Florida Minimum Wage Laws: Rates, Exemptions, and Remedies

Florida’s minimum wage is $14.00 per hour from September 30, 2025 through September 29, 2026, and rises to $15.00 per hour on September 30, 2026.¹ That rate applies to nearly every hourly worker in the state. Because Florida’s wage is almost double the federal $7.25, the state figure is the one that actually governs your paycheck.² Tipped workers, teenagers in their first weeks on the job, full-time students, and certain salaried professionals have different rules.

The Current Rate and the 2026 Increase

The $14.00 hourly rate took effect on September 30, 2025 and holds for a full year.³ On September 30, 2026, it steps up one more dollar to $15.00. That is the final increase in a schedule Florida voters wrote into the state constitution in November 2020, which raised the wage by $1.00 each September 30 until reaching $15.00.

The rate covers all hours worked for non-exempt employees, with no carve-out for small employers or particular industries. Eligibility tracks the federal Fair Labor Standards Act: if the FLSA covers you, so does Florida’s rate; if a federal exemption applies to you, Florida treats you as exempt too.⁴

What Happens After September 2026

Once the wage hits $15.00, the fixed-dollar schedule is finished. Starting September 30, 2027, the state must recalculate the minimum wage every year by adjusting the previous rate for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for the twelve months ending the preceding September 1.¹ Each inflation-adjusted figure takes effect the following January 1, meaning the first CPI-based wage will land on January 1, 2028. The Department of Commerce has to post the new rate on its website by October 15 each year.⁴

Tipped Workers

If you regularly earn more than $30 a month in tips, your employer can pay a lower direct cash wage and count part of your tips toward the minimum.⁵ Florida’s tip credit is permanently fixed at $3.02 per hour because the state constitution pegged it to the federal tip credit in effect in 2003.¹

So the direct cash wage for tipped employees is $10.98 per hour right now.³ When the general wage goes to $15.00 on September 30, 2026, the tipped cash wage rises to $11.98. In any workweek where your tips plus your direct wage don’t reach the full $14.00 (or $15.00) per hour, your employer has to make up the difference.

Before applying the tip credit, your employer must tell you the direct cash wage being paid, the amount being claimed as a tip credit, that the credit can never exceed the tips you actually receive, and that you keep all your tips except through a valid tip pool. The notice can be oral or written, but if the employer skips it, the tip credit is lost and the full minimum wage is owed as a direct cash wage.⁵ Managers and supervisors are flatly prohibited from taking any share of a tip pool.⁶

Workers Who Can Be Paid Less or Nothing at All

Florida adopts the FLSA’s exemptions wholesale.⁴ The categories that come up most often:

New Hires Under 20

Workers under 20 can be paid $4.25 per hour during their first 90 consecutive calendar days with an employer.⁷ The clock starts on the first actual day of work and runs continuously, including days off. On day 91, or the day the employee turns 20, the full minimum wage kicks in.

Full-Time Students

Full-time students working in retail, service, agriculture, or at a college or university can be paid 85% of the minimum wage, but only if the employer first obtains a certificate from the U.S. Department of Labor.⁸ At $14.00, 85% is $11.90 per hour; at $15.00, it becomes $12.75. The certificate also limits the student to 20 hours a week during school and 40 during breaks.

Salaried Executive, Administrative, and Professional Employees

Salaried white-collar workers are exempt from minimum wage and overtime if they perform the duties their exemption category requires and earn at least $684 per week on a salary basis.⁹ The Department of Labor tried to raise that threshold in 2024, but a federal court in Texas struck down the increase, so the 2019 figure of $684 per week still controls. A separate highly-compensated-employee exemption applies at $107,432 per year; the 2024 attempt to raise that figure to $151,164 was vacated by the same decision.

Computer Professionals

Systems analysts, programmers, and software engineers can be exempt if they meet the duties test and are paid either $684 per week on salary or at least $27.63 per hour.¹⁰ The duties have to involve designing, developing, testing, or modifying systems and software to technical specifications. General IT support and hardware repair typically don’t qualify.

Farmworkers at Smaller Operations

Agricultural workers are exempt from the minimum wage if their employer used fewer than 500 “man-days” of farm labor in any calendar quarter of the previous year.¹¹ A man-day is any day on which a worker performs at least one hour of farm labor. Operations that rely on seasonal crews can cross that threshold even with a small permanent staff.¹²

Overtime at the Florida Rate

Florida has no state overtime law. Time-and-a-half for hours over 40 in a workweek comes entirely from the federal FLSA. At the $14.00 minimum wage, overtime pays $21.00 per hour; once the wage reaches $15.00, overtime becomes $22.50. The same categories exempt from minimum wage are also exempt from overtime.

If You’re Being Paid Less Than the Minimum Wage

You cannot simply file a lawsuit. Florida requires a written pre-suit notice first, and skipping it can sink your case.

The 15-Day Written Notice

You have to send your employer a written notice that identifies the minimum wage you were entitled to, the actual or estimated dates and hours you worked, and the total unpaid wages owed through the date of the notice.⁴ The employer then has 15 calendar days to pay in full or otherwise resolve the claim to your satisfaction. The statute of limitations pauses during those 15 days, so you don’t burn deadline time by following the process.

What You Can Recover in Court

If the employer doesn’t resolve it, you can sue. A successful claim gets you the full unpaid wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, which effectively doubles what you’re owed, along with reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.⁴ If the employer proves it acted in good faith and genuinely believed it was complying, a judge has discretion to reduce or eliminate the liquidated damages. Punitive damages aren’t available under Florida’s minimum wage law.

A parallel federal claim under the FLSA offers its own unpaid wages, liquidated damages, and attorney’s fees.¹³ The federal statute of limitations is two years from the violation, or three years if the violation was willful.

You Can’t Be Fired for Complaining

Florida’s minimum wage statute protects employees who file wage complaints, inform others about potential violations, or help a coworker assert minimum wage rights.¹⁴ Federal law reinforces this by making it illegal to fire or otherwise discriminate against an employee for filing a wage complaint or participating in a wage proceeding.¹⁵ A retaliating employer can be ordered to reinstate the worker and pay lost wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages.¹³

1
FindLaw. Florida Constitution Art X, 24 – Florida Minimum Wage
2
U.S. Department of Labor. State Minimum Wage Laws
3
Florida Department of Commerce. 2025 Minimum Wage Poster
4
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 448.110 – State Minimum Wage; Annual Wage Adjustment; Enforcement
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 15 – Tipped Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 15B – Managers and Supervisors Under the Fair Labor Standards Act and Tips
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 32 – Youth Minimum Wage
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Fair Labor Standards Act Advisor – Full-Time Student Program
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 213 – Exemptions
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 12 – Agricultural Employment Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
12
eCFR. 29 CFR 780.305 – 500 Man-Day Provision
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties
14
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 448.109 – Notification of the State Minimum Wage
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 215 – Prohibited Acts