If a Minnesota employer has not paid you all the wages you earned, the law often gives you more than the shortfall. What you can recover depends on which statute your claim arises under, and that is the first question worth answering.
Report it to the labor standards office of the city where you performed the work. In Minneapolis that is the Labor Standards Enforcement Division of the Department of Civil Rights. In Saint Paul it is the Labor Standards Division of the Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity, known as HREEO.
The rate follows the work. For the hours you perform inside Minneapolis the Minneapolis rate applies, for hours inside Saint Paul the applicable Saint Paul rate, and for hours elsewhere in Minnesota the general state rate. In each case what you are owed is the highest wage floor applicable to that work at that location, since an industry-specific standard can require more than any of them.
Four separate youth and training wage rules apply across Minnesota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul during 2026. They differ on age, on duration, on the rate and on whether a formal program is required.
Under Minnesota law your tips are your property, not your employer’s. An employer that keeps them, requires you to share them, or makes an unauthorized deduction from them is taking money that the statute assigns to you.
Minnesota allows no tip credit, treats gratuities as the sole property of the employee who receives them, and requires that tips paid by card reach the employee in full. Those three rules are more protective than federal law on these points. What follows is what each one actually permits and prohibits.
