$15 Minimum Wage in Missouri: Who’s Covered, Tipped Pay, and Exemptions

The Missouri minimum wage is $15.00 per hour as of January 1, 2026, the final step of the increase voters approved through Proposition A in November 2024.¹ It applies to most private-sector workers whose employer has annual gross sales of at least $500,000. Tipped employees have their own rules, and a handful of job categories are exempt.

Who the $15.00 Rate Covers

Coverage turns on your employer, not on how many hours you work. If a private business has annual gross sales or business volume of $500,000 or more, its employees are entitled to the $15.00 rate whether they work full-time, part-time, or temporarily.²

Retail and service businesses below the $500,000 threshold are not required to pay the state minimum wage.² Government entities, political subdivisions, school districts, and educational institutions are also outside the Proposition A increase; workers there may get raises through pay scales or union contracts, but the $15.00 floor doesn’t apply to them by law.³

When state and federal law both apply, you get whichever rate is higher. The federal minimum has been $7.25 per hour since 2009, so Missouri’s rate is the one that matters for covered jobs here.⁴

Tipped Workers: $7.50 Plus Tips, With a Catch

Employers can pay tipped employees a cash wage of $7.50 per hour, which is exactly half the $15.00 minimum, and count tips toward the rest. This is called the tip credit. The math has to work out every pay period: if your cash wage plus the tips you actually received comes to less than $15.00 per hour for any hours worked, your employer owes the difference.⁵

This is where wage shortfalls often happen. Slow shifts, bad weather, and empty lunch hours can leave tips short of what the credit assumes, and the employer is on the hook for the gap regardless of why business was slow.

Federal rules add protections on the tips themselves. Employers, managers, and supervisors cannot keep any portion of an employee’s tips, and managers cannot take money from a mandatory tip pool, though they may put their own tips into one.⁶

Jobs That Are Exempt

Missouri’s exemption list is narrower than many people assume. The statute doesn’t blanket-exempt farmworkers or household employees; it carves out specific arrangements.³ The main exempt categories:

Executive, administrative, and professional employees in bona fide managerial or professional roles, consistent with federal white-collar exemptions. The federal salary threshold for 2026 is $684 per week ($35,568 annually).
People working for educational, charitable, religious, or nonprofit organizations where no real employer-employee relationship exists or the work is voluntary.
Staff at a resident or day camp for children, or at an educational conference center run by a nonprofit, who work fewer than four months per year.
Students whose work at an educational institution substitutes for tuition, housing, or other fees.
People employed at a private residence on an occasional basis for six hours or fewer per occasion. Full-time housekeepers and live-in caregivers do not fit this exemption.
Commission-based workers whose earnings come wholly or partly from sales commissions and whose hours and work locations are not substantially controlled by the employer.
Casual workers such as golf caddies and newspaper carriers.
Employees of retail or service businesses with annual gross sales under $500,000.

Babysitters employed on a casual basis and incarcerated people working inside correctional facilities are also excluded.³ If your job doesn’t fit cleanly into one of these categories, the $15.00 floor applies.

Annual Adjustments Starting in 2027

Beginning January 1, 2027, the rate will adjust each year based on changes in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). If the cost of living rises, the minimum wage rises with it. If prices stay flat or fall, the rate holds or decreases to match.²

If You’re Being Underpaid

If your employer is paying you less than $15.00 per hour, or less than $7.50 plus enough tips to reach $15.00 for a tipped job, you can file a wage complaint with the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations through its Division of Labor Standards. You don’t need a lawyer to start.⁷

Federal law bars retaliation for reporting a wage violation. Under the FLSA, your employer cannot fire you, demote you, cut your hours, or otherwise punish you for filing a complaint or raising the issue internally, and the protection extends to former employees.⁸

A successful federal wage claim can recover the full unpaid wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, which effectively doubles what you’re owed. In a private lawsuit, attorney’s fees and court costs are also recoverable.⁹ The deadline to file a federal claim is two years from the violation, or three years if the underpayment was willful.¹⁰ Keeping your own copies of pay stubs makes any later dispute easier to resolve.

One Note on Paid Sick Leave

Proposition A also created a mandatory paid sick time program that took effect May 1, 2025. The Missouri legislature ended that requirement through HB 567, effective August 28, 2025. Employers may continue offering paid sick time voluntarily, but it is no longer required by law.¹¹ The $15.00 minimum wage was not affected and remains in force.

1
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 290.502 – Minimum Wage Rate, Increase or Decrease, When
2
Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. Minimum Wage
3
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 290.500 – Definitions
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act
5
Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. Tipped Employees – What Amount Must an Employer Pay
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Tip Regulations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
7
Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. File a Wage Complaint
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 77A – Prohibiting Retaliation Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Back Pay
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 255 – Statute of Limitations
11
Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. When Do Employees Stop Earning Paid Sick Time Due to Passage of HB 567