Oklahoma Minimum Wage: Rate, Tip Credit, Exemptions

The first payroll I ever helped set up in Oklahoma belonged to a friend running a small shop outside Tulsa. He asked me what the state minimum wage was, and then told me he had already put $8.00 into his offer letters because it felt like a safe guess. It was safe. It was also the wrong way to run payroll, because guessing on wages is cheap right up until you have done it across a dozen people for two years.

Oklahoma is one of the simplest states in the country on this question. It does not publish its own dollar figure. It borrows the federal one by statute. That makes the headline answer short, and it makes the handful of genuine exceptions worth knowing exactly, because those exceptions are the only places an Oklahoma employer can get this wrong.

The Current Oklahoma Rate

The Oklahoma minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and it has been at that level since July 24, 2009. The state has no separate number of its own. Title 40, Section 197.2 of the Oklahoma Statutes says that no employer in the state may pay any employee less than the current federal minimum wage for all hours worked.

That single sentence is why Oklahoma never appears on a list of states raising wages in January. The US Department of Labor describes the arrangement the same way in its state minimum wage table, noting that Oklahoma law contains no current dollar minimum and adopts the federal rate by reference. The Oklahoma Department of Labor states the same $7.25 figure in its wage and hour guidance.

The federal rate itself has not moved since 2009, the longest freeze in the history of the Fair Labor Standards Act. If you want the national picture and the mechanics behind that number, the federal minimum wage guide covers it in full. This page stays on Oklahoma.

Is an Increase Scheduled?

No increase is scheduled in Oklahoma. Because the state floor is written as the current federal minimum wage rather than a fixed dollar amount, there is no phase-in schedule to budget for and no annual cost of living adjustment.

The most recent attempt to change that failed at the ballot box. State Question 832 asked voters to amend the Oklahoma Minimum Wage Act, raise the state rate in steps toward $15 an hour, and index it to the cost of living afterward. It went before voters at the June 16 primary election and was rejected, with roughly 55 percent of ballots cast against it.

So the only two events that would raise pay floors for Oklahoma employers are an act of Congress or a future amendment to state law. Federal proposals surface regularly and none has passed; the federal minimum wage increase tracker is where to watch that.

Tipped Employees and the Tip Credit

Oklahoma allows a tip credit. For employers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is nearly all of them, the cash wage is $2.13 an hour and the maximum tip credit is $5.12, adding up to the $7.25 floor. The state does not publish a competing tipped rate.

Oklahoma’s own provision is narrower. Title 40, Section 197.16 allows credit toward the minimum wage for tips, gratuities, meals or lodging up to 50 percent of that wage, which works out to a $3.63 cash floor. That cap only binds employers the state act reaches but the federal act does not, a very small group.

Overtime for tipped staff trips up more Oklahoma restaurants than the base rate does. The overtime rate is built on $7.25, not on $2.13, so an overtime hour is $10.88 before the tip credit and $5.76 in cash after it. Our guide to tipped minimum wage walks through the arithmetic pay period by pay period.

City and County Rates

There are no city or county minimum wages in Oklahoma, and there cannot be. Title 40, Section 160, effective July 1, 2014, preempts the entire field. It says plainly that no municipality or other political subdivision may establish a minimum wage rate an employer would be required to pay, and it declares any existing or future ordinance in that field null and void.

The same statute blocks local mandates for a minimum number of paid or unpaid vacation or sick leave days. For a small employer with locations in more than one Oklahoma city, that is genuinely good news: one rate, one poster, one payroll configuration.

Who Is Exempt

The Oklahoma Minimum Wage Act carries a long exemption list, but it rarely lets an employer pay under $7.25, because the federal act usually covers the same workers. Read the state exemptions as a description of what state law does not add, not as permission to pay less.

Coverage starts with the definition of employer in Title 40, Section 197.4: someone hiring more than ten full-time employees or the equivalent at any one location, or doing more than $100,000 of gross business a year. Below both thresholds, the state act does not reach the business at all, and the US Department of Labor lists a $2.00 basic rate for that narrow group, drawn from Section 197.5.

The state act also excludes specific categories of worker from its definition of employee: farm and ranch work, domestic service in a private home, federal employees, volunteers at charitable or religious nonprofits, newspaper vendors and carriers, employees of interstate carriers, executive, administrative, professional and outside sales roles, part-time staff working under 25 hours a week, anyone under 18 who has not graduated, students under 22, feedstore employees, and reserve deputy sheriffs.

Two absences are worth stating outright. Oklahoma has no fast food wage council and no healthcare minimum wage, unlike a handful of other states. And it has no agricultural minimum wage of its own, so farm labor sits under federal rules. Classification questions that decide whether someone is even owed the minimum belong in the exempt versus non-exempt guide.

Youth and Training Wage

Oklahoma has no state youth wage and no state training wage. The only subminimum rate available to an Oklahoma employer is the federal youth minimum wage: $4.25 an hour for employees under 20 years old, limited to the first 90 consecutive calendar days after they are first employed, under 29 U.S.C. Section 206(g).

The 90 days are calendar days, not days worked, and they run from the first day of employment rather than from a training milestone. When the 90 days end or the employee turns 20, whichever comes first, the rate becomes $7.25. Federal law also forbids displacing existing workers, including cutting their hours, to open a slot for someone paid the youth rate.

Oklahoma does regulate young workers in a different way. State child labor law sets mandatory break and lunch periods for 14 and 15 year old employees, which federal law does not require for any age, and the state labor department publishes those rules in its wage and hour guidance. Breaks for employees 16 and older are not required by either state or federal law.

The Poster Requirement

Every employer subject to the Oklahoma Minimum Wage Act must post the notice the Commissioner of Labor prescribes. Title 40, Section 197.6 sets the specifics: at least eight and one half by eleven inches in size, displayed so that it is accessible to all employees at each establishment the employer controls.

The Oklahoma Department of Labor publishes the poster free of charge on its workplace posters page, in both a statutory and a plain language version, alongside child labor, workers’ compensation, USERRA and PEOSH posters. The department is explicit that publishing them is not legal advice and that it does not determine whether any individual employer is compliant.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act poster is a separate obligation and the state notice does not substitute for it. Remote and hybrid staff need electronic access to both, in a location they actually visit rather than a shared drive nobody opens.

What to Do When a Rate Rises

Because Oklahoma tracks the federal rate, the trigger for action is a change in federal law rather than a state announcement. When one arrives, the sequence is the same one you would run in any state, and it is short enough to finish in an afternoon.

Set a recurring reminder for early January and early July even though Oklahoma itself is static. Those are the two dates most state and local rates move nationally, and if you hire across state lines, one reminder covers everything. The Oklahoma HR compliance guide covers the rest of the state picture: final paychecks, workers’ compensation, non-competes and the anti-discrimination act.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the minimum wage in Oklahoma?

It is $7.25 an hour. Oklahoma sets no dollar figure of its own; Title 40, Section 197.2 of the Oklahoma Statutes forbids paying less than the current federal minimum wage, and that federal rate has been $7.25 since July 24, 2009. Every Oklahoma employer covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act pays $7.25 as the floor.

Is Oklahoma’s minimum wage going up?

No increase is scheduled. There is no phase-in and no inflation index, because the state floor is defined by reference to federal law. State Question 832 would have changed that by moving the state toward $15 an hour and indexing it afterward, but voters rejected it at the June 16 primary election by roughly 55 percent to 45 percent.

Can a city or county in Oklahoma set a higher minimum wage?

No. Title 40, Section 160 preempts the entire field and voids any local ordinance that sets a minimum wage rate or a mandatory number of vacation or sick leave days. Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Norman, Broken Arrow, Lawton and every other jurisdiction operate at the same $7.25 floor, which keeps multi-location payroll simple.

What is the tipped minimum wage in Oklahoma?

The cash wage is $2.13 an hour with a maximum tip credit of $5.12 for employers covered by the federal act. Oklahoma’s own statute caps credit for tips, meals or lodging at 50 percent of the minimum wage, a stricter rule that binds only employers outside federal coverage. In both cases the employee has to reach $7.25 for the workweek.

Is the $2.00 Oklahoma minimum wage real?

It appears in the US Department of Labor state table for employers with fewer than ten full-time employees at one location and gross annual sales of $100,000 or less, and it traces to Title 40, Section 197.5. It only matters when the Fair Labor Standards Act does not reach the business at all, which is rare. Confirm federal coverage before relying on it.

Do I have to post a minimum wage notice in Oklahoma?

Yes, if the state act covers you. Title 40, Section 197.6 requires the labor commissioner’s notice, at least eight and one half by eleven inches, posted where every employee can reach it at each establishment. The Oklahoma Department of Labor supplies it free. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act poster is a separate requirement.