MoCo Minimum Wage: Rates by Employer Size, Tiers, and Tipped Rules

The Montgomery County minimum wage is $17.65 per hour for large employers, $16.00 for mid-sized employers, and $15.50 for small employers as of July 1, 2025. Each tier is scheduled to go up again on July 1, 2026. The rate depends on how many people the employer has on payroll, and it applies to all work performed inside the county, no matter where the business is based.¹

Current Rates by Employer Size

Montgomery County Code Section 27-68 sorts employers into three tiers:

Large employers (51 or more workers): $17.65 per hour as of July 1, 2025, rising to $18.00 on July 1, 2026.
Mid-sized employers (11 to 50 workers): $16.00 per hour as of July 1, 2025, rising to $16.50 on July 1, 2026.
Small employers (10 or fewer workers): $15.50 per hour as of July 1, 2025, rising to $15.95 on July 1, 2026.

All three rates sit above Maryland’s statewide floor of $15.00 per hour.² After the small and mid-sized tiers finish catching up, their rates will eventually merge into the large employer figure, which adjusts annually for inflation.¹

How To Tell Which Tier Applies

The county counts the average number of employees per calendar week during the prior year, across every location the employer operates. Franchises and businesses under common ownership have their workforces combined into a single headcount, so a company cannot split itself across storefronts to land in a smaller tier.³

Nonprofits and Medicaid-Funded Home Health

Two kinds of larger organizations pay the mid-sized rate even when they have 51 or more workers: entities with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, and home health or community-based service providers that receive at least 75 percent of gross revenue through Medicaid. For these employers, headcount does not push them into the large employer tier.¹

Tipped Employees

For workers who regularly earn more than $30 per month in tips, the employer may take a tip credit. The employer must pay a direct cash wage of at least $4.00 per hour, and the worker’s tips have to bring total pay up to the full county minimum for that employer’s tier. If tips fall short in a pay period, the employer owes the difference.¹⁴

To take the credit at all, the employer must give the worker written or electronic notice of the arrangement. Without that notice, the credit disappears and the full hourly minimum is owed in cash.⁴

Workers Under 20

Two separate rules apply to younger workers, and they do different things.

The opportunity wage lets any employer pay a worker under age 20 at 85 percent of the applicable county minimum during that worker’s first six months on the job. When the worker reaches the six-month mark or turns 20, whichever comes first, the full county rate kicks in.³

A separate exclusion removes workers under age 19 from the county minimum entirely if they work no more than 20 hours per week. These workers get the Maryland state minimum of $15.00 per hour (or the federal minimum, whichever is higher) instead.³²

Hire dates and birthdays are the triggers that end both carve-outs. Missing the switch-over date is a common way employers end up underpaying young workers.

Workers the County Rate Doesn’t Reach

The county minimum wage does not cover anyone already exempt from minimum wage under Maryland law or the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. That mainly includes bona fide executive, administrative, and professional employees who meet both a salary test and a duties test, along with certain computer professionals and outside salespeople.⁵

A job title is not what makes someone exempt. An “assistant manager” who spends most shifts stocking shelves is probably not exempt. Misclassifying a worker as exempt when the duties don’t match is functionally the same as failing to pay minimum wage.

Independent contractors also fall outside minimum wage coverage. Maryland uses an economic reality test that asks whether the worker is economically dependent on the employer. A written agreement labeling someone a contractor does not settle the question; the actual day-to-day relationship controls.⁶

If You’re Being Underpaid

You can file a wage claim with the Maryland Department of Labor’s Employment Standards Service using the agency’s downloadable Wage Claim Form. The claim needs your employer’s contact information and a calculation of the gap between what you were paid and what you were owed.⁷

Gather pay stubs, time logs, scheduling-app screenshots, and any written communications about your rate before you file. Documentation shortens the investigation and strengthens your position.

Deadlines are firm. An administrative complaint to the Employment Standards Service must be received within two years of the date wages became due. A lawsuit in court has a three-year statute of limitations.⁷ Under federal law, a successful claim can recover the unpaid wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, along with attorney’s fees and court costs.⁸

Retaliation Is Prohibited

Section 27-68 bars an employer from firing you, cutting your hours, changing your schedule, or taking any other adverse action because you reported a wage violation, filed a complaint, or cooperated with an investigation.³ Employers are also required to post the Montgomery County Minimum Wage notice, available in English and Spanish from the Office of Human Rights, in a spot employees can see.

1
Montgomery County, Maryland. Minimum Wage Increase – Office of Human Rights
2
Maryland Department of Labor. Maryland Minimum Wage and Overtime Law
3
Montgomery County Code. Montgomery County Code Chapter 27 – Human Rights and Civil Liberties
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 15 – Tipped Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17A – Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
6
Maryland Department of Labor. Employee or Independent Contractor
7
Maryland Department of Labor. Wage Claim Form
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Back Pay