Nebraska Minimum Wage: Rate, Tipped Pay, Youth Wages

A restaurant owner in Grand Island emailed me in late January asking whether she owed back pay. Her payroll was still running at $13.50 an hour, three weeks after the state rate had moved. Nobody had told her, and the poster in her break room was two years out of date.

That is the ordinary failure mode for a small employer. The rate is public and the change is scheduled years ahead, and it still slips past an owner who is doing four jobs at once. Nebraska has had a busier year than usual: the legislature rewrote how future increases are calculated, added two new wage tiers for younger workers, and a city ordinance was blocked in court weeks before it was due to start.

This page covers the wage floor only. Overtime, leave, final paychecks and the rest live in the Nebraska HR compliance guide. Here you get the rate, the exceptions that genuinely exist, and a short routine for the next time the number moves.

The Current Rate and When It Took Effect

Nebraska's minimum wage is $15.00 per hour, effective January 1, 2026. It runs at that level through December 31, 2026, and it applies to every employer with four or more employees at any one time.

The figure comes from Neb. Rev. Stat. section 48-1203, which lays out a schedule of step increases approved by voters in 2022. The Nebraska Department of Labor announced the change in its notice that Nebraska's minimum wage increases to $15 effective January 1, 2026. The steps ran $1.50 a year for four straight years, which is why so many payroll systems in the state carried a stale rate at some point along the way.

Coverage turns on headcount. Neb. Rev. Stat. section 48-1202 defines an employer as anyone employing four or more employees at any one time, and it excludes seasonal employment of not more than twenty weeks in a calendar year from that definition. Because the test is measured at any one time rather than as an average, a seasonal hiring spike can pull a three-person shop across the line.

The Next Scheduled Increase

The next increase is January 1, 2027, and the statute fixes it at 1.75 percent. That is a change in method, not just a number: Nebraska now uses a flat annual percentage instead of the cost-of-living formula voters approved in 2022.

Legislative Bill 258, approved by the Governor on February 9, 2026, made the swap. It amended Neb. Rev. Stat. section 48-1203 to raise the minimum wage by one and three-quarters percent on January 1, 2027 and on January 1 of each successive year. The same section requires the Nebraska Department of Labor to calculate and publish the rate taking effect the following January 1 no later than October 15 of each year, starting October 15, 2026.

The state has already put a number on it. In the Attorney General's June 2026 complaint against the City of Lincoln, the State said the 2027 statewide minimum wage will be $15.26 per hour. Use that for budgeting, then confirm against the department's published figure in October, because the published rate is the one that governs payroll.

Tipped Employees and the Tip Credit

Nebraska allows a tip credit. The cash wage for employees compensated by way of gratuities is $2.13 per hour, which leaves a maximum tip credit of $12.87 against the $15.00 minimum.

Section 48-1203 names waiters, waitresses, hotel bellhops, porters and shoeshine persons as the sort of work it has in mind. Wages plus gratuities must equal or exceed the applicable minimum wage, and the employer covers any shortfall. The statute also places the burden of proof on the employer to show that a worker is in fact compensated by way of gratuities, which is a quiet instruction to keep clean tip records rather than assume the category applies.

One consequence of the $2.13 figure being fixed is that every increase in the state minimum widens the credit instead of the cash wage. When the rate moves to the 2027 figure, the cash wage stays at $2.13 and the tip credit grows. Our guide to minimum wage for tipped employees walks through the weekly arithmetic in more detail.

City and County Rates

No Nebraska city or county minimum wage is in force. The $15.00 state rate applies everywhere in the state, and there is currently nothing extra to track by location.

That answer nearly changed. The Lincoln City Council adopted a Lincoln Minimum Wage Ordinance as Chapter 9.80 of the municipal code, requiring $15.00 per hour for every employee regardless of age through December 31, 2026, then indexing the rate to the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers for the Midwest Region, with fines of up to $500 for each day a violation continued. The ordinance was set to take effect on July 18, 2026.

The Nebraska Attorney General sued the city on June 18, 2026, arguing that the minimum wage is a matter of statewide concern and that the ordinance conflicted with state law on both the growth rate and the youth wage. On July 17, 2026, the Lancaster County District Court enjoined Lincoln from enforcing the ordinance until the merits are litigated.

The practical instruction for a Lincoln employer is to pay the state rate and watch the docket. For 2026 the two figures were the same $15.00 anyway; the real difference was that the ordinance would have removed the youth wage inside city limits.

Youth, Training and Student Wages

Nebraska has three sub-minimum tiers, and two of them are new. A youth minimum wage and a training wage both sit at $13.50 per hour, and student-learners in a vocational program get at least 75 percent of the otherwise applicable minimum.

The youth minimum wage covers employees who are at least fourteen and younger than sixteen and who are not emancipated minors. It has no time limit and no volume cap, and it rises by 1.5 percent on January 1, 2030 and on January 1 of every fifth year after that.

The training wage is the tighter of the two. Under Neb. Rev. Stat. section 48-1203.01 it applies to a new employee who is at least sixteen and younger than twenty, is not a seasonal or migrant worker and is not an emancipated minor, for ninety days from the date of hire. A second ninety-day period is available only for on-the-job training that requires technical, personal or other necessary skills and that the Commissioner of Labor has approved. This rate rises 1.5 percent every January 1 starting in 2027.

Industry Carve-Outs and Exclusions

Nebraska has no industry-specific minimum wage. There is no fast food rate, no healthcare rate and no hospitality rate, so a quick-service operator and a machine shop work from the same $15.00 figure.

What Nebraska has instead is a list of exclusions in section 48-1202. Agriculture is the big one: any individual employed in agriculture is outside the definition of employee, so the state rate does not apply to farm labor at all. Babysitters in or about a private home are excluded, as are bona fide executive, administrative and professional employees and superintendents or supervisors. The statute also addresses a person receiving public aid who is disabled and employed in a program of rehabilitation, at a wage consistent with their health, efficiency and general well-being.

Read those exclusions against federal law before you act on one. A Nebraska farm outside the state act may still be covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act at $7.25 per hour, subject to its own agricultural tests. States that do run industry-specific floors handle it very differently, as our piece on the fast food minimum wage shows.

The Poster Requirement

Every covered Nebraska employer must post a summary of the state wage and hour law where employees can see it. Neb. Rev. Stat. section 48-1205 requires a summary of sections 48-1201 to 48-1209, furnished by the Commissioner of Labor without charge, kept posted in a conspicuous place on or about the premises.

The current poster is a free download from the Nebraska Department of Labor required posters page. It carries the rate on its face, which is exactly why it becomes evidence against you the moment the rate changes and the sheet on the wall does not.

Two habits keep this clean. Print the replacement in December so it goes up with the January rate rather than a month later. And for people who never walk into a building, send the same notice by email and keep the send record, because a conspicuous place on the premises does not do much for a fully remote payroll clerk.

How Nebraska Compares to the Federal Rate

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and has not moved since July 24, 2009. Nebraska's $15.00 is more than double that, so for covered Nebraska employers the state rate is the only one that matters in practice.

The rule is simply that the higher of the two applies. We keep the national picture in the federal minimum wage guide, and the schedule of what changes where in federal and state minimum wage increases.

The federal floor still does real work in two Nebraska situations. A business with fewer than four employees sits outside the state act but is usually covered federally, and an agricultural employer excluded from the state act may be federally covered as well. In both cases $7.25 is the number, not zero.

What to Do When the Rate Rises

Treat a rate change as a short checklist rather than a single payroll edit. The rate itself is the easy part; the tiers, the salaried staff and the poster are where small employers get caught.

Everything above is a recurring calendar item, not a one-time project. If you are building the wider routine around it, our overview of payroll compliance covers the annual cycle, and the walkthrough on how to hire employees in Nebraska covers the paperwork that comes before the first paycheck.

This is also the sort of thing FirstHR exists to hold for you. It is an onboarding and HR platform rather than a payroll provider, so it does not run the wage calculation itself, but it keeps the offer letters, rate acknowledgements and posted notices in one place so a rate change is a task with a due date rather than something you remember in February.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the minimum wage in Nebraska?

Nebraska's minimum wage is $15.00 per hour, effective January 1, 2026 and running through December 31, 2026. It applies to employers with four or more employees at any one time, and it applies statewide because no local ordinance is in force.

Does Nebraska allow a tip credit?

Yes. The cash wage for employees compensated by way of gratuities is $2.13 per hour, giving a maximum tip credit of $12.87. Wages plus tips must reach $15.00 per hour, and the employer owes the difference when they do not. The burden of proving that someone is a tipped employee sits with the employer.

Do small employers have to pay the Nebraska minimum wage?

Only those with four or more employees at any one time. Seasonal employment of twenty weeks or less in a calendar year does not count toward that threshold. Smaller employers usually remain covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act at $7.25 per hour.

Can I pay a teenager less than $15.00 in Nebraska?

Yes, in two defined cases. Employees aged fourteen and fifteen may be paid a $13.50 youth minimum wage, and new hires aged sixteen to nineteen may be paid a $13.50 training wage for ninety days, extendable once only through an approved on-the-job training program. No more than a quarter of your total paid hours may sit at the training wage.

Does Lincoln have its own minimum wage?

Not an enforceable one. Lincoln adopted an ordinance due to start on July 18, 2026, and the Lancaster County District Court enjoined the city from enforcing it on July 17, 2026, after the Attorney General sued. Lincoln employers pay the state rate while the injunction stands.

When does the Nebraska minimum wage go up again?

On January 1, 2027, by a fixed 1.75 percent. The State put that figure at $15.26 per hour in its court filing against Lincoln, and the Nebraska Department of Labor must publish the official rate no later than October 15 of the preceding year.

Are farm workers covered by the Nebraska minimum wage?

No. Individuals employed in agriculture are excluded from the state definition of employee, so the $15.00 rate does not apply to them. Federal law may still cover the same workers at $7.25 per hour, subject to its own agricultural exemptions.