Massachusetts Minimum Wage: Rate, Service Rate, Waivers
Massachusetts minimum wage is $15.00 an hour, unchanged since January 1, 2023. The $6.75 service rate, the $8.00 farm rate, waivers, and poster rules.
Massachusetts Minimum Wage
The statewide rate, the service rate for tipped staff, the farm rate, the waivers that allow anything lower, and what to change the day a rate moves
A cafe owner in Somerville told me she had the Massachusetts wage question solved. One number, $15.00, no county maze, no size tiers. Then her bookkeeper found that her two counter staff had been paid the service rate on mornings when they scrubbed the espresso machine and took no tips at all, and that their overtime had been built off $6.75 instead of $15.00.
That is the Massachusetts pattern. The headline rate is the easiest in the country to remember, and everything expensive lives underneath it: what the service rate requires in writing, which hours it can be applied to, what a farm rate covers, and which sub-minimum rates need a signed waiver before you pay them.
So this page is a rate sheet, not an essay. Every figure below comes from the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards, the state minimum wage regulation, or the statute, with the effective date attached. For sick time, pay transparency, final paychecks, and the rest of employing people here, use the Massachusetts HR compliance guide.
What You Owe Per Hour Right Now
The Massachusetts minimum wage is $15.00 an hour for every employer in the Commonwealth, whatever your headcount, and it has been since January 1, 2023. The Department of Labor Standards states it in one line on its minimum wage and overtime page, and its topical outline of the wage law, dated December 16, 2025, repeats the same figure.
There is no small-employer track and no phase-in still running. The Minimum Fair Wage Law also draws no line between full-time and part-time employment, so a person working six hours a week is owed the same rate as a person working forty. Two separate state rates sit alongside the headline number, and both catch employers out.
| Rate | Amount per hour | In effect since | Next change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic minimum wage, every employer size | $15.00 | January 1, 2023 | None scheduled |
| Service rate for tipped employees | $6.75 | January 1, 2023 | None scheduled |
| Agricultural and farm work | $8.00 | Set by M.G.L. c. 151, § 2A | None scheduled |
| Sub-minimum student rate, waiver required | $12.00 (80 percent of the basic rate) | Only while a written waiver is in force | Moves with the basic rate |
| Federal minimum wage, for comparison | $7.25 | July 24, 2009 | None scheduled |
The $8.00 agricultural rate and the $6.75 service rate are not discounts you can elect. Each one applies only to a defined kind of work, and the service rate additionally requires paperwork you have to complete before the first shift. Everything else in Massachusetts is $15.00.
When the Next Increase Lands
No increase is scheduled. The step to $15.00 on January 1, 2023 was the final one in a five-year schedule written into Chapter 121 of the Acts of 2018, the law commonly called the Grand Bargain, and no replacement schedule was enacted. Massachusetts does not index the wage to inflation either, so the number does not drift upward on its own.
The Trial Court Law Libraries put it in plain words on their summary of the wage law: there are no additional increases planned, and further increases must be approved either by the legislature or by the people through a ballot question. Budget on $15.00 until one of those two things happens.
| Step date | Basic minimum wage | Service rate | Retail Sunday and holiday premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 1, 2019 | $12.00 | $4.35 | 1.4 times the regular rate |
| January 1, 2020 | $12.75 | $4.95 | 1.3 times the regular rate |
| January 1, 2021 | $13.50 | $5.55 | 1.2 times the regular rate |
| January 1, 2022 | $14.25 | $6.15 | 1.1 times the regular rate |
| January 1, 2023 | $15.00 | $6.75 | 1.0, premium pay gone |
That last row matters beyond the wage. The same 2018 law phased out premium pay for retail work on Sundays and holidays, and the multiplier reached 1.0 on January 1, 2023, which retired the premium entirely. Voluntariness protections for retail staff on those days survived the change.
One automatic trigger does exist. Massachusetts General Laws chapter 151, section 1 provides that the state minimum wage can never be less than 50 cents above the effective federal rate, so a federal increase past $14.50 would pull the Massachusetts rate up without a state vote. For how other jurisdictions handle scheduled increases, the state increase tracker covers the calendar.
The Service Rate and the Tip Credit
Massachusetts allows a tip credit, and calls the cash portion the service rate. You may pay a tipped employee $6.75 an hour in cash, which makes the maximum credit $8.25 an hour. A tipped employee is someone who regularly receives more than $20 a month in gratuities.
The state minimum wage regulation permits the service rate only when three conditions hold together: you informed the employee in writing of the tip provisions of chapter 151, section 7, the tips actually received bring the employee to at least the basic minimum wage, and the employee retains all tips or receives them through a tip pool that meets the state tip statute. Unless all three are met, the regulation says you must pay the full basic minimum wage.
| Item | Amount or rule |
|---|---|
| Cash wage you must pay (service rate) | $6.75 an hour |
| Maximum tip credit | $8.25 an hour |
| Rate an employee must reach with tips included | $15.00 an hour |
| Threshold to count as a tipped employee | More than $20 a month in gratuities |
| Overtime for a tipped employee | $22.50 an hour, which is 1.5 times the basic minimum wage |
| Rate for hours of non-tipped work | $15.00 an hour, tips from other hours do not count |
Two of those rows are where the money is lost. Hours of non-tipped work get $15.00, and tips earned during tipped hours cannot be borrowed to cover them, which is the point the Department of Labor Standards made again in a November 2025 opinion letter. Overtime for a tipped employee is computed at one and one half times the basic minimum wage, so $22.50, never one and one half times $6.75.
The make-up test itself is stated slightly differently in different state materials: the department's topical outline describes weekly earnings, while its minimum wage page describes tips and wages combined for the hours worked each day. The safe practice is the strictest reading, which is to check every shift and pay the shortfall in cash. Our guide to the tipped wage math walks through that calculation step by step.
New hires in training are a separate trap. Wait staff who are not yet receiving tips are not tipped employees at all, because they do not customarily and regularly receive more than $20 a month, so they are owed $15.00 for the whole training period and for any later stretch when tips dry up.
City and County Rates
No Massachusetts city or county sets its own minimum wage. The rate comes from state statute, the Department of Labor Standards publishes one figure for the entire Commonwealth, and $15.00 is what an employer owes in Boston, Worcester, and every town in between. Work location changes nothing about the rate.
Do not confuse that with a living wage ordinance. Several Massachusetts cities require a higher hourly rate from their own departments and from businesses that hold city contracts. Those ordinances attach to public money rather than setting a floor for private employers, and the rates and coverage differ by city.
Public construction work is its own world as well. The Massachusetts prevailing wage law sets job-classification rates for public works that sit far above the minimum wage, and a schedule is issued for each awarding authority and project. If you bid on municipal or state work, ask the awarding authority which schedule applies before you price the labor.
Industry Carve-Outs and Exemptions
Massachusetts has no fast food minimum wage and no healthcare minimum wage. The carve-outs here run the opposite direction from those models: instead of lifting the floor for one industry, they place certain work outside the state wage law or assign it a lower statutory rate.
| Category | How the state wage law treats it |
|---|---|
| Agricultural and farm workers | Paid $8.00 an hour instead of $15.00, with an exception for children 17 or under and the employer’s immediate family |
| Members of a religious order | Outside the state minimum wage law |
| People being trained or rehabilitated in a charitable, educational, or religious institution | Outside the state minimum wage law, though a program that displaces paid staff can lose the exclusion |
| Outside salespeople | Outside the state minimum wage law |
| Co-op students placed by an educational institution | Treated as training, not an occupation covered by the wage law |
| Municipal employees | Excluded from the state wage law, covered instead by the federal FLSA |
Farming, Fast Food, and Healthcare
Agriculture is the one true industry rate. Chapter 151, section 2A sets the minimum for people employed in agriculture and farming at $8.00 an hour, and the department's topical outline of the wage law notes that virtually all agricultural employees are also covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which runs its own tests. The department names one exception to that rate: children 17 years of age or under, and a parent, spouse, child, or other member of the employer's immediate family.
Fast food has no separate Massachusetts rate. The industry-specific wage that turns up in national coverage belongs to California, and the fast food wage rules written about there do not apply in this state. A quick-service restaurant in Massachusetts pays the same $15.00 as the bookstore next door.
Healthcare is the same story with one exception worth knowing. There is no state healthcare minimum wage, and department guidance confirms that a live-in home health aide working in a private residence must be paid at least the statutory minimum wage plus time and a half beyond 40 hours in a week. Hospitals and laboratories appear in the wage rules only through the student training waiver described in the next section.
Youth and Training Wage
Massachusetts has no youth wage, no learner wage, and no probationary training rate. A 16-year-old on a first shift earns $15.00 an hour, exactly like everyone else. Age alone never lowers the rate in this state.
Every sub-minimum rate that does exist runs through a waiver signed by the Director of the Department of Labor Standards, under the minimum wage regulation and chapter 151. The waiver has to be in hand before the lower rate is paid, and it is granted for a fixed period rather than indefinitely.
| Who | Lowest rate allowed | What you need before paying it |
|---|---|---|
| Students in a hospital or laboratory formal training program | Not less than 80 percent of the basic minimum wage, $12.00 | Written waiver from the DLS Director |
| Students enrolled in and employed by a bona fide educational institution | Not less than 80 percent of the basic minimum wage, $12.00 | Written waiver from the DLS Director |
| Secondary school students working part time in a nonprofit hospital ward, dining room, or dormitory | Not less than 80 percent of the basic minimum wage, with one minor per five adults in the area | Written waiver from the DLS Director |
| Seasonal camp counselors and counselor trainees | An amount below the minimum wage set by the Director in the waiver | Waiver applied for every year, and never for kitchen, maintenance, or lifeguard staff |
| A worker whose earning capacity is impaired | Set by the special certificate | Special certificate under M.G.L. c. 151, § 9, up to 24 months, per work site, and a current federal certificate first |
The pattern is consistent: the paperwork comes first, the rate follows. An employer who pays 80 percent of the minimum to a student worker without a waiver on file has simply underpaid, and the federal youth opportunity wage of $4.25 for the first 90 days is no help either, because the higher state floor applies wherever both laws cover the job.
Poster Requirements
Every Massachusetts employer must post a workplace notice issued by the Commonwealth showing the basic minimum wage rates, in a place conspicuous to employees. That obligation sits in the state minimum wage regulation itself, and the Attorney General's Fair Labor Division publishes the notice as the Massachusetts Wage and Hour Laws poster, free to download.
Language coverage is part of the rule rather than a nicety. The notice must be posted in English and in any other language spoken by 5 percent or more of your workforce, whenever the Commonwealth publishes a translated version in that language. The Attorney General's office offers the poster in more than a dozen languages for exactly this reason.
The same regulation sets the records that go with it. For each employee you keep name, address, occupation, amount paid each pay period, hours worked each day, rate of pay, and deductions, for at least three years, held at the workplace, at an office of the employer, or with a bank or accountant inside Massachusetts. Our guide to payroll recordkeeping covers what those three years need to contain.
How Massachusetts Sits Against the Federal Rate
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and has not moved since July 24, 2009, as the US Department of Labor state wage tables show. Massachusetts sits $7.75 above it. Where both laws cover an employee, the higher rate wins, so $7.25 is not a figure a Massachusetts employer pays on an ordinary shift.
The federal number still matters in two places. The first is the exemption table above: a category carved out of the Massachusetts wage law is not automatically carved out of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and municipal employees are the clearest example, excluded from chapter 151 and covered federally instead. Agricultural workers sit in the same overlap.
The second is the floor rule in chapter 151, section 1, which keeps the state rate at least 50 cents above the effective federal rate. It is dormant at $7.25 and would only bite if Congress moved the federal wage past $14.50. The federal minimum wage guide lays out the coverage tests that decide which law reaches a given employee.
What to Do the Day a Rate Rises
A rate change is a payroll project, not a memo. Massachusetts gives you no annual calendar to plan against, which cuts both ways: nothing sneaks up on you, and nothing reminds you either. When the rate does move, run it in this order.
The step employers skip is the last one. A poster showing a stale rate is the first thing an investigator photographs, and it turns a payroll question into a documented notice failure. Keeping rate changes, written notices, and employee acknowledgments together in one system is the kind of small recurring task FirstHR was built to hold for teams without a dedicated HR person. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Massachusetts minimum wage right now?
It is $15.00 an hour for every employer, regardless of size, effective January 1, 2023. The wage law makes no distinction between full-time and part-time staff. Two other state rates sit beside it: $6.75 for tipped employees paid the service rate, and $8.00 for agricultural and farm work. There are no city or county rates anywhere in the Commonwealth.
Is the rate going up next year?
Nothing is scheduled. The 2023 step was the last one under the 2018 Grand Bargain law, and Massachusetts does not index the wage to inflation, so it changes only through the legislature or a ballot question. The one automatic trigger is the statutory rule that the state rate stays at least 50 cents above the federal rate, which is dormant while the federal wage sits at $7.25.
How does the service rate work?
You may pay $6.75 an hour in cash to an employee who regularly receives more than $20 a month in tips, taking a maximum credit of $8.25. Three conditions apply together: written notice of the tip statute, tips that actually carry the employee to $15.00, and tips retained by the employee or paid through a valid tip pool. Miss one and the full $15.00 is owed.
What overtime rate do tipped employees get?
One and one half times the basic minimum wage, which is $22.50 an hour, not one and one half times the service rate. The state minimum wage regulation says so directly. Note also that restaurant employees are exempt from overtime under the state wage law but not under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, so the federal rules still reach them.
Do any Massachusetts cities have their own minimum wage?
No. The rate is statewide, so a Boston employer and a Springfield employer owe the same $15.00. Several cities do run living wage ordinances covering their own employees and their contractors, and public construction falls under the state prevailing wage law, but neither one sets a general floor for private employers.
Can I pay a teenager or a trainee less?
Only with a waiver in hand. Massachusetts has no youth wage and no training wage, so age and tenure alone never lower the rate. The Department of Labor Standards can authorize 80 percent of the minimum for certain student workers, a lower rate for seasonal camp counselors, and a special certificate for a worker whose earning capacity is impaired. Newly hired wait staff who are not yet earning tips get the full $15.00.
Which poster do I have to hang?
The Massachusetts Wage and Hour Laws poster from the Attorney General's Fair Labor Division, in a place conspicuous to employees. It has to appear in English and in any other language spoken by 5 percent or more of your workforce where the Commonwealth publishes that version. Keep the underlying pay records for at least three years, at the workplace or another location inside Massachusetts.