Mississippi Minimum Wage: Rates and Rules
Mississippi has no state minimum wage law, so the federal $7.25 rate applies. Tip credit, youth wage, local preemption and poster rules for employers.
Mississippi Minimum Wage
No state rate, no city rates, no scheduled increase. The federal $7.25 floor and the exceptions that actually apply in Mississippi
A restaurant owner opening a second location on the Gulf Coast once asked me which Mississippi wage poster he was missing. He had bought a laminated all-in-one set from a compliance vendor and could not find a state rate anywhere on it. There is nothing to find. Mississippi has no minimum wage law, so there is no state rate and no state poster.
That makes payroll setup here short, and it makes two mistakes common. Employers arriving from a state with January increases keep waiting for a notice that never comes. Employers opening a second site in Jackson or Southaven go looking for a city rate that state law forbids a city to set.
This page covers one number and what moves it. For hiring paperwork, the statewide E-Verify mandate, workers compensation and final paychecks, see the Mississippi HR compliance guide.
The Current Mississippi Minimum Wage
The minimum wage in Mississippi is $7.25 per hour, and it took effect on July 24, 2009. That is the federal rate under the Fair Labor Standards Act, not a state rate, because Mississippi has never enacted a minimum wage statute of its own.
The Department of Labor state minimum wage table, updated July 1, 2026, gives Mississippi a single line: no state minimum wage law, and employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Mississippi appears there alongside Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee, the other four states with no wage statute.
One Mississippi statute does mention the minimum wage, and it is worth knowing so you do not misread it. Miss. Code Ann. section 25-3-40 sits in the chapter governing the state compensation plan and declares the Legislature's intent to implement the minimum wage enacted by Congress, subject to funds being available. It speaks to state salaries. It does not create a wage floor for a private employer in Tupelo or Hattiesburg.
| Rate | Amount per hour | In effect since | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi state minimum wage | None. Mississippi has never enacted one | Not applicable | US DOL state minimum wage table, updated July 1, 2026 |
| Standard minimum wage that applies | $7.25 | July 24, 2009 | FLSA section 6(a)(1), 29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1) |
| Tipped employee cash wage | $2.13 | Fixed at the cash wage required on August 20, 1996 | FLSA section 3(m)(2)(A), 29 U.S.C. 203(m)(2)(A) |
| Maximum tip credit | $5.12 | July 24, 2009 | $7.25 minus the $2.13 cash wage |
| Youth wage, under 20, first 90 consecutive calendar days | $4.25 | 1996 FLSA amendments | FLSA section 6(g), 29 U.S.C. 206(g) |
| Student-learner certificate rate | At least 75 percent of $7.25 | Advance DOL certificate required | FLSA section 14(a) |
| Full-time student certificate rate | Subminimum, set by the certificate | Advance DOL certificate required | FLSA section 14(b) |
Is an Increase Scheduled?
No increase is scheduled in Mississippi. There is no state rate to raise, and there is no automatic inflation adjustment anywhere in the picture, because Mississippi never built one and federal law does not contain one.
The Legislature is asked regularly and declines. Nine minimum wage measures were filed in the 2026 regular session, including House Bills 108, 543, 741 and 880 at $10.00, House Bills 526 and 527 at $15.00, and Senate Bills 2277 and 2662 to create a Mississippi Minimum Wage Act. Every one of them died in committee on February 3, 2026, according to the Mississippi Legislature's bill status records.
So the number an employer here pays last changed on July 24, 2009, when the third step of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 took the federal rate to $7.25. Watch Congress rather than the state Capitol. If you employ people across state lines, our tracker of scheduled minimum wage increases covers the states that do move.
Tipped Employees and the Tip Credit
A tip credit is allowed in Mississippi, on federal terms only. You may pay a direct cash wage as low as $2.13 per hour and count tips toward the remaining $5.12, provided the employee actually reaches $7.25 for every hour worked in the workweek.
Mississippi has no tip credit statute, no state notice form and no state cap that differs from the federal one. The Department of Labor table of minimum wages for tipped employees, revised July 1, 2026, lists Mississippi at a $7.25 combined rate, a $5.12 maximum tip credit and a $2.13 minimum cash wage, with the tipped threshold at more than $30 a month in tips.
Three conditions travel with the credit. You have to tell the employee you are taking it before you take it. You have to let the employee keep all tips except through a valid tip pool. And you have to make up the shortfall in any workweek where tips came in light. The mechanics are worked through in our guide to minimum wage for tipped employees.
If you run a restaurant, a hotel or a casino floor in Mississippi, every tip rule you follow is federal. There is no state agency issuing tip credit guidance here, and no state form that satisfies the advance notice requirement, so the notice you give is the one the federal rule describes.
City and County Rates in Mississippi
There are no city or county minimum wage rates in Mississippi, and there legally cannot be. Miss. Code Ann. section 17-1-51 reserves the question to the Legislature and bars local governments from setting wage or leave minimums for private employers.
The statute came from House Bill 141 of the 2013 regular session, approved by the Governor on March 25, 2013 as chapter 445 and effective July 1, 2013. Its operative sentence is blunt: no county, board of supervisors of a county, municipality or governing authority of a municipality is authorized to establish a mandatory, minimum living wage rate, minimum number of vacation or sick days, whether paid or unpaid, that would regulate how a private employer pays its employees.
One nuance is worth holding onto. The prohibition is aimed at ordinances that reach private employers. A Mississippi city can still decide what it pays its own workforce. What it cannot do is set a floor for the businesses inside its limits.
| Jurisdiction | Local minimum wage | What an employer pays |
|---|---|---|
| Jackson | None. Prohibited by Miss. Code section 17-1-51 | $7.25 |
| Gulfport and Biloxi | None. Prohibited by Miss. Code section 17-1-51 | $7.25 |
| Southaven and DeSoto County | None. Prohibited by Miss. Code section 17-1-51 | $7.25 |
| Hattiesburg, Meridian, Tupelo | None. Prohibited by Miss. Code section 17-1-51 | $7.25 |
| All other Mississippi cities and counties | Local wage ordinances barred since July 1, 2013 | $7.25 |
| Statewide result | One rate everywhere | $7.25, with no local variation to track |
For a multi-site employer this is genuinely simplifying. A crew that moves between a Southaven warehouse and a Jackson job site sits on one wage floor, with no ordinance lookup and no split-rate payroll setup to maintain.
Industry Carve-Outs
Mississippi has no industry-specific minimum wage of any kind. There is no fast food council rate, no healthcare minimum, no gaming schedule and no agricultural state rate, because the state has no wage statute to carve anything out of.
What does apply are the federal exemptions, and two of them matter to small employers here more than the rest. The small farm exemption catches agricultural employers, and the seasonal exemption catches coastal recreation businesses that close for part of the year.
| Work or industry | Mississippi rule | Federal rule that applies instead |
|---|---|---|
| Fast food and quick service | No Mississippi industry rate | $7.25 standard minimum wage |
| Gaming and hospitality | No Mississippi industry rate | $7.25, with the federal tip credit for tipped roles |
| Healthcare, home care and residential care | No Mississippi industry rate | $7.25. The FLSA companionship services exemption is narrow and unavailable to third-party employers |
| Agriculture | No Mississippi industry rate | Exempt if the employer used no more than 500 man-days of agricultural labor in any calendar quarter of the prior year (29 U.S.C. 213(a)(6)(A)) |
| Seasonal amusement and recreational establishments | No Mississippi industry rate | Exempt from federal minimum wage and overtime if the establishment does not operate more than seven months a year (29 U.S.C. 213(a)(3)) |
| Workers with disabilities | No Mississippi program | Subminimum wages only under a section 14(c) certificate issued by the Wage and Hour Division |
Exempt status under the white collar rules is a separate question from the minimum wage and gets decided employee by employee. If you are unsure whether a salaried role is genuinely exempt, work through exempt versus non-exempt classification before you set the salary rather than after.
Youth and Training Wages
Mississippi has no state youth or training wage. The federal youth minimum wage of $4.25 per hour is the only one available, and it applies to employees under 20 years old during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment with you, under section 6(g) of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Three 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 hours, in order to hire someone at the youth rate.
Two other subminimum routes exist and neither is something you can simply start paying. Section 14(a) allows a student-learner in a bona fide vocational training program to be paid no less than 75 percent of the applicable minimum wage, and section 14(b) covers full-time students. Both require a certificate that the Wage and Hour Division issues in advance, on Department of Labor forms.
The Poster Requirement
Mississippi employers post the federal Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage notice, WH1088, and there is no state minimum wage poster to add. Every employer of employees subject to the FLSA minimum wage provisions must post it in a conspicuous place in all establishments where employees can readily read it.
The current version is marked REV 04/23, and the Department of Labor states that earlier versions, including the August 2016 one, no longer fulfill the posting requirement and should be replaced. Download the current file free from the Wage and Hour Division poster page rather than buying a laminated bundle. The poster itself carries the date: federal minimum wage $7.25 per hour, beginning July 24, 2009.
Mississippi does require its own postings, and the workers compensation carrier notice is the main one for employers with five or more employees. None of the state notices carry a wage rate, so none of them change when a wage does. The full posting list sits in the Mississippi compliance guide.
Which Employers the $7.25 Floor Reaches
Because Mississippi has no state wage law, federal coverage is the whole question. An employee outside the reach of the Fair Labor Standards Act has no wage floor in Mississippi at all, which is the one place where the absence of a state statute has real bite.
Coverage comes two ways. Enterprise coverage reaches businesses with at least $500,000 in annual gross volume of sales made or business done, plus hospitals, schools and government regardless of revenue. Individual coverage reaches employees whose own work involves interstate commerce, which in practice sweeps in most staff who handle out-of-state orders, card transactions or shipments.
Between the two tests, most Mississippi employees are covered even at small companies. Assuming you sit outside the FLSA because you are under $500,000 in revenue is a common and expensive mistake. The mechanics of coverage, overtime and recordkeeping sit 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 federal rate moves, a Mississippi 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 Mississippi?
$7.25 per hour, the federal rate, in effect since July 24, 2009. Mississippi has never enacted a state minimum wage, and the Department of Labor state table, updated July 1, 2026, records it as having no state minimum wage law. It is one of five states in that position.
Is the Mississippi minimum wage going up?
No increase is scheduled. There is no state law to raise, and no federal increase has passed since the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 finished phasing in. Nine state bills filed in the 2026 session, at rates from $10.00 to $15.00, all died in committee on February 3, 2026.
What do I have to pay tipped employees in Mississippi?
At least $2.13 per hour in cash wages, with tips covering the rest of $7.25. The maximum tip credit is $5.12. Mississippi has no tip credit statute, so federal rules govern: advance notice to the employee, employee retention of tips, and an employer top-up in any workweek where the total falls short.
Can a city or county in Mississippi set a higher minimum wage?
No. Miss. Code Ann. section 17-1-51, in force since July 1, 2013, bars counties and municipalities from setting a mandatory minimum living wage or a minimum number of vacation or sick days for private employers. A city may still set pay for its own workforce, but not for the businesses inside its limits.
Can I pay a teenager less than $7.25 in Mississippi?
Yes, but only $4.25 per hour for employees under 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days, under federal law. The rate ends at the 90-day mark or the twentieth birthday, whichever comes first, and you may not displace an existing worker to use it. Mississippi adds no state youth rate.
Which minimum wage poster do Mississippi employers display?
The federal FLSA poster WH1088, revision 04/23, posted where employees can readily read it. There is no Mississippi minimum wage poster. The state workers compensation carrier notice is still required for employers with five or more employees, but it states no wage rate.
Overtime is the companion question to the minimum wage and follows federal rules in Mississippi too. If you need the calculation, start with our overtime pay guide, then come back to the Mississippi compliance hub for the rest of the state picture.