Nevada Minimum Wage: Rates and Employer Rules
Nevada minimum wage is $12.00 an hour with no tip credit and no city or county rates. Effective dates, exemptions, posters, and what to do when it rises.
Nevada Minimum Wage
One statewide rate of $12.00 an hour, no tip credit, no city or county ordinances, and no increase on the calendar
The first payroll question I get from anyone opening a location in Las Vegas is whether the tipped cash wage is $2.13. It is not. In Nevada it is $12.00, the same as everyone else, and the person asking is usually about two weeks from cutting the first set of checks.
Nevada is unusual in a useful way. There is one rate, it covers the whole state, it has not moved since the middle of 2024, and there is no formula quietly adjusting it every January. That makes payroll setup here simpler than in most western states. It also makes the two real traps easy to walk into, because both of them are habits imported from somewhere else: the tip credit, and the assumption that a minor can be paid less.
This page covers the rate, the exemptions that actually exist, the poster, and what to do the year the number finally changes. Everything broader, from daily overtime to final paychecks, sits in the Nevada HR compliance guide.
The Current Rate and Its Effective Date
Nevada's minimum wage is $12.00 per hour, effective July 1, 2024. It applies to every employee in the state unless a specific exemption applies, and it does not vary by employer size, industry, or whether health benefits are offered.
The authority is Article 15, Section 16 of the Nevada Constitution, amended by Ballot Question 2 at the November 2022 general election. The Office of the Labor Commissioner confirms the figure each year in an annual bulletin. The most recent one, posted June 29, 2026, lists an effective date of July 1, 2026 and a rate of $12.00. You can read the current bulletin on the Nevada Labor Commissioner site.
Before mid-2024 Nevada ran a two-tier system. An employer that offered qualifying health insurance could pay one dollar per hour less than an employer that did not. Question 2 killed the split. Here is the full climb, including the tier structure that has now been retired.
| Effective date | Employer offers qualifying health benefits | Employer does not offer benefits |
|---|---|---|
| July 1, 2019 | $7.25 | $8.25 |
| July 1, 2020 | $8.00 | $9.00 |
| July 1, 2021 | $8.75 | $9.75 |
| July 1, 2022 | $9.50 | $10.50 |
| July 1, 2023 | $10.25 | $11.25 |
| July 1, 2024 | $12.00 (tiers eliminated) | $12.00 (tiers eliminated) |
| July 1, 2025 | $12.00 | $12.00 |
| July 1, 2026 | $12.00 | $12.00 |
One wrinkle catches people who read statutes rather than bulletins. NRS 608.250 still prints the old Assembly Bill 456 schedule, which shows $11.00 from July 1, 2024 for employers offering benefits. The constitutional amendment overrides that text. Pay $12.00.
When the Rate Changes Next
No increase is scheduled. Nevada has no published schedule of future rates and no inflation adjustment, so nothing happens automatically on any date now on the calendar.
That is a deliberate design. The pre-2022 version of Article 15, Section 16 carried an annual cost-of-living mechanism. The amendment that voters approved in 2022 replaced the whole scheme with a flat $12.00 and dropped the indexing. Three annual bulletins in a row have now printed the same number.
Two things could still move it. The constitution lets the Legislature set a higher rate by law, and Nevada's Legislature sits in regular session only every other year, convening on the first Monday of February after each Assembly election. It also lets the federal rate take over: if the federal minimum wage ever exceeds $12.00, Nevada employers must pay the federal figure. For how those federal changes tend to arrive, see our guide to minimum wage increases by state.
Tipped Employees and the Tip Credit
No tip credit is allowed in Nevada. Tipped employees receive the full $12.00 per hour in cash, and tips sit on top of that as extra earnings rather than counting toward the employer's obligation.
Two sources say the same thing. Article 15, Section 16(4) of the Nevada Constitution states that tips or gratuities received by employees may not be credited as any part of or offset against the required wage. NRS 608.160 makes it separately unlawful to apply tips as a credit toward the statutory minimum hourly wage. The US Department of Labor groups Nevada with the states that require the full state minimum wage before tips.
| Rule | Nevada | Federal FLSA |
|---|---|---|
| Cash wage before tips | $12.00 | $2.13 |
| Maximum tip credit | None permitted | $5.12 |
| Tips count toward the minimum | No | Yes, if notice and other conditions are met |
| Tip pooling | Permitted among employees by agreement (NRS 608.160) | Permitted, with limits tied to the tip credit |
| Authority | Nev. Const. Art. 15, Sec. 16(4); NRS 608.160 | 29 U.S.C. 203(m) |
This is where out-of-state operators get burned. A restaurant group that runs a $2.13 cash wage in another state and copies the pay template into a Nevada location underpays every server by $9.87 an hour, and the back pay claim runs two years under NRS 608.260. Our overview of minimum wage for tipped employees walks through how the federal credit works in the states that allow it.
City and County Rates Inside Nevada
There are none. No Nevada city or county has adopted its own minimum wage, so the statewide $12.00 applies in every jurisdiction, and multi-location employers run one rate across the whole state.
Neither the Office of the Labor Commissioner nor the US Department of Labor publishes a separate local figure for anywhere in Nevada. The annual bulletin states that the rate applies to all employees in the State of Nevada unless otherwise exempted, with no geographic carve-outs attached.
| Where you operate | Local ordinance | Rate that applies |
|---|---|---|
| Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County | None | $12.00 |
| Henderson and North Las Vegas | None | $12.00 |
| Reno, Sparks and Washoe County | None | $12.00 |
| Carson City | None | $12.00 |
| Elko, Mesquite and rural counties | None | $12.00 |
| Qualifying public works projects statewide | Prevailing wage, not a local minimum | Prevailing wage schedule by craft and region |
That last row is the only place a different number legitimately shows up. Contractors on qualifying public works pay prevailing wage rates the Labor Commissioner publishes by craft and by region, and those rates are set under a separate statute rather than under the minimum wage. If you bid public work, price from the prevailing wage schedule for your region rather than from $12.00.
Industry Carve-Outs
Nevada has no fast food wage, no general healthcare wage, and no agricultural or small-employer exemption. The same $12.00 covers a casino, a landscaping crew, a two-person dental office and a hay operation outside Fallon.
There is one dormant sector mechanism worth knowing about. NRS 608.610 to 608.680 allow a home care employment standards board to recommend a minimum wage for home care employees, which the Director of the Department of Health and Human Services may then adopt by regulation. No such rate appears in NAC Chapter 608, so home care employees are on the standard rate today.
| Category | Nevada rule |
|---|---|
| Fast food | No separate rate. $12.00 applies |
| Home care | A board may recommend a higher rate under NRS 608.610 to 608.680; none adopted in NAC Chapter 608 |
| Other healthcare | No separate rate. $12.00 applies |
| Agriculture and seasonal work | No exemption in Article 15, Section 16 |
| Small employers | No exemption and no revenue threshold |
| Workers with disabilities | Special certificates run through the Rehabilitation Division under NAC 608.200 to 608.370. NRS 608.250 makes subminimum pay under a federal 14(c) certificate unlawful from January 1, 2028 |
| Jobs and day training service providers | Not an employment relationship for minimum wage purposes (NRS 608.255) |
| Independent contractors | Not an employment relationship (NRS 608.255). Misclassification is the usual failure point |
| Union workforces | The minimum wage may be waived only in a collective bargaining agreement, in clear and unambiguous terms (Art. 15, Sec. 16(5)) |
The comparison worth drawing here is with California, where a sector-specific fast food rate sits well above the state floor. Nevada has nothing equivalent, which our piece on the fast food minimum wage puts in national context.
Youth and Training Wage
Nevada has no youth or training wage expressed in dollars. A sixteen-year-old stocking shelves at a convenience store earns $12.00 an hour on day one, exactly like the thirty-year-old on the same shift.
The single carve-out lives in the constitutional definition of employee. Article 15, Section 16(8)(a) excludes a person under eighteen who is employed by a nonprofit organization for after-school or summer employment, or as a trainee for a period no longer than ninety days. You can read the provision in full in the Nevada Constitution under Article 15.
Hour and scheduling limits for minors are a separate body of law from the wage, and they do bite in Nevada. Our guide to child labor laws covers the federal floor those state rules build on.
The Posting Requirement
Every Nevada employer must conspicuously post the Labor Commissioner's printed abstract of NRS Chapter 608 at each premises where anyone is employed. That duty comes from NRS 608.013 and has no employee-count threshold.
The Labor Commissioner publishes a list of notices required to be posted in each place of business, and the annual minimum wage bulletin and the annual daily overtime bulletin are both on it, in English and Spanish. The current pair carries a posted date of June 29, 2026 and an effective date of July 1, 2026. Download them from the required employer postings page.
Fresh bulletins go up every year even when the rate is unchanged, which is the part employers forget. A poster showing an old effective date is the easiest thing for an inspector to spot. If you are auditing your wall generally, our checklist of required employee notices covers the federal sheets that belong next to the Nevada ones.
How Nevada Relates to the Federal Rate
Nevada sits $4.75 above the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which has not changed since July 2009. When state and federal rates differ, the employer pays the higher one, so $12.00 is the operative number for Nevada employers.
Nevada wrote the tie-break into its constitution rather than leaving it to the general rule. Article 15, Section 16(2) says that if the federal minimum wage is ever greater than $12.00 per hour, each employer must pay at least the federal rate. In practice that means a future act of Congress would raise Nevada's floor without the Legislature doing anything.
The Department of Labor keeps the authoritative side-by-side of every state rate on its state minimum wage laws page, and our own minimum wage by state guide covers the federal framework in depth so this page does not have to.
What to Do When a Rate Rises
The work is mechanical, and it is the same whether the increase comes from Carson City or from Congress. Recalculate, tell people, update the wall, keep the paper. Doing it in that order takes an afternoon.
Most of the failure I see is not refusal to pay the new rate. It is a stale rate sitting in one system that nobody remembers is connected to payroll: an offer letter template, a scheduling app, a spreadsheet of role rates. Keeping employee records in a single place is why we built FirstHR. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider, so it holds the employee data and documents while your payroll system does the math.
For the wider Nevada picture, from daily overtime and rest breaks to final paychecks, the Nevada HR compliance guide is the companion to this page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the minimum wage in Nevada?
$12.00 per hour, effective July 1, 2024 under Article 15, Section 16 of the Nevada Constitution as amended by Ballot Question 2. The Labor Commissioner has reaffirmed $12.00 in every annual bulletin since, including the one posted June 29, 2026 for the year beginning July 1, 2026. It applies to all employees in the state unless exempted, and it no longer varies with health benefits.
Can a Nevada employer pay tipped employees less than the minimum wage?
No. Nevada permits no tip credit. The constitution bars crediting tips against the required wage and NRS 608.160 makes it unlawful to apply tips toward the statutory minimum. Servers, bartenders and valets all receive $12.00 in cash before tips. Applying the federal $2.13 cash wage in a Nevada location underpays every tipped employee on the schedule.
Is the Nevada minimum wage going up?
No increase is scheduled. The rate is flat and unindexed. It can move only if the Legislature sets a higher figure, which it can do only in a regular session held every other year, or if the federal minimum wage rises above $12.00, in which case the federal rate applies automatically under Article 15, Section 16(2).
Does any Nevada city or county have its own minimum wage?
No. There is one statewide rate. Las Vegas, Reno, Henderson, North Las Vegas, Sparks, Carson City, Clark County and Washoe County have no local ordinances, and no local Nevada figure appears in the Labor Commissioner bulletin or the Department of Labor tables. Public works contractors pay published prevailing wage rates, which are a different system.
Can a Nevada employer pay a lower training wage to a teenager?
There is no dollar-denominated youth or training rate. The only exclusion covers a person under eighteen employed by a nonprofit for after-school or summer work, or as a trainee for no more than ninety days. Everyone else under eighteen earns $12.00. An old regulation reads more broadly, but its own wage figures are two decades stale, so the constitution controls.
What does a Nevada employer have to post about the minimum wage?
The Labor Commissioner abstract of NRS Chapter 608, required at every premises by NRS 608.013, plus the current annual minimum wage bulletin and annual daily overtime bulletin from the required postings list. New bulletins are published each year ahead of the July 1 effective date, so replace the sheets every summer even when the rate has not moved.
Does the Nevada minimum wage still depend on whether the employer offers health insurance?
No. The two-tier structure ended July 1, 2024. Employers offering qualifying health benefits no longer pay a lower rate. The text of NRS 608.250 still carries the old schedule with an $11.00 benefits tier, which confuses people who read the statute rather than the bulletin, but the constitutional amendment supersedes it and $12.00 applies to everyone.