Kentucky Minimum Wage 2026: $7.25 an Hour, Tied to the Federal Rate

Kentucky’s minimum wage is $7.25 an hour in 2026, the same as the federal rate [1][7]. It has been $7.25 since July 1, 2009. Kentucky law doesn’t schedule any raise of its own. Instead, if Congress raises the federal minimum, the Kentucky rate goes up to match, on the same day [1].

How the rate is set

Kentucky’s statute set three steps in 2007, 2008 and 2009, ending at $7.25 [1]. Since then, the law works like a floor tied to Washington. If the federal minimum in 29 U.S.C. § 206 rises above Kentucky’s rate, Kentucky’s rate rises to the same amount on the same date [1].

That link only covers the federal rate. Kentucky’s statute says a federal increase doesn’t bring along federal exceptions or widen who Kentucky’s law covers [1].

Tipped workers

A tipped employee in Kentucky is someone who customarily and regularly gets more than $30 a month in tips [1]. Employers can pay these workers the federal tipped cash wage, which is $2.13 an hour, and count up to $5.12 an hour of tips toward the minimum [1][3].

The employer has to prove it. For every week it takes the tip credit, its records must show that cash wages plus tips reached at least the minimum [1].

Two more rules protect tips:

• An employer can’t make you hand over any part of your tips, except amounts withheld under federal or state law [4].
• A tip pool can include tipped employees, but not salaried employees, managers or supervisors [4].

Who isn’t covered

For the minimum wage, Kentucky’s law leaves out several groups of workers. Among them [2]:

• people employed in agriculture,
• bona fide executive, administrative, supervisory and professional employees, outside salespeople and outside collectors,
• federal employees,
• domestic workers in a private home, unless the home regularly employs more than one,
• employees of retail stores, service businesses, hotels, motels and restaurants with average yearly gross sales under $95,000 over the past five years, and members of the employer’s immediate family,
• babysitters in the employer’s home, and companions for a sick, recovering or elderly person whose main duties aren’t housekeeping,
• people delivering newspapers to consumers.

The state can also certify learners, apprentices, workers with disabilities, sheltered workshop employees and students for pay below the minimum, for a set time [2].

If you’re paid less than you’re owed

You have two main routes in state law.

1. File a complaint with the state. Kentucky’s Division of Wages and Hours, in the Department of Workplace Standards, takes employment complaints through an online form [6]. The form lets you ask that your name not be used in the investigation, and it offers a paper complaint instead [6].

At your written request, the state’s commissioner can also take over your wage claim and sue the employer for you. The employer then pays the costs and attorney fees the court allows [5].

2. Sue your employer. Kentucky law lets workers go to court directly. An employer that paid less than the law requires owes [5]:

• the full unpaid wages and overtime,
• an equal amount on top as liquidated damages ,
• court costs and reasonable attorney fees.

A judge can lower or skip the extra damages if the employer shows it acted in good faith with reasonable grounds [5]. An agreement to work for less than the minimum is no defense [5]. Actions under this chapter that don’t have their own deadline must be filed within three years [5].

Other states

Comparing Kentucky with its neighbors? See the minimum wage in every state on BestAmerica.