Ohio Minimum Wage: Rate, Tipped Pay, Small Employers

The owner of a two-location coffee business outside Dayton asked me a question last winter that I could not answer in one sentence. Her books had just closed above $405,000 for the first time. Did that change what she owed her staff?

It did, and not on the day the books closed. Ohio ties the wage floor to the prior year of gross receipts, so a business that grows past the line pays the higher rate starting the following January. She had about six weeks to move eleven people from one number to another and to explain why.

That is the shape of Ohio wage compliance. There is one statewide rate, one threshold and one date, and almost every mistake I see comes from an owner not knowing which of the three moved. This page covers the wage floor only. Overtime, leave, final paychecks and the rest sit in the Ohio HR compliance guide.

The Current Rate and When It Took Effect

Ohio's minimum wage is $11.00 per hour, effective January 1, 2026. It applies to employers with annual gross receipts above $405,000, and it holds at that level through December 31, 2026.

The figures come straight from the state. The Ohio Department of Commerce publishes an official poster for each calendar year on its minimum wage posters page, and the current sheet carries $11.00 for non-tipped employees, $5.50 for tipped employees and the $405,000 gross receipts line. The federal wage and hour agency lists the same pair of Ohio figures in its state minimum wage table.

Coverage turns on money, not headcount. Article II, Section 34a of the Ohio Constitution puts employees of businesses whose annual gross receipts for the preceding calendar year fall at or below the threshold on the federal rate instead. A five-person shop above the line pays $11.00; a twenty-person operation below it pays $7.25.

The Next Scheduled Increase

The next change lands on January 1, 2027, and the amount is not published yet. Ohio sets the new rate on September 30 of each year, which means the 2027 figure does not exist as an official number until the end of September 2026.

The mechanism is constitutional rather than legislative. Article II, Section 34a directs that on the thirtieth day of each September the state minimum wage rate is increased, effective the first day of the following January, by the rate of inflation for the twelve month period prior to that September, measured by the consumer price index for all urban wage earners and clerical workers and rounded to the nearest five cents. The gross receipts threshold rises by the same index each January, rounded to the nearest one thousand dollars.

Two practical consequences follow. The legislature cannot lower the rate by statute, so the annual bump is a fixed feature of running payroll in Ohio. And because the index window closes in August, any 2027 Ohio rate quoted before that data is complete is an estimate rather than a rate.

Tipped Employees and the Tip Credit

Ohio allows a tip credit. The cash wage for tipped employees is $5.50 per hour and the maximum tip credit is $5.50, because the state constitution lets an employer pay less than the minimum wage but not less than half of it.

A tipped employee is someone who customarily and regularly receives more than thirty dollars per month in tips. Cash wages plus tips have to equal or exceed $11.00 for the hours worked, and an employer electing the tip credit has to be able to show that combined figure lands at or above the minimum. When tips fall short in a pay period, the employer covers the gap.

Ohio's cash wage is a percentage rather than a fixed dollar figure, which makes it quieter than it looks. It reprices itself every January without any announcement aimed at you, so a restaurant that updates the standard rate and forgets the tipped line ends up underpaying. Our guide to minimum wage for tipped employees works through the weekly arithmetic.

City and County Rates

No Ohio city or county sets its own minimum wage, and none is allowed to. Ohio Revised Code section 4111.02 states that no political subdivision shall establish a minimum wage rate different from the wage rate required under that section.

That language arrived with Senate Bill 331 and took effect on March 21, 2017. For an employer it deletes a whole category of work. A contractor running crews in three Ohio cities uses one rate, and a company with staff in Columbus and Cleveland does not split its payroll by location the way it would in a state that permits local ordinances.

Preemption of the wage rate is not preemption of everything else. Ohio cities still regulate other parts of the employment relationship, and city income tax withholding remains a genuinely local exercise, so the single statewide wage figure is the exception rather than the pattern.

Youth and Training Wages

Ohio has exactly one age based wage rule: employees under the age of sixteen are paid not less than the current federal minimum wage rate, which the state poster states as $7.25 per hour. There is no state training wage and no student wage.

That makes the sixteenth birthday the line. A fifteen year old bussing tables at a covered employer can be paid $7.25, and the same worker at sixteen moves to $11.00. Ohio does regulate how many hours minors may work and when, but that is minor labor law rather than wage law, and it does not change the rate.

Industry Carve-Outs and Exclusions

Ohio has no industry-specific minimum wage. There is no fast food rate, no healthcare rate and no agricultural rate, so a quick-service franchise, a home care agency and a machine shop all work from the same $11.00 figure.

What Ohio has instead is a borrowed list of exclusions. Ohio Revised Code section 4111.14 defines employee by reference to the Fair Labor Standards Act and excludes anyone outside the federal definition or exempt from the federal minimum wage requirements. The agricultural exemption is the clearest example: a farm that did not use more than five hundred man-days of agricultural labor in any quarter of the prior year sits outside the federal minimum wage, and therefore outside Ohio's.

The state poster adds the list an owner is most likely to need. It exempts babysitters working in the employer's home, live-in companions to a sick, convalescing or elderly person, outside salespeople paid by commission, bona fide executive, administrative and professional employees, computer professionals, volunteers for public agencies, people providing charitable services in a hospital, staff of nonprofit camps for children, and family members of an owner of a solely family owned and operated business.

States that do run industry-specific floors handle this very differently, with separate schedules for particular sectors. Our piece on the fast food minimum wage covers how those work where they exist.

The Poster Requirement

Every Ohio employer covered by the minimum wage law must keep a summary of the law posted in a conspicuous and accessible place on the premises. Ohio Revised Code section 4111.09 sets that requirement and directs the director of commerce to publish the summary and update it at least annually to reflect the current rate.

In practice the summary is the annual poster. The Department of Commerce states plainly that employers must display the most recent minimum wage poster in their workplaces, and the current Ohio minimum wage poster is a free download that carries the rate, the tipped wage and the gross receipts threshold on its face.

Two habits keep this clean. Print the replacement in December so it goes up with the January rate rather than a month later, and send the same notice by email to anyone who never walks into a building, because a conspicuous place on the premises does nothing for a fully remote bookkeeper. The old poster is worth keeping in your records; it shows what was posted during the period it covered.

How Ohio Compares to the Federal Rate

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and has not moved since July 24, 2009. Ohio's $11.00 sits $3.75 above it, so for most Ohio employers the state figure is the only one that matters day to day.

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

The federal floor still does real work in Ohio, in two specific places. A business at or below the gross receipts threshold pays $7.25 rather than nothing in particular, and every employee under sixteen is paid at that same federal rate. Both of those figures move only when Congress acts, which it has not done in seventeen years, while the state rate above them moves every January.

What to Do When the Rate Rises

Treat the annual increase as a short checklist rather than a single payroll edit. The base rate is the easy part. The threshold, the tipped line and the poster are where small Ohio employers get caught.

Keep the paperwork behind those steps. Ohio requires an employer to hold a record of each employee's name, address, occupation, pay rate, hours worked each day and amounts paid for at least three years after employment ends, and to give an employee their own information on request. If you are building the wider routine, our overview of payroll compliance covers the annual cycle.

This is the sort of recurring obligation FirstHR is built to hold. It is an onboarding and HR platform rather than a payroll provider, so it does not run the wage calculation itself, but it keeps offer letters, rate acknowledgements and posted notices in one place so a January rate change is a task with a due date instead of something you remember in February. The steps that come before the first paycheck are covered in our walkthrough on how to hire employees in Ohio.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the minimum wage in Ohio?

Ohio's minimum wage is $11.00 per hour, effective January 1, 2026, for employers with annual gross receipts of more than $405,000. Businesses at or below that threshold pay the federal minimum of $7.25, as do employees under the age of sixteen. The same figures apply everywhere in the state.

Does Ohio allow a tip credit?

Yes. The cash wage for tipped employees is $5.50 per hour, which is exactly half the state minimum, giving a maximum tip credit of $5.50. Cash plus tips has to reach $11.00 per hour, and the employer owes the difference when it does not. A tipped employee is one who customarily and regularly receives more than thirty dollars a month in tips.

Do small Ohio employers have to pay $11.00 an hour?

Not if annual gross receipts for the preceding calendar year were $405,000 or less. Those employers pay the federal $7.25. The test is revenue rather than headcount, and it looks at last year, so a business that grows past the line starts paying the state rate the following January.

Do any Ohio cities have their own minimum wage?

No. Ohio Revised Code section 4111.02 bars any political subdivision from setting a minimum wage rate different from the state rate, a restriction that took effect on March 21, 2017. Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron and Dayton all run on the same statewide figure.

When does the Ohio minimum wage go up again?

On January 1, 2027. The amount is set on September 30 of the preceding year using the change in the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers over the twelve months before that September, rounded to the nearest five cents. Until that date, no official 2027 figure exists.

Can I pay an Ohio teenager less than the state minimum wage?

Only a worker under sixteen, who is paid the federal rate of $7.25 per hour. Ohio has no training wage, student wage or introductory rate, so a sixteen year old at a covered employer earns the full $11.00 from the first shift.

Are farm workers covered by the Ohio minimum wage?

It depends on the size of the farm. Ohio borrows the federal definition of employee, so the federal agricultural exemption applies to farms that did not use more than five hundred man-days of agricultural labor in any quarter of the prior year. Larger farm operations pay the Ohio rate.