Kentucky Minimum Wage 2026: $7.25, Locked to the Federal Rate

Kentucky's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, unchanged since July 1, 2009. KRS 337.275 ties the state rate to the federal one, so it rises automatically only if the federal minimum does, and there is no inflation indexing or increase scheduled for 2027. Tipped employees can be paid $2.13 an hour when tips bring them to $7.25. Kentucky has no city or county minimum wages; the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down Louisville's in 2016.

Kentucky at a glance

How Kentucky sets its minimum wage

Kentucky writes its rate into statute rather than indexing it. KRS 337.275 set $5.85 from June 26, 2007, $6.55 from July 1, 2008 and $7.25 from July 1, 2009, the same steps as the federal minimum. It also ties Kentucky to future federal increases: if the federal minimum hourly wage in 29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1) goes above Kentucky's, the state rate rises to the same amount on the same date. Only the federal rate carries over, not the federal law's exclusions or conditions, so Kentucky's own coverage rules still decide who is owed it.

That makes Kentucky's minimum a two-way lock. There's no annual inflation adjustment, so the rate can't move unless Congress raises the federal minimum or the General Assembly amends the statute.

Tipped employees

An employee who customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips can be paid the federal tipped cash wage, $2.13 an hour. The U.S. Department of Labor's state tipped wage table lists Kentucky's maximum tip credit as $5.12. The employer has to show in its records that, for each week it takes the credit, tips plus wages reached the minimum wage. Employers can't keep any part of employees' tips toward the minimum wage, though employees may agree to split tips among themselves.

No local minimum wages

Louisville Metro passed its own minimum wage ordinance, and in October 2016 the Kentucky Supreme Court held it invalid (Kentucky Restaurant Ass'n v. Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government), finding that a city can't set a wage floor above the state's. $7.25 applies statewide.

Who isn't covered

KRS 337.010 leaves several groups out of the minimum wage sections, including:

• People employed in agriculture.
• Bona fide executive, administrative, supervisory and professional employees, outside salespeople and outside collectors.
• Domestic workers in a private home, unless more than one domestic worker is regularly employed there, and babysitters and companions in the employer's home.
• Employees of retail stores, service businesses, hotels, motels and restaurants whose average annual gross sales were under $95,000 for the five preceding years, and members of the employer's immediate family.
• Learners, apprentices, workers with disabilities and students employed under a certificate from the commissioner, at the rate the certificate sets.
• Newspaper delivery carriers.

A business outside Kentucky's coverage may still owe $7.25 under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, so check both before relying on an exemption.

What this means for hiring

$7.25 has been the floor since 2009, and it is a legal minimum, not a market rate for frontline work in most of Kentucky. What moves a Kentucky pay budget is competition for the same workers, not the statute. Two state rules do affect the cost of a shift: the paid 10-minute rest break every four hours and time and one-half on the seventh consecutive day of a workweek, both covered in our Kentucky labor laws guide. To see what a hire costs at the wage you actually pay, including payroll taxes, use the employee cost calculator. Kentucky doesn't require pay ranges in job postings, but putting the rate in the first line of the ad is what gets working candidates to apply.

Frequently asked questions

Part of Boostpoint’s minimum wage by state series.