- Date:
- Category: Wage and Hour
The Minneapolis minimum wage is $16.37 an hour during 2026 and increases to $17.02 on January 1, 2027.
Minneapolis has one general rate regardless of employer size or employee age, subject to a narrow exception for employees under 20 in city-approved training and apprenticeship programs. What decides whether you are owed it is where you physically perform the work.
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| The Rate | 2026 | From January 1, 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Minneapolis minimum wage, all employers | $16.37 an hour | $17.02 an hour |
| Applies regardless of employer size | Yes | Yes |
| General rule regardless of employee age | Yes, subject to the approved training and apprenticeship exception below | Yes, subject to the same exception |
Source: City of Minneapolis, municipal minimum wage. Verified September 5, 2026. This is the city ordinance floor. A higher wage standard under another law, such as the statewide nursing home wage standards effective September 10, 2026, governs where it applies.
The city states that the rate increases every January 1 to account for inflation, capped at five percent. Minneapolis moved to a single rate for employers of all sizes rather than running size tiers, which is a difference from Saint Paul that matters if you work in both cities.
Coverage Turns on Where You Work
The city puts this plainly: coverage depends on the physical location, in Minneapolis, of the employee while performing work.
That has a consequence worth spelling out. Your employer’s address is irrelevant. A company headquartered in Bloomington, Saint Cloud or another state owes the Minneapolis rate for the hours its employee works inside Minneapolis.
The threshold is low. Regardless of where an employer is located, the employer must pay at least the Minneapolis minimum wage rate, for time an employee performs work in the City of Minneapolis, to any employee who performs at least two hours of work in a calendar week within the city. For this rule the city defines a calendar week as running Monday to Sunday.
Part-time, seasonal and temporary employees are covered on the same terms, including employees jointly employed by more than one employer.
The 80-Hour Number Belongs to a Different Ordinance
This is a common source of confusion in Minneapolis labor standards and it is worth addressing directly.
Minneapolis has a separate Wage Theft Prevention Ordinance, effective January 1, 2020, which covers workers who perform at least 80 hours of work in a year within the city. That 80-hour figure is the coverage trigger for the wage theft ordinance and its notice requirements.
It is not the coverage trigger for the minimum wage. Minimum wage coverage runs on the two-hour calendar week rule described above. A worker who performs three hours of work in Minneapolis in a single week is owed the Minneapolis minimum wage for those hours even though they will never approach 80 hours in the city all year.
If you have been told you need 80 Minneapolis hours before the city minimum wage applies to you, that is the wrong ordinance. The Wage Theft Prevention Ordinance prohibits wage theft, sets pre-hire notice requirements that exceed state law, and creates a presumption of retaliation, for workers who reach 80 hours in the city in a year. It is enforced by the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights.
Tips Do Not Count Toward It
The city states that tips and gratuities do not affect the minimum wage owed to employees, and that no employer may directly or indirectly credit, apply or utilize gratuities toward payment of the minimum wage.
The city’s own illustration is a server averaging about $8 an hour in tips, and the answer is that the tips do not count toward what the employer must pay. State law reaches the same result under Minn. Stat. § 177.24, subd. 2, and the same section bars an employer from requiring employees to share their tips.
The One Age-Based Exception
Because the ordinance applies regardless of the employee’s age, there is no general youth or teen rate in Minneapolis. A 16-year-old working an ordinary job in the city is owed the full city minimum wage.
The single exception is narrow. For city-approved training and apprenticeship programs, the city requires employers to pay employees under the age of 20 not less than 85 percent of the minimum wage rate, rounded up to the nearest nickel, for the first 90 days of employment, after which the applicable minimum wage rate applies. The program itself has to be approved by the city, which means an employer cannot create the discount by calling ordinary onboarding a training program.
The state training wage and the two separate Saint Paul provisions work differently again and do not lower the Minneapolis rate for hours worked in the city.
How to Check Your Own Pay
Four steps settle most questions.
Confirm the worksite is inside the city. Municipal boundaries in the metro are not always intuitive, and addresses near the edge can be misjudged. The city points to the Hennepin County property map for address lookups and publishes a downloadable boundary map.
Separate your hours by location. Only the hours worked inside Minneapolis attract the city rate. If you split time between Minneapolis and elsewhere, each hour takes the rate of the place where it was performed, and the pay records should show the split.
Check the rate against the calendar year, not the pay period. The rate changes on January 1, so a pay period spanning the new year contains hours at two different rates.
Look at the effective rate, not the stated rate. Deductions for uniforms, equipment or supplies that push your pay below the minimum are separately restricted under state law, and a stated rate at the minimum with deductions beneath it can produce an unlawful result.
What Your Employer Has to Tell You
The city requires employers to display the Minneapolis labor standards poster in the workplace, in the languages needed by their employees, and states that the poster is available to download in 10 different languages.
The poster is not the only obligation. The city also requires it to be distributed to all new hires at the start of employment, together with wage theft notices and sick and safe time notices.
That bundle is useful to a worker for a practical reason. If you never received any of those documents when you started, that is worth noting when you raise a pay question, because the notice requirements are themselves part of what the city enforces.
For context on where the current rate came from, the city’s rate was $15.97 during 2025 and rose 40 cents to $16.37 for 2026. Minneapolis previously ran separate rates for large and small employers and moved to a single rate for employers of all sizes, which is why older guidance describing two Minneapolis figures is out of date.
Reporting a Violation, and Retaliation
The ordinance is enforced by the Labor Standards Enforcement Division of the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights, which can be reached through 311 or at (612) 673-3000, and which the city says will provide technical assistance or answer questions from anyone.
Retaliation for exercising or attempting to exercise rights under the Municipal Minimum Wage Ordinance is prohibited. The city identifies material changes in job duties or hours, formal disciplinary action such as documented warnings, and termination as conduct that may be considered retaliatory. State law backs this up independently: Minn. Stat. § 181.03, subd. 6 makes retaliation for asserting wage rights a separate violation, punishable by a civil penalty between $700 and $3,000 for each instance.
A city complaint is one route. A private wage claim is another, and the two are not mutually exclusive. Minnesota law establishes statewide wage floors, while Minneapolis imposes a separate city minimum wage for covered work. If another applicable standard is higher, the higher floor controls. Our page on unpaid wages in Minneapolis explains what a claim involves. The firm’s Minneapolis employment law page covers the other areas we handle in the city.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Minneapolis minimum wage in 2027?
Starting on January 1, 2027, the minimum wage in Minneapolis is $17.02 an hour. The rate is the same for every employer in the city regardless of size, and it rises each January 1 to account for inflation, capped at five percent.
My employer is based outside Minneapolis. Do I still get the city rate?
Yes, for the hours you work inside the city. The city states that regardless of where an employer is located, it must pay at least the Minneapolis rate for time an employee performs work in Minneapolis, to any employee performing at least two hours of work in a calendar week within the city.
Does the Minneapolis minimum wage apply to part-time and seasonal workers?
Yes. The city states that part-time, seasonal and temporary employees are covered on the same two-hour terms, including employees jointly employed by one or more employers.
Is there a lower Minneapolis rate for teenagers?
No general one. The ordinance applies regardless of the employee’s age. The only exception is for employees under 20 in a city-approved training or apprenticeship program, who must be paid at least 85 percent of the rate, rounded up to the nearest nickel, for the first 90 days.
What if I work partly in Minneapolis and partly outside it?
The city rate attaches to the hours performed inside Minneapolis. Hours worked elsewhere are governed by whatever rate applies at that location, which may be another city ordinance or the state rate.
This article provides general information about the Minneapolis Municipal Minimum Wage Ordinance and Minnesota law and is not legal advice. Rates change annually and this page is reviewed each January and September. Confirm current figures with the City of Minneapolis before relying on them.
