What Is the Minimum Wage in Santa Fe, New Mexico?

The minimum wage in Santa Fe, New Mexico is $15.40 per hour as of March 1, 2026. That rate comes from the city’s Living Wage Ordinance and applies to every hour worked inside Santa Fe city limits, well above New Mexico’s $12.00 statewide minimum and the $7.25 federal floor.¹

The Rate and When It Changes

$15.40 took effect March 1, 2026. The previous rate was $15.00, set on March 1, 2025, and $14.60 before that in March 2024.¹

The number moves every March 1. The city ties the adjustment to changes in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for the Western Region, then announces the new figure in early February.² Recent annual bumps have run roughly 40 to 60 cents, but a low-inflation year could produce a smaller increase or none at all.

Which Employers Have to Pay It

The ordinance covers four categories of employers operating inside Santa Fe city limits:

Any business required to hold a City of Santa Fe business license or registration.
Companies performing services under a city contract (purchases of goods are excluded).
Businesses receiving more than $25,000 in city economic development assistance, including grants, subsidies, loan guarantees, or industrial revenue bonds.
Nonprofit organizations, with a narrow exception for those primarily funded through Medicaid waivers.

There is no small-business exemption. A two-person shop owes $15.40 the same as a two-hundred-person employer.¹

How Tipped Workers Are Paid

Santa Fe allows employers to count tips toward the $15.40 requirement. For workers who customarily earn more than $100 per month in tips or commissions, an employer can credit those tips against the living wage obligation.¹

The worker’s total pay still has to hit $15.40 per hour. If base wages plus tips come up short in a given period, the employer owes the difference. Tip pooling among workers is allowed, but employers cannot keep tips or redirect them for other purposes; all tips belong to the workers who earned them.

This differs sharply from the surrounding rules. New Mexico’s statewide tipped-employee base wage is just $3.00 per hour.³ Santa Fe County sets a separate $4.62 tipped base for unincorporated areas.² Inside city limits, your total hourly pay cannot drop below $15.40 regardless of how it’s structured.

Where the City Rate Applies

The living wage covers work performed within Santa Fe’s official city limits. If your workplace sits inside the boundary, the rate applies. If you’re in unincorporated Santa Fe County, the county’s own Living Wage Ordinance governs your pay instead. Both jurisdictions happen to share the $15.40 figure for non-tipped workers in 2026, but their tipped-worker rules diverge.²

Workers who move between locations are covered for the hours they spend inside the city. The ordinance requires payment of the living wage “for all hours worked within the Santa Fe city limits,” which reaches delivery drivers, contractors, and temporary staff who come into town for shifts even if their employer is based elsewhere.¹

How Santa Fe Compares to State and Federal Rates

When multiple minimum wage laws apply, the highest one wins. Federal law explicitly preserves local ordinances that set a higher floor than the national rate.⁴ The three figures:

Federal: $7.25 per hour, unchanged since 2009.⁵
New Mexico: $12.00 per hour.³
City of Santa Fe: $15.40 per hour.¹

An employer inside city limits cannot pay the state rate and call it compliant. The U.S. Department of Labor states that when an employee is covered by both state and federal minimum wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two.⁶ The same principle extends to local ordinances.

What to Do if You’re Underpaid

Workers paid less than $15.40 per hour for work inside city limits can file a complaint directly with the City of Santa Fe, which handles reports through its Constituent Services or Housing and Community Development Department. City staff investigate payroll records and work to recover back wages.

A federal complaint through the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is also an option, particularly if overtime or other Fair Labor Standards Act issues sit alongside the wage shortfall.⁷

Employers cannot fire, demote, or otherwise punish you for asserting your right to the living wage. Santa Fe County’s ordinance makes retaliation against a worker who files a claim, or who helps another worker do so, unlawful.⁸ Federal law adds its own layer: under the FLSA it is illegal to discharge or discriminate against any employee for filing a wage complaint, testifying, or preparing to do so, and most courts extend that protection to internal complaints made directly to an employer.⁹

If administrative channels don’t resolve the problem, the FLSA lets an employee sue to recover unpaid wages, an equal amount in liquidated damages, plus attorney’s fees and court costs. The limitations period is two years, or three for a willful violation.¹⁰ A private suit isn’t available if the Department of Labor has already sued for the same wages or if you’ve accepted back wages under Wage and Hour Division supervision.

1
City of Santa Fe. 2026 Living Wage Ordinance
2
Santa Fe County. Living Wage Ordinance
3
New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions. Minimum Wage Information
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 218 – Relation to Other Laws
5
U.S. Department of Labor. State Minimum Wage Laws
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act
7
U.S. Department of Labor. How to File a Complaint
8
Santa Fe County, NM. Santa Fe County Code 118 – Living Wage
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 77A – Prohibiting Retaliation Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Fair Labor Standards Act Advisor