Missouri Minimum Wage: Rates, Tip Credit, Exemptions

Missouri is the state where I stopped trusting my memory on wage rates. Between November 2024 and August 2025 the same statute was rewritten twice, once by voters and once by the legislature, and half the guidance sitting on the internet still describes a schedule that no longer exists.

The good news for an employer here is that the current picture is unusually simple. One number covers the entire state. No city can set its own. The tipped calculation is a single percentage rather than a fixed cash figure you have to look up separately.

This page carries the wage figures and nothing else. For sick leave, final paychecks, the Missouri Human Rights Act and the rest of the state picture, the Missouri HR compliance guide is where that lives.

What Missouri Employers Must Pay Per Hour

The Missouri minimum wage is $15.00 per hour, effective January 1, 2026. The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations publishes the figure on its minimum wage page, and the underlying authority is RSMo 290.502.

Missouri runs a single rate. There is no small employer tier, no headcount test, no regional variation and no industry schedule sitting above or below it. If a worker is covered, $15.00 is the floor for every hour worked unless one of the exemptions further down this page applies to the business.

The state poster carries the overtime rule alongside the rate: at least one and one-half times a covered employee regular rate for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek, which is $22.50 at the floor. Missouri counts by the week, not the day, so there is no daily overtime threshold. Where the classification itself is the question, our guide to exempt and non-exempt status covers the test.

That history comes straight from the department, which keeps the full table back to 2015 on the same page. It is worth knowing for back pay arithmetic: the 2024 figure of $12.30 was a cost of living adjustment, while the 2025 and 2026 steps were fixed dollar amounts written into the statute by a ballot measure.

One change is easy to miss because it does not touch the number. Since August 28, 2025 the minimum wage section applies to public employers with respect to their own employees. Before that date the statute excluded them. If you run a small municipal or school district payroll, that is a coverage change rather than a rate change, and it happened without any headline.

When the Missouri Rate Changes Next

No increase is scheduled. The rate stays at $15.00 until the General Assembly passes a new schedule or Missouri voters approve one at the ballot. That is the direct answer, and it is the single most commonly misreported fact about this state.

The reason is a repeal. The November 2024 ballot measure that set the $13.75 and $15.00 steps also attached an annual cost of living adjustment beginning January 1, 2027. House Bill 567, signed on July 10, 2025 and effective August 28, 2025, struck that sentence. In the enrolled bill text, matter in brackets is not enacted, and the indexing sentence sits in brackets.

Treat the flat rate as a planning fact rather than a permanent one. Missouri has changed this statute by ballot measure twice in two decades, and a repeal is not the same as a constitutional ceiling. If you also run payroll in states that index to inflation, the state increase calendar tracks who moves and when.

Tipped Employees and the Missouri Tip Credit

The tipped cash wage in Missouri is $7.50 per hour and the maximum tip credit is $7.50 per hour. The department states the rule in one sentence: employers must pay tipped employees at least 50 percent of the minimum wage, $7.50 per hour, plus any amount necessary to bring the employee total compensation to a minimum of $15.00 per hour.

Read that as two obligations rather than one. The $7.50 is a cash floor you owe on the payslip. The $15.00 is a total floor that cash plus tips has to clear for every hour worked. When tips fall short in a given workweek, the shortfall is yours to pay in cash, and a good week later in the month does not cure a bad week earlier.

Federal rules still govern the machinery around the credit: the notice you have to give before taking it, what counts as a tipped occupation, and how tips may be shared. Our guides to the tipped minimum wage and to tip pooling cover both, and neither is repeated here.

Overtime for a tipped employee is calculated on the full $15.00 regular rate, not on the $7.50 cash wage. That is the error that shows up most often in restaurant payroll files, and it compounds quietly because it only surfaces in weeks over 40 hours.

City and County Minimum Wage Rates in Missouri

There are none, and state law prevents any from appearing. RSMo 290.528 says no political subdivision shall establish, mandate, or otherwise require an employer to provide a minimum or living wage rate that exceeds state law, and it preempts and nullifies all local ordinances on the subject, whether already in effect or enacted later.

That section was written by House Bills 1194 and 1193 in 2017, which repealed the earlier preemption at RSMo 285.055 and re-enacted a broader one inside the minimum wage chapter itself. Political subdivision is defined to cover any municipality, special district, local governmental body, county, city, town or village, so there is no gap to fall through.

The upside for a small employer is real. You never have to map worksites to wage zones in Missouri, and a company running locations in Kansas City and Springfield uses the same number in both. That is the opposite of the picture in states with dozens of local ordinances, which the state-by-state overview lays out.

Exemptions and Industry Carve-Outs

Missouri has no industry minimum wage. There is no fast food rate, no healthcare rate and no separate figure for hospitality. A crew member at a quick service restaurant and a medical assistant at a small clinic are owed the same $15.00.

What Missouri has instead is a revenue test. A business engaged in retail or service whose annual gross income is under $500,000 is not required to pay the state minimum wage rate. That is a size threshold wearing an industry label, and it is the exemption most likely to apply to a genuinely small Missouri employer.

The prevailing wage rule runs in the other direction and is worth flagging because it catches small contractors by surprise. Missouri sets a minimum wage rate for public works projects valued over $75,000, published county by county in an Annual Wage Order released by July 1 each year. Those rates sit well above $15.00 and must be written into the contract specifications.

Two caveats on the exemption list. First, sitting outside the state rate does not mean sitting outside wage law, and the federal floor is covered further down. Second, the state publishes the exemptions by statutory reference rather than as a plain list, so an unusual employment category needs to be checked against RSMo 290.500(3) directly. For context on how other states carve up industries instead, see our note on the fast food wage debate.

Youth, Student and Training Wages

Missouri sets no youth wage and no training wage. Neither the department minimum wage page nor the LS-52 poster publishes a reduced rate for young workers, students, learners or new hires inside a probationary period, and none of the published exceptions turns on age or length of service.

Federal law separately permits a $4.25 opportunity wage for employees under 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days. It does not lower the Missouri floor. Where a state sets a higher minimum, the higher standard governs, a point the department makes on its own page when it warns that following only a less restrictive state provision puts a federally covered employer in violation. A 16 year old at a covered Missouri business earns $15.00 from the first hour.

Child labor rules are a separate body of law from the wage rate and they do apply. Missouri requires a work certificate for employees under 16, issued through the school district, and restricts the hours and occupations open to 14 and 15 year olds. The department covers that on its youth employment page, and our guide to child labor rules covers the federal side.

The Missouri Minimum Wage Poster Requirement

Every employer subject to any provision of the minimum wage law has to post a summary of the law and regulations in a conspicuous and accessible place at the business. The requirement sits in RSMo 290.522, and the Division of Labor Standards writes the summary for you.

That summary is the LS-52 poster. The current edition is stamped for January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026 and carries the $15.00 rate, the $7.50 tipped cash wage, the overtime rule and the exceptions on its face. English and Spanish versions are free from the mandatory posters page, or by mail from the division in Jefferson City. There is no state requirement to buy a combined poster from a vendor.

How the Missouri Rate Relates to the Federal Floor

The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since July 24, 2009. Missouri sits $7.75 above it, so for a covered Missouri employer the federal figure never comes into play in practice. You pay the state rate.

The exception is the $500,000 retail and service exemption, and it is the one place where $7.25 becomes a live number in Missouri. A business outside the state rate can still be reached by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, either as an enterprise or through an individual employee engaged in interstate commerce, and the federal floor applies in that case.

Missouri statute also has a ratchet built in. If the federal minimum wage is ever raised above the state rate, the higher federal figure immediately becomes the minimum wage required in Missouri, without waiting for the General Assembly. Our federal minimum wage guide covers the federal side rather than repeating it here.

What to Do When a Rate Rises

Treat a rate change as a short payroll project rather than a single field edit. Missouri is easier than most states because the derived figures are all percentages of one number, but percentages are exactly what gets forgotten.

Then keep the worksheet. An employer who unlawfully pays sub-minimum wages in Missouri is liable for the full amount of wages due, plus twice the amount left unpaid as liquidated damages, plus costs and reasonable attorney fees as allowed by the court. A dated calculation showing the rate you applied and when you applied it is the cheapest defense you will ever file.

One Missouri quirk is worth knowing in the opposite direction. The state requires 30 days advance written notice before an employer reduces an employee wage, with a $50 penalty per affected person for skipping it, and the department covers that alongside deduction limits on its wages and hours page. Increases carry no notice requirement, but telling people anyway costs nothing. Our guides to the overtime rate and payroll recordkeeping cover the file you should be keeping either way.

If the part that keeps slipping is knowing who sits at which rate as an hourly team grows, that is the kind of record FirstHR was built to hold. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider, so it keeps the employee file straight and hands your payroll process a clean set of facts to work from.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Missouri minimum wage?

$15.00 per hour, effective January 1, 2026, statewide. It comes from RSMo 290.502 as amended by House Bill 567, and the department publishes it on its minimum wage page. The rate arrived in two steps written into the statute by a November 2024 ballot measure: $13.75 in January 2025, then $1.25 more a year later.

When does the Missouri minimum wage go up again?

It does not, on any schedule currently in law. The cost of living adjustment that would have started in January 2027 was struck by HB 567 before it ever ran, and the older indexing mechanism was capped at December 31, 2024. The rate holds at $15.00 until the legislature or the voters change it.

What do I pay a tipped employee in Missouri?

A cash wage of at least $7.50 per hour, which is half the minimum, plus whatever it takes to bring total compensation to $15.00 for every hour worked. The maximum tip credit is therefore $7.50. Because the cash floor is a percentage, it moves automatically whenever the state rate moves.

Can a Missouri city set its own minimum wage?

No. RSMo 290.528 prohibits any political subdivision from requiring a minimum or living wage above state law, and nullifies local ordinances that try. The definition of political subdivision covers cities, counties, towns, villages and special districts, so Kansas City and St. Louis both pay $15.00.

Which employers are exempt from the Missouri minimum wage?

Retail and service businesses with annual gross income under $500,000, plus the categories in RSMo 290.500(3) and agricultural employment under RSMo 290.507. Falling outside the state rate does not mean falling outside wage law, because the federal Fair Labor Standards Act can still apply at $7.25.

Is there a youth or training wage in Missouri?

No. The state publishes no reduced rate by age or length of service, and the federal $4.25 opportunity wage for employees under 20 does not lower the Missouri floor, because the higher standard governs. Child labor rules on hours, certificates and prohibited occupations are separate and still apply.

What poster do I need and where do I get it?

The LS-52 minimum wage summary, required by RSMo 290.522, posted where employees can see it. The Division of Labor Standards publishes it free in English and Spanish, stamped with the calendar year it covers, so it needs replacing each January whether or not the rate itself has moved.