Tennessee Minimum Wage: Rates and Rules for Employers
Tennessee has no state minimum wage law, so the federal $7.25 rate applies. Tip credit, local preemption, youth wage, and poster rules for employers.
Tennessee Minimum Wage
No state rate, no city rates, no scheduled increase. The federal $7.25 floor and the Tennessee rules that sit around it
A client moved a distribution site from Illinois to Chattanooga and asked me which quarter the Tennessee rate would step up next. It never steps up. Tennessee has no minimum wage law of its own, so the federal rate applies, with no state schedule to track and no annual notice to wait for.
Tennessee is trickier than it looks because the state does have a wage law. The Wage Regulations Act covers paydays, final paychecks, the 30-minute meal period and what you must tell someone about their pay before they start work. Employers read that, assume a rate is buried in there somewhere, and go looking for a number that was never written.
This page covers one thing: what a Tennessee employer pays per hour, and what changes that number. That includes tipped staff, teenage hires, the poster on your wall and why no city or county can set a rate of its own.
The Current Tennessee Minimum Wage
The minimum wage in Tennessee is $7.25 per hour, and it took effect on July 24, 2009. That is the federal rate under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), not a state rate, because Tennessee has no minimum wage statute of its own.
The US Department of Labor state minimum wage laws table gives Tennessee a two-line entry: no state minimum wage law, and employers subject to the FLSA must pay the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Tennessee is one of five states in that position, with Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.
The state says the same thing from its own side. The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development referrals page lists minimum wage among the subjects it does not regulate and refers those questions to the US Department of Labor (DOL). There is no state rate schedule and no state wage agency to file a minimum wage claim with.
| Rate | Amount per hour | In effect since | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tennessee state minimum wage | None. Tennessee has never enacted one | Not applicable | TN Dept. of Labor and Workforce Development |
| Minimum wage that actually applies | $7.25 | July 24, 2009 | FLSA section 6(a)(1), 29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)(C) |
| Tipped employee cash wage | $2.13 | Fixed at the August 20, 1996 cash wage | FLSA section 3(m)(2)(A) |
| Maximum tip credit | $5.12 | July 24, 2009 | $7.25 minus the $2.13 cash wage |
| Youth wage, under 20, first 90 consecutive calendar days | $4.25 | 1996 FLSA amendments | 29 U.S.C. 206(g) |
| Full-time student certificate rate | At least 85 percent of $7.25 | DOL certificate or filed application required first | 29 CFR part 519 |
| Student-learner certificate rate | At least 75 percent of $7.25 | DOL certificate or filed application required first | 29 CFR 520.506 |
Is Another Increase Scheduled?
No increase is scheduled in Tennessee. There is no state minimum wage law to raise, and nothing adjusts the rate for inflation automatically: Tennessee never built that mechanism, and federal law does not contain one.
The last change to the number a Tennessee employer pays was the third step of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, which moved the federal rate to $7.25 on July 24, 2009. Nothing has moved it since, so the only lawmakers worth watching on this are in Congress, not the Tennessee General Assembly.
Tipped Employees and the Tip Credit
A tip credit is allowed in Tennessee, on federal terms only. You may pay a direct cash wage as low as $2.13 per hour and count tips toward the remaining $5.12, provided the employee actually reaches $7.25 for every hour worked in the workweek.
Tennessee has no tip credit statute, no state notice form and no state cap that differs from the federal one, so the figures in the Department of Labor tipped employee wage table apply as written. A tipped employee is one who customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips, per 29 U.S.C. 203(t).
Three conditions travel with the credit, as the Department of Labor sets out in Fact Sheet 15. You have to tell the employee about the credit before you take it. You have to let the employee keep all tips except through a valid tip pool. And you have to make up the shortfall in any workweek where tips came in light.
City and County Rates in Tennessee
There are no city or county minimum wage rates in Tennessee, and there legally cannot be. A state statute, Tenn. Code Ann. section 50-2-112, preempts (that is, overrides) every additional wage or employment benefit mandate a local government might impose on a private employer.
The section was added by 2013 Public Chapter 91 and rewritten by 2023 Public Chapter 309, the Protecting Tennessee Businesses and Workers Act. Cities and counties may still set pay for their own employees, just not for yours.
The 2023 rewrite widened the ban in a way that matters to anyone who bids on local work. A local government may no longer use its purchasing or contracting procedures, evaluation factors or bidder qualifications to control or reward the wages a vendor pays.
| Jurisdiction | Local minimum wage | What a private employer pays |
|---|---|---|
| Nashville and Davidson County | None. Preempted | $7.25 |
| Memphis and Shelby County | None. Preempted | $7.25 |
| Knoxville and Knox County | None. Preempted | $7.25 |
| Chattanooga and Hamilton County | None. Preempted | $7.25 |
| Clarksville, Murfreesboro, Franklin, Johnson City | None. Preempted | $7.25 |
| Every other Tennessee city and county | None. Preempted | $7.25 |
| Statewide result | One rate everywhere | No local ordinance lookup, no split-rate payroll setup |
For a multi-site employer this is genuinely simplifying. A crew that moves between a Memphis warehouse and a Murfreesboro job site sits on one wage floor, with nothing local to check. That is not true in several states Tennessee employers recruit against.
What Is the Minimum Wage in Memphis?
The minimum wage in Memphis is $7.25 per hour, the same figure a private employer pays anywhere else in the state. Neither the city nor Shelby County publishes a rate of its own, and neither is permitted to, because section 50-2-112 preempts local wage mandates on private employers everywhere in Tennessee.
What sets this market apart is the map rather than the law. A crew working across the river in West Memphis is owed the Arkansas rate of $11.00 per hour, in effect since January 1, 2021, according to the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing.
Head south into DeSoto County and the floor returns to $7.25, because Mississippi has no minimum wage statute of its own either. For an employer with work on both sides of a line, the rate follows where the hours were physically worked, not where the office sits.
Industry Carve-Outs
Tennessee has no industry-specific minimum wage for private employers. There is no fast food council rate, no healthcare minimum and no agricultural state rate, because the state has no minimum wage statute to carve anything out of.
One Tennessee wage floor does sit above $7.25, and it reaches only public work. The Prevailing Wage Act, enforced by the state labor department's Labor Standards Unit, sets rates for state-funded highway construction, and the unit runs on-site inspections to check them.
Ordinary private-sector jobs run on federal law and its exemptions instead. For a farm, the one to check is the federal small farm rule in the table below, which turns on man-days of agricultural labor rather than on headcount.
| Work or industry | Tennessee rule | What applies instead |
|---|---|---|
| Fast food and quick service | No Tennessee industry rate | $7.25 standard minimum wage |
| Healthcare, home care and residential care | No Tennessee industry rate | $7.25. No state healthcare wage floor of any kind |
| Agriculture | No Tennessee industry rate | Federal small farm exemption where the employer used no more than 500 man-days of agricultural labor in any calendar quarter of the prior year (29 U.S.C. 213(a)(6)(A)) |
| Seasonal amusement and recreational establishments | No Tennessee industry rate | Exempt from the federal minimum wage under 29 U.S.C. 213(a)(3) |
| Restaurants with tipped staff | No Tennessee tip credit statute | Federal tip credit: $2.13 cash wage plus up to $5.12 in tips |
| State-funded highway construction | Tennessee Prevailing Wage Act | Prevailing wage rates above $7.25, on covered public projects only |
| Workers with disabilities | No Tennessee program | Federal section 14(c) certificates issued in advance by the US Department of Labor |
Exempt status under the white-collar rules is a separate question from the minimum wage and gets decided role by role, so work through exempt versus non-exempt classification before you set a salary rather than after.
Youth and Training Wages
Tennessee has no state youth or training wage. The federal youth minimum wage of $4.25 per hour is the only one available, and it applies to employees under 20 years old during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment with you, under 29 U.S.C. 206(g).
Three limits are easy to miss. The 90 days are calendar days, not worked days, so the clock runs through slow weeks. The rate ends on the employee's twentieth birthday even if fewer than 90 days have passed. And you may not displace an existing employee, including by cutting hours, wages or benefits, in order to hire someone at the youth rate.
Two other subminimum rates exist, meaning pay set below the regular minimum: 85 percent of the applicable minimum for full-time students and 75 percent for student-learners. Neither is something you can simply start paying. Each needs Department of Labor authorization first, either a certificate or the temporary authorization that runs from the day a completed application is forwarded to the Wage and Hour Division.
The Tennessee Child Labor Act governs which hours and which occupations a minor may work. It says nothing about the rate.
The Poster Requirement
Tennessee employers post the federal Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage notice, which the Wage and Hour Division publishes as WH1088 and last revised in April 2023. Older versions, including the August 2016 one, no longer satisfy the requirement, so a laminated bundle bought years ago is probably out of date on this one sheet.
Tennessee also requires four state postings of its own, listed on the state labor department's required posters page: the TOSHA safety and health poster from the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the unemployment insurance poster, the workers compensation posting notice, and the Wage Regulation and Child Labor poster, revised May 2024.
The same page points employers to the federal minimum wage poster, because the rate is federal. Read the Wage Regulation and Child Labor poster once and the split becomes obvious. It covers wage notice duties, payday posting, the 30-minute meal period and the child labor hour limits. It states no hourly rate anywhere, because Tennessee has none to state.
Which Employers the $7.25 Floor Reaches
Because Tennessee sets no rate, FLSA coverage decides who the federal floor reaches. An employee outside the FLSA has no hourly floor in Tennessee at all, which is the one place where the absence of a state statute bites.
Coverage comes two ways, as the Department of Labor explains in Fact Sheet 14. Enterprise coverage reaches businesses with at least $500,000 in annual gross volume of sales made or business done (roughly, yearly revenue) under 29 U.S.C. 203(s)(1)(A)(ii), plus hospitals, schools and government regardless of revenue.
Individual coverage reaches employees whose own work involves interstate commerce, which sweeps in staff who regularly phone customers in other states, handle records of interstate transactions or produce goods that ship out of state.
Between the two tests, many employees at small Tennessee companies are covered. Assuming you sit outside the FLSA just because you are under $500,000 in revenue is a common and expensive mistake, since individual coverage can still reach your staff.
Tennessee does add one protection that has nothing to do with a rate. Under Tenn. Code Ann. section 50-2-101, it is unlawful to put someone to work without first informing them of the amount of wages to be paid. Tennessee will not tell you what to pay, but it will hold you to what you said you would pay.
What to Do When a Rate Rises
When the federal rate moves, a Tennessee employer has a short and specific list of work to do. The new rate itself is owed from the federal effective date. No statute sets a deadline for updating offer letters or pay records, but Tenn. Code Ann. section 50-2-101 does require telling an employee the wage before the work, and the safe reading applies that to a new rate as well, which is why the notice step below sits on the list.
FirstHR keeps pay rates, offer letters and signed acknowledgements in one employee record, so a rate change lands in one place instead of five spreadsheets. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider, so the wage calculation itself still happens in your payroll system.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the minimum wage in Tennessee?
$7.25 per hour, the federal rate, in effect since July 24, 2009. Tennessee has never enacted a state minimum wage, and its labor department refers minimum wage questions to the US Department of Labor. Tennessee is one of five states with no wage rate statute of its own.
Is the Tennessee minimum wage going up?
No. There is no state law to raise, and no federal increase has passed since the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 finished phasing in. Federal law has no automatic inflation adjustment, so the number holds until Congress changes it.
What do I have to pay tipped employees in Tennessee?
At least $2.13 per hour in cash wages, with tips covering the rest of $7.25. The maximum tip credit is $5.12. Tennessee has no tip credit statute, so federal rules govern: you tell the employee before taking the credit, the employee keeps the tips, and you top up any workweek where the total falls short.
Can a city or county in Tennessee set a higher minimum wage?
No. Tenn. Code Ann. section 50-2-112 preempts local wage and employment benefit mandates on private employers, and the 2023 amendment closed the contracting route as well. A local government may set pay for its own employees, but it cannot set a rate that reaches private businesses inside its boundaries.
What is the minimum wage in Memphis?
$7.25 per hour, the same as everywhere else in Tennessee. Memphis and Shelby County cannot set a private-sector rate, because Tenn. Code Ann. section 50-2-112 preempts local wage mandates. The complication here is geographic rather than legal: Arkansas across the river pays $11.00, while Mississippi to the south sits at the same $7.25.
Can I pay a teenager less than $7.25 in Tennessee?
Yes, in narrow cases under federal law. The youth wage allows $4.25 per hour for employees under 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days. It ends at the 90-day mark or the twentieth birthday, whichever comes first, and you may not displace an existing worker to use it. The full-time student and student-learner rates need Department of Labor authorization first. Tennessee adds no state youth rate.
Which minimum wage poster do Tennessee employers have to display?
The federal notice WH1088, last revised April 2023, posted where employees can readily read it. Tennessee separately requires its TOSHA, unemployment insurance, workers compensation and Wage Regulation and Child Labor postings. None of the state posters states an hourly rate.
Overtime is the companion question to the minimum wage, and it follows federal rules in Tennessee too, so it is the next thing to check once your hourly rates are set.