Georgia Minimum Wage 2026: $7.25/hr Calculator

The Georgia Minimum Wage Calculator is a free, browser-based tool that converts Georgia's 2026 minimum wage into weekly, monthly, and annual gross pay for hourly and tipped workers. Enter your rate, hours, and weeks worked to see full-time earnings — a 40-hour week at $7.25/hr equals $15,080 a year before taxes.

How Georgia Minimum Wage Compares to the Federal Rate

Georgia's 2026 minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is equal to the $7.25 federal minimum. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has not changed since 2009, and Georgia does not set a higher rate of its own.

At $7.25/hr working full-time (40 hours/week, 52 weeks/year), a Georgia worker earns $15,080.00 gross annually. That equals $290.00 per week and roughly $1,256.67 per month.

These figures are gross (before taxes). Your take-home pay will be lower after federal income tax, Social Security (6.2%), and Medicare (1.45%) deductions. Use our Georgia Income Tax Calculator for a net-pay estimate.

Last updated: October 2026. Rates sourced from the Georgia Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.

Tipped Workers in Georgia

The tipped minimum wage in Georgia is $2.13 per hour in 2026. Employers may pay tipped employees as little as $2.13/hr, but total compensation including tips must reach $7.25/hr. If tips fall short, the employer must make up the difference.

Tipped workers covered by Georgia law include restaurant servers, bartenders, valets, and other service workers who regularly receive tips. Always check your pay stub to ensure your employer is meeting the full minimum wage requirement.

Georgia's own tipped-wage rule sits inside a state law that is largely overridden in practice: because the state floor of $5.15/hr is below the federal $7.25/hr, any employer covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act must use the federal tipped-credit rules instead.

Why Georgia's State Rate Is $5.15 but Workers Get $7.25

Georgia sets its own statutory minimum wage at $5.15 per hour — a figure unchanged since 2001 and $2.10 below the federal floor. Where a state rate is lower than the federal rate, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) controls, so covered employees must be paid at least $7.25 per hour. The U.S. Department of Labor publishes the full state-by-state comparison at dol.gov.

The $5.15 figure is not purely academic. It still applies to the narrow set of employers who fall outside FLSA coverage — typically very small businesses with under $500,000 in annual sales that do not engage in interstate commerce. For the overwhelming majority of Georgia workers, $7.25/hr is the enforceable floor, which is why this calculator defaults to $7.25.

Overtime Pay at Georgia's Minimum Wage

Georgia has no separate state overtime statute, so the federal FLSA rule applies: non-exempt employees must receive 1.5× their regular rate for every hour over 40 in a workweek. At the $7.25 minimum, that is $10.88 per overtime hour. A worker putting in 50 hours in one week earns $290.00 for the first 40 hours plus $108.75 for the 10 overtime hours, for a weekly gross of $398.75.

Overtime is calculated per workweek, not per pay period — an employer cannot average a 50-hour week against a 30-hour week to avoid the premium. Tipped employees earn overtime on the full minimum wage, not on the $2.13 cash wage, so their overtime rate is also based on $7.25/hr before the tip credit is applied.

What $7.25 an Hour Is Worth After Taxes in Georgia

Full-time at the Georgia minimum you gross $15,080 a year. Three deductions decide what lands in the account:

• FICA — 7.65%, unavoidable from the first dollar: about $1,154 a year, or $22.19 a week.
• Georgia income tax — the state now uses a single flat rate that steps down each year under its 2022 tax law, and it applies only after the state standard deduction ($12,000 for a single filer). On $15,080 that leaves roughly $3,000 of taxable income, so state tax lands near $150 a year. Confirm the current rate with the Georgia Department of Revenue.
• Federal income tax — at this income the federal standard deduction wipes out most or all of it, and a worker with children may receive money back through the Earned Income Tax Credit rather than owe.

Realistically, expect around $13,700–$14,000 take-home for the year — roughly $265 a week. That is the number to compare against rent, not the $290 gross the calculator shows. Georgia's low state tax burden softens the blow of one of the country's lowest wage floors, but only slightly.

Georgia Wage Increase Schedule

Georgia does not index its minimum wage to inflation and has no scheduled increases on the books for 2026 or beyond. Any change would require the state legislature to amend the $5.15 statute, or Congress to raise the $7.25 federal floor — which has not moved since 24 July 2009, the longest gap without an increase since the FLSA was enacted in 1938. Georgia also has no local minimum wage: state law bars cities and counties from setting a higher rate of their own.

Employers must post the current Georgia minimum wage notice at their place of business. Violations can result in back-pay orders and civil penalties. Workers who believe they are being underpaid can file a complaint with the Georgia Department of Labor or the U.S. Department of Labor.

Bookmark this page — we update Georgia wage data each time the state announces a new rate, including CPI-indexed adjustments. Last updated: October 2026.

What to Do If You Are Paid Below Georgia Minimum Wage

If your pay stub works out below the federal floor the calculator uses, the gap is recoverable — and you do not need a lawyer to start. Work out the shortfall first: total pay for the week divided by hours actually worked, including any time spent opening up, closing down, or waiting on-site, which is compensable hours. Then keep your own record, because in a wage dispute the employer carries the burden of producing accurate time records, and your notes fill the gap when they cannot. Complaints go to the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division — Georgia has no state wage-claim agency of its own, so federal enforcement is the route — and the Wage and Hour Division complaint page explains what to bring. Filing is free, does not require immigration status disclosure, and retaliation for filing is itself unlawful.

Watch for the quiet ways a legal hourly rate turns into an illegal one: deductions for uniforms, till shortages or broken equipment that drag pay under the floor, and unpaid pre-shift setup time.