New York Wage Orders: Minimum Wage, Hospitality Rules, and Penalties

New York wage orders are four industry-specific regulations issued by the state Department of Labor that set minimum pay, overtime, tip credits, and related workplace rules for different sectors. The four orders cover the Hospitality Industry (12 NYCRR Part 146), Miscellaneous Industries and Occupations (12 NYCRR Part 142), the Building Service Industry (12 NYCRR Part 141), and Farm Workers (12 NYCRR Part 190). Each carries the full force of law, and a violation triggers the same penalties as breaking the state Labor Law itself.

The reason for four orders rather than one is practical. Hotels, office buildings, farms, and retail stores operate under very different conditions, and a single set of rules would leave gaps. The state tailored the requirements to each sector.

2026 Minimum Wage by Region

Minimum wage in New York varies by geography, not by wage order. For 2026:

New York City: $17.00 per hour
Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties: $17.00 per hour
Rest of state: $16.00 per hour

These rates rose by $0.50 per year from 2024 through 2026 under a phase-in written into the Labor Law.¹ Beginning in 2027, annual increases will track the three-year moving average of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for the Northeast Region, with an off-ramp if economic or budget conditions deteriorate.² So 2026 is the last year with a fixed, predetermined increase.

Each wage order adopts these same regional rates as its baseline. The Miscellaneous Industries order (Part 142) and the Hospitality Industry order (Part 146) reference the statutory schedule directly.³ The Building Service order (Part 141) adds a per-unit pay structure for janitors in residential buildings, calculated as a weekly rate per apartment rather than a straight hourly wage.⁴ The Farm Workers order (Part 190) applies only to employers whose total cash payroll reached at least $3,000 in the previous calendar year.⁵

The federal minimum wage remains $7.25 per hour, but where both federal and state law apply, the higher rate controls, which makes the federal floor essentially irrelevant in New York.⁶

Which Wage Order Covers Your Workplace

Part 146 covers restaurants and hotels (including resort hotels and all-year hotels). Part 141 covers building service work in offices and residential buildings, including janitors, porters, doormen, and security. Part 190 covers farm labor at operations meeting the $3,000 payroll threshold. Part 142, the Miscellaneous order, is the catch-all: retail, car washes, nail and hair salons, warehouses, and any other work not swept into one of the other three orders.

The order matters because tip credits, spread-of-hours pay, call-in guarantees, and overtime thresholds differ between them. Two workers earning the same $17.00 hourly rate at different employers can end up with meaningfully different paychecks depending on which order governs.

Overtime

Most workers under all four orders earn overtime at one and one-half times their regular rate for every hour past 40 in a workweek. A workweek is any fixed 168-hour period and doesn’t have to begin on Monday.⁷ At the 2026 downstate minimum of $17.00, that’s $25.50 per overtime hour.

The regular rate isn’t just the base wage. It includes shift differentials, nondiscretionary bonuses, and other non-overtime compensation earned that week. Averaging hours across two workweeks to avoid overtime is not allowed.

Two exceptions matter. Janitors in residential buildings are excluded from the standard overtime rule under Part 141.⁸ Farm workers have a declining threshold under the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act: 60 hours in 2020, 56 in 2024, 52 for 2026, dropping further every two years until it reaches 40 hours in 2032.⁹

Salaried executive, administrative, and professional employees can be exempt from overtime entirely, but only if they meet both a duties test and a salary test. After a federal court struck down the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2024 attempt to raise the salary floor, the federal threshold reverted to $684 per week ($35,568 per year), with a highly compensated employee threshold of $107,432 annually.¹⁰ Paying someone above those numbers doesn’t automatically make them exempt. Their actual duties still have to fit.

Private-sector employers in New York cannot substitute compensatory time off for cash overtime. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act limits comp time to state and local government workers, so a private-sector comp time arrangement violates federal law even if the employee agrees to it.

Hospitality Industry Rules Under Part 146

Tip Credits

Only Part 146 authorizes tip credits. The Miscellaneous order contains none, so car washes, salons, and other Part 142 workplaces must pay the full cash minimum wage regardless of tips.

Within hospitality, the credit depends on classification. A “service employee” is a worker like a server who customarily receives tips. A “food service worker” includes delivery workers and counter servers. For 2026:¹¹

Service employees, NYC and downstate suburbs: $14.15 cash wage, $2.85 tip credit
Service employees, rest of state: $13.30 cash wage, $2.70 tip credit
Food service workers, NYC and downstate suburbs: $11.35 cash wage, $5.65 tip credit
Food service workers, rest of state: $10.70 cash wage, $5.30 tip credit

Cash wage plus tips must always equal or exceed the full minimum. If tips fall short in a given week, the employer makes up the difference. Employers taking a tip credit must keep detailed records showing that each employee’s combined cash wage and tips hit the minimum for every pay period.¹²

A mandatory “gratuity” added to a large-party check, a banquet fee, or a room service charge is not a tip under federal tax rules, even if the receipt labels it one. The IRS treats a payment as a tip only when the customer freely decides the amount, isn’t compelled to pay, and chooses who receives it.¹³ Mandatory service charges distributed to employees count as regular wages for withholding and reporting, not tip income.

Spread of Hours

When the gap between the start and end of your workday exceeds ten hours, Part 146 requires one extra hour of pay at the basic minimum wage. That gap is measured from the first minute you work to the last, including unpaid meal breaks and off-duty intervals in between.¹⁴ The rule applies to every employee in restaurants and all-year hotels regardless of how much they earn.¹⁵

The extra hour pays at the basic minimum wage, not the employee’s regular rate. So a downstate worker earning $25.00 per hour whose shift spans past ten hours gets one additional hour at $17.00 on top of regular pay for all hours worked.

Call-In Pay

Report for duty and Part 146 guarantees you at least three hours of pay for a single shift, six hours for two shifts totaling six hours or less, or eight hours for three shifts totaling eight hours or less. In each case the guarantee is capped at the number of hours in the regularly scheduled shift if that’s lower.¹⁶ Time actually worked pays at the employee’s regular or overtime rate; the remainder of the guaranteed period pays at the basic minimum wage with no tip credit subtracted.

Meal and Lodging Credits

Employers who provide meals or housing can reduce cash wages, but only within strict per-order caps. Under Part 146 for 2026, the meal credit for food service workers is $4.05 per meal in NYC and the downstate suburbs and $4.10 in the rest of the state. Service employees have caps of $4.75 downstate and $4.40 upstate. Non-service employees face caps of $5.80 and $5.50.¹²

Lodging credits under Part 146 vary by establishment type (restaurant, all-year hotel, or resort hotel), employee classification, and whether meals are also provided. In all-year hotels downstate, the 2026 hourly lodging credit ranges from $0.55 for food service workers to $0.90 for non-service employees. Resort hotels use higher daily and weekly rates because the employee lives on-site. The deduction is only legal if the employee actually receives and uses the meal or housing. Charging for meals a worker never eats is not a lawful credit.

Uniform Maintenance Pay

If the employer requires clothing that doesn’t pass as everyday street clothes, the employer must either launder it or pay a weekly maintenance allowance. The 2026 amounts under Part 146:

NYC and downstate suburbs: $21.10 (over 30 hours worked), $16.75 (20–30 hours), $10.10 (under 20 hours)
Rest of state: $19.85 (over 30 hours), $15.80 (20–30 hours), $9.55 (under 20 hours)

Uniform maintenance pay is separate from wages and cannot count toward the minimum wage.¹⁷ A standard polo with a company logo that someone would reasonably wear off the clock usually doesn’t trigger the obligation. The test is whether the item works as ordinary attire.

Miscellaneous Industries Rules Under Part 142

Part 142 imposes the same spread-of-hours obligation as hospitality: one extra hour at basic minimum wage when the workday spans more than ten hours, with no earnings cap on eligibility. Part 142 adds an identical requirement for split shifts.³

Call-in pay under Part 142 is simpler than under Part 146: at least four hours of pay at the basic minimum wage, or the number of hours in the regularly scheduled shift, whichever is less. Part 142 also carries its own meal credit schedule, published in the wage order itself, varying by region.

Wage Notices, Pay Stubs, and Pay Frequency

Labor Law Section 195 requires every employer to give each new hire a written wage notice before work begins. The notice must state the pay rate and how it’s calculated (hourly, salary, piece rate, commission), any allowances claimed for tips, meals, or lodging, the regular payday, and the employer’s legal name, address, and phone number. For non-exempt employees, the regular and overtime rates must appear separately. The notice must be provided in English and the employee’s primary language, and the signed acknowledgment kept for six years.¹⁸

Each paycheck must come with a detailed pay stub showing the dates covered, gross wages, all deductions, the pay rate and basis, any allowances claimed, and the employer’s name, address, and phone number. Failing to provide accurate pay stubs is a separate violation with its own penalty exposure.

Pay frequency depends on classification. Manual workers must be paid weekly, no later than seven calendar days after the end of the pay week (the Commissioner may authorize semi-monthly pay for some employers). Commission salespeople must be paid at least monthly. Clerical and other workers must be paid at least semi-monthly. Railroad workers have their own schedule.¹⁹ Paying a manual worker monthly when the law requires weekly pay is itself a violation, separate from whether the wages are correct.

Penalties When a Wage Order Is Violated

An employee who wins a wage claim can recover the underpaid wages plus liquidated damages of 100% of that amount, unless the employer proves a good-faith belief that it was paying correctly. For willful violations of the state’s pay equity provisions under Section 194, liquidated damages can reach 300% of the unpaid wages.²⁰ Courts also award reasonable attorney’s fees and prejudgment interest, so total exposure can run several multiples of the original underpayment.

The Department of Labor can impose civil penalties for violations of the Minimum Wage Act (Article 19) and the Payment of Wages provisions (Article 6). Penalties scale: up to $1,000 for a first violation, $500 to $2,000 for a second, and $2,000 to $3,000 for a third or subsequent violation. These are per-violation amounts, so underpaying ten workers produces ten separate penalties.²¹

Failing to provide the required written notice at hire exposes the employer to damages of $50 per workday the violation continues, capped at $5,000 per employee. Missing or defective pay stubs carry damages of $250 per workday, also capped at $5,000, plus costs and attorney’s fees.²⁰ These paperwork penalties frequently exceed the underlying wage claim, especially for employers who never handled the documents at all.

1
New York State Senate. New York Code LAB – Minimum Wage
2
New York State. New York State’s Minimum Wage
3
New York State Department of Labor. 12 NYCRR 142 – Minimum Wage Order for Miscellaneous Industries and Occupations
4
New York State Department of Labor. 12 NYCRR 141 – Minimum Wage Order for the Building Service Industry
5
New York State Department of Labor. 12 NYCRR 190 – Minimum Wage Order for Farm Workers
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act
7
New York State Department of Labor. Overtime Frequently Asked Questions
8
Legal Information Institute. New York Code 12 NYCRR 141-1.4 – Overtime Hourly Rate
9
New York State Department of Labor. Farm Laborers Wage Board
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemptions
11
New York State Department of Labor. Minimum Wage for Tipped Workers
12
New York State Department of Labor. 12 NYCRR Part 146 – Hospitality Industry Wage Order
13
Internal Revenue Service. Tips Versus Service Charges: How to Report
14
Legal Information Institute. New York Code 12 NYCRR 146-1.6 – Spread of Hours Greater Than 10 in Restaurants and All-Year Hotels
15
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. 12 NYCRR 146-1.6 – Spread of Hours Greater Than 10 in Restaurants and All-Year Hotels
16
Legal Information Institute. New York Code 12 NYCRR 146-1.5 – Call-In Pay
17
Legal Information Institute. New York Code 12 NYCRR 146-1.7 – Uniform Maintenance Pay
18
New York State Senate. New York Code LAB – Section 195
19
New York State Senate. New York Code LAB – Section 191
20
New York State Senate. New York Code LAB – Section 198
21
New York State Department of Labor. Guidelines – Civil Penalties for Labor Law Violations