Illinois Minimum Wage 2026: $15.00/hr Calculator

The Illinois minimum wage is $15.00 per hour in 2026, and $9.00 per hour for tipped workers. This free calculator turns that rate — or any hourly rate you enter — into weekly, monthly and annual gross pay, so you can check a job offer or a pay stub in seconds. Chicago and Cook County set higher local rates.

How Illinois Minimum Wage Compares to the Federal Rate

Illinois's 2026 minimum wage of $15.00 per hour is $7.75 above the $7.25 federal minimum. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has not changed since 2009, meaning workers in states like Illinois rely on state law for meaningful wage floors.

At $15.00/hr working full-time (40 hours/week, 52 weeks/year), an Illinois worker earns $31,200.00 gross annually. That equals $600.00 per week and roughly $2,600.00 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 Illinois Income Tax Calculator for a net-pay estimate.

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

Tipped Workers in Illinois

The tipped minimum wage in Illinois is $9.00 per hour in 2026. Employers may pay tipped employees as little as $9.00/hr, but total compensation including tips must reach $15.00/hr. If tips fall short, the employer must make up the difference.

Tipped workers covered by Illinois 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.

The $9.00 tipped rate is 60% of the $15.00 standard minimum, the split Illinois has kept since the state rate reached $15.00 on 1 January 2025.

Illinois Wage Increase Schedule

Illinois reached $15.00 an hour on 1 January 2025 — the last step of the phase-in written into the 2019 state minimum wage law, which raised the floor a dollar at a time from $8.25. That means there is no further statutory increase scheduled for 2026: the rate holds at $15.00 unless the General Assembly passes a new law. If you are budgeting or setting payroll for 2026, plan on $15.00 rather than waiting for an automatic bump, and check the Illinois Department of Labor for any mid-year change.

Employers must post the current Illinois 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 Illinois Department of Labor or the U.S. Department of Labor.

Bookmark this page — we update Illinois wage data each time the state announces a new rate, including CPI-indexed adjustments.

Illinois Youth Minimum Wage and the 650-Hour Rule

Illinois runs a separate, lower floor for workers under 18: $13.00 per hour in 2026, but only for the first 650 hours worked in a calendar year. Once a teenage employee crosses 650 hours, the employer must pay the full $15.00 rate for every hour after that, and the threshold resets each 1 January. This catches out both sides. A student working only over the summer rarely reaches 650 hours and stays at $13.00; a teenager working year-round part-time typically crosses it in autumn and is owed the adult rate from that hour onward. If you are under 18 and have averaged more than about 12.5 hours a week all year, total your hours before accepting $13.00, then enter $15.00 in the calculator above for the remainder of the year.

Overtime on the Illinois Minimum Wage

Illinois requires time-and-a-half after 40 hours in a workweek, so the overtime rate at the state minimum is $22.50 per hour ($15.00 × 1.5). Overtime is calculated on the regular rate you are actually paid, not on the statutory minimum, so a worker earning $17.00 is owed $25.50, not $22.50. Two details decide most disputes: the workweek is a fixed, recurring 168-hour period the employer defines in advance, and hours are never averaged across two weeks to avoid overtime. For tipped workers, overtime is computed on the full $15.00 minimum before the tip credit is applied rather than on the $9.00 cash wage, which is a common underpayment. The Illinois Department of Labor accepts wage-claim complaints directly.

What $15.00 an Hour Is Worth After Taxes in Illinois

Gross pay is not take-home pay, and the gap is predictable enough to plan around. On $31,200 a year at the Illinois minimum:

• FICA — 7.65% (6.2% Social Security + 1.45% Medicare) comes off every dollar: about $2,387 a year, or $45.90 a week.
• Illinois income tax — a flat 4.95% of net income, with no brackets, per the Illinois Department of Revenue. Before the personal exemption that is roughly $1,544 a year; the exemption trims it further.
• Federal income tax varies with filing status, dependants and credits — a single filer with no dependants pays a modest amount at this income, while a parent claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit can owe nothing and receive a refund.

Rule of thumb: expect roughly $26,000–$28,000 take-home on a full-time Illinois minimum-wage job, or about $500–$540 a week. For a figure built from your own filing status, run the numbers through our Illinois income tax calculator rather than assuming the flat 4.95% is the whole story.

Paid Less Than the Illinois Minimum? How to Check and What to Do

Most people run a minimum wage calculator because a pay stub looks wrong. Work through it in this order before you raise it with anyone:

1. Establish which rate you are owed. The floor is $15.00 statewide, $9.00 cash wage for tipped staff, and $13.00 for under-18s who have worked fewer than 650 hours this calendar year. If you work inside Chicago or a Cook County municipality that has not opted out, the local ordinance rate is higher and that is the one your employer must pay.
2. Divide, do not assume. Take gross pay for the period and divide by hours actually worked, including any time spent on required opening, closing, or training. If that figure is below the rate from step 1, you have a shortfall. Salaried staff should do the same division — a salary does not exempt you unless you also meet an exempt-duties test.
3. Check the tip-credit maths separately. A tipped worker is owed the $9.00 cash wage plus enough tips to reach $15.00 for every hour. If tips fall short in a slow week, the employer must make up the difference; the shortfall cannot be averaged across a good week.
4. Keep the records. Save pay stubs, schedules, and any timeclock exports before raising the issue. These are the evidence a claim is decided on.
5. File with the state. The Illinois Department of Labor's Fair Labor Standards Division enforces the Minimum Wage Law (820 ILCS 105) and takes complaints directly from workers — you do not need a lawyer to start, and filing is free. Details and the current published rates are on IDOL — Minimum Wage Law, and complaints are filed through IDOL — File a Workplace Complaint. Claims have a filing deadline, so check the current limit with IDOL rather than waiting.

Retaliation for asking about your wage rate or filing a complaint is prohibited under the same law. Rates verified against IDOL 2026-08-30.

Chicago and Cook County Pay More Than the Illinois Minimum

The $15.00 figure is the statewide floor, and it is not what many Illinois workers are legally owed. The City of Chicago and Cook County both run their own minimum wage ordinances that sit above the state rate and are adjusted every 1 July, so a job inside city limits pays more than the same job an hour away downstate. Where local and state rates conflict, the higher one applies. If you work in Chicago or in a Cook County municipality that has not opted out, check the current local rate with the city's or county's labor standards office before using the state number — the calculator above accepts any hourly rate, so enter your local minimum to get accurate weekly, monthly and annual figures.