July 24, 2009.

Kansas is one of a handful of states whose own wage law yields to federal law rather than stacking on top of it. K.S.A. 44-1203(c) says the section does not apply to employers and employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act. The statute text at the Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes carries both provisions in a single short section.

The Kansas Department of Labor puts the same law in plain terms on its workplace laws page: the Kansas Minimum Wage and Overtime Law guarantees $7.25 for workers above the age of 18, requires overtime after 46 hours in a week, and does not cover employees and employers who are covered by the FLSA.

Is Another Increase Scheduled?

No increase is scheduled in Kansas. The statute names a dollar amount rather than a formula, so there is no cost of living index and no phased schedule of the kind that raises rates automatically in other states.

The last change was the 2009 amendment that lifted the state figure from $2.65 to $7.25 with effect from January 1, 2010. Nothing has moved it since, and the federal rate has held at $7.25 for just as long. A Kansas employer watching for the next increase is watching two legislatures, not a calendar. Our tracker of state minimum wage increases covers what is scheduled elsewhere if you employ people across state lines.

Tipped Employees and the Tip Credit

A tip credit is allowed in Kansas. You may pay a direct cash wage as low as $2.13 per hour and count tips toward the rest, provided the employee actually reaches $7.25 for every hour worked.

K.S.A. 44-1203(b) sets the $2.13 cash wage in state law and spells out the arithmetic. If cash wages plus tips reach $7.25 an hour, no further payment is required. If they fall short, the employer pays the difference between $7.25 and what the employee actually received. Employers covered by the FLSA land on identical numbers by the federal route: a $2.13 cash wage and a maximum tip credit of $5.12.

One difference is worth knowing. Federal law defines a tipped employee as someone who customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips, and the Wage and Hour Division table of minimum wages for tipped employees records the Kansas definition as not specified, because the state statute sets no monthly threshold. The mechanics of notice, tip pools and top-ups are worked through in our guide to minimum wage for tipped employees.

City and County Rates in Kansas

There are no city or county minimum wage rates in Kansas, and local governments may not create one. K.S.A. 12-16,130 bars any city, county or local government unit from enacting or administering an ordinance, resolution or law requiring an employer to pay compensation or wages at any rate higher than the minimum wage unless state or federal law requires it.

The same statute reaches further than wages. It also blocks locally mandated leave, locally mandated employee benefits and local rules that would force an employer to alter employee scheduling. It was enacted in 2013 and amended in 2016, and it carves out only state and local economic development incentive programs.

For a multi-site employer inside Kansas this is genuinely simplifying: one floor, no local ordinance lookup, no split-rate payroll setup. The trap is the state line rather than the city limit. A crew that works part of the week at a location in a bordering state earns that state's rate for those hours, so check the current rate in every state where work is actually performed.

Industry and Job Carve-Outs

Kansas sets no industry minimum wage. There is no fast food council rate, no healthcare minimum and no hospitality schedule anywhere in K.S.A. 44-1201 et seq., because the state law is a single floor with no sector tiers built on top of it.

What Kansas does have is a list of jobs its own wage law never reaches. K.S.A. 44-1202(e) excludes agriculture, domestic service in a private home, bona fide executive, administrative and professional work, outside commission paid sales and several others from the definition of employee. Those exclusions matter only if you sit outside the FLSA, because a federally covered employer owes $7.25 regardless of what the state law says.

Exempt status under the white collar rules is a separate question from the minimum wage and gets decided role by role. If you are unsure whether a salaried job is genuinely exempt, work through exempt versus non-exempt classification before you set the salary rather than after.

Youth and Training Wages

Kansas sets no youth or training wage rate. The only reduced rate available here is the federal youth minimum wage of $4.25 per hour, which applies to employees under 20 years old during their first 90 consecutive calendar days with an employer under FLSA section 6(g).

Kansas took a different route to the same idea. Rather than naming a lower teen rate, K.S.A. 44-1202(e)(6) removes people aged 18 and under who work on an occasional or part-time basis from the state wage law entirely, and the statute defines part-time as working under 40 hours a week. That is why the Kansas Department of Labor describes its guarantee as covering workers above the age of 18. The exclusion is useless to most employers, though, because it only bites outside the FLSA.

Three federal limits are easy to miss. The 90 days are calendar days, not worked days, so the clock runs through slow weeks. The rate ends on the employee's twentieth birthday even if fewer than 90 days have passed. And you may not displace an existing employee, including by cutting their hours, in order to hire someone at the youth rate.

Two certificate programs sit alongside it, for full-time students and student-learners, at 85 percent and 75 percent of the applicable minimum. Both require a certificate issued in advance by the US Department of Labor. K.S.A. 44-1207(b) separately authorizes the Kansas secretary of labor to adopt rules letting learners and apprentices be paid below the state minimum under permit, but the federal certificates are the route employers actually use. Kansas child labor law, K.S.A. 38-602 and 38-603, governs hours and hazardous work for minors rather than their pay rate.

The Poster Requirement

Kansas has no state minimum wage poster. The wage notice a Kansas employer displays is the federal Fair Labor Standards Act poster, WH-1088, and the Department of Labor last revised it in April 2023, with earlier versions no longer satisfying the requirement.

The Kansas Department of Labor posters in the workplace page lists the required state notices, and no wage rate appears among them. They are the unemployment insurance poster, the workers compensation rights and responsibilities notice, the KDOL and Attorney General human trafficking notices, the Kansas Indoor Clean Air Act no smoking notice from the state health department, and the equal opportunity in employment poster from the Kansas Human Rights Commission.

One state poster does turn on federal coverage. The Kansas child labor poster is required only if you employ youth under 16 years of age and you are not covered by the FLSA. Every required poster in Kansas is free to download from the issuing agency, so there is no reason to buy a laminated bundle. The full posting list for the state sits in the Kansas compliance guide.

State Law or Federal Law: Which One Covers You

Two coverage tests decide which wage law applies to your business, and in Kansas they do not overlap. If the FLSA covers you, federal law governs and the state wage law expressly steps aside. If it does not, K.S.A. 44-1201 et seq. governs instead.

Federal coverage arrives two ways. Enterprise coverage reaches businesses with at least $500,000 in annual gross volume of sales or business done, plus hospitals, schools and government regardless of revenue. Individual coverage reaches employees whose own work involves interstate commerce, which sweeps in most staff who handle out-of-state orders, card transactions or shipments.

Between the two tests, most Kansas employees are federally covered even at small companies. The hourly floor is $7.25 either way, so the practical stakes sit elsewhere: overtime starts after 40 hours under federal law and after 46 hours under the Kansas statute, and the state exclusions have no federal equivalent. The coverage mechanics are in our FLSA overview, and the national rate picture is in the federal minimum wage guide.

What to Do When a Rate Rises

When the floor moves, a Kansas employer has a short and specific list of work to do, and no state wage-notice statute forcing a deadline on any of it. That cuts both ways: nothing is legally due on a set date, so nothing prompts you either.

FirstHR keeps pay rates, offer letters and acknowledgements in one employee record, so a rate change updates in one place instead of five spreadsheets. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider, so the wage calculation itself still happens in your payroll system.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the minimum wage in Kansas?

$7.25 per hour. K.S.A. 44-1203(a)(2) sets that state figure with effect from January 1, 2010, and the federal rate has been $7.25 since July 24, 2009. The number is the same under either law, so the only real question is which law covers your business.

Is the Kansas minimum wage going up?

No increase is scheduled. The Kansas statute names a dollar amount rather than a formula, so there is no annual inflation adjustment and no phased schedule. The rate changes only if the Legislature amends K.S.A. 44-1203 or Congress raises the federal floor.

What do I have to pay tipped employees in Kansas?

At least $2.13 per hour in cash wages, with tips making up the rest of $7.25. K.S.A. 44-1203(b) sets that cash wage in state law, and the federal maximum tip credit of $5.12 produces the same result for FLSA covered employers. Pay the difference in any workweek where tips come in light.

Can a city or county in Kansas set a higher minimum wage?

No. K.S.A. 12-16,130 prohibits cities, counties and local government units from requiring wages above the minimum wage, and it blocks locally mandated leave, benefits and scheduling rules as well. No Kansas locality has an enforceable rate of its own.

Can I pay a teenager less than $7.25 in Kansas?

Only through the federal youth wage of $4.25 for employees under 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days. Kansas sets no youth rate, though K.S.A. 44-1202(e)(6) does remove people 18 and under working under 40 hours a week from the state law, which helps only employers outside the FLSA.

Which minimum wage poster do Kansas employers display?

The federal FLSA poster WH-1088, last revised April 2023. There is no Kansas minimum wage poster. The state posting list covers unemployment insurance, workers compensation, human trafficking, child labor in limited cases, clean air and equal opportunity, but no wage rate.

Overtime is the companion question to the minimum wage, and the Kansas state threshold of 46 hours differs from the federal 40. If you need the calculation, start with our overtime pay guide, then come back to the Kansas compliance hub for the rest of the state picture.