Texas Minimum Wage 2026: $7.25/hr Calculator

How Texas Minimum Wage Compares to the Federal Rate

Texas'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, meaning workers in states like Texas rely on state law for meaningful wage floors.

At $7.25/hr working full-time (40 hours/week, 52 weeks/year), a Texas 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 Texas income tax calculator for a net-pay estimate.

Last updated: May 2026. Rates sourced from the Texas Workforce Commission and the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.

Tipped Workers in Texas

The tipped minimum wage in Texas 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 Texas 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.

Texas Wage Increase Schedule

The 2026 minimum wage for Texas is $7.25/hr. Texas has no scheduled increase. The Texas Minimum Wage Act simply adopts the federal rate, so the Texas minimum wage changes only when Congress raises the federal floor — which last happened in July 2009. Texas also preempts local minimum wage ordinances: a city or county cannot set a higher wage floor for private employers the way Seattle or Denver can. The practical result is that $7.25 is likely to stay the Texas minimum until federal law changes.

Employers must post the current Texas 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 Texas Workforce Commission or the U.S. Department of Labor.

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

Overtime Rules for Texas Workers

Texas has no state overtime statute, so overtime is governed entirely by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act: 1.5× your regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. At $7.25 that is $10.88 per hour from hour 41 onward. Two points matter in Texas specifically. First, there is no daily overtime — a 12-hour day earns no premium unless the weekly total passes 40 hours. Second, Texas does not require meal or rest breaks for adult workers, but if a break under 20 minutes is given, federal rules say it must be paid. Salaried does not automatically mean exempt: an employee must meet both the duties test and the federal salary threshold to lose overtime rights.

Tip Credit: How to Check Your Employer Actually Owes You Nothing

The $2.13 tipped wage is not a separate minimum — it is a tip credit against the $7.25 floor. Federal law lets a Texas employer count up to $5.12 an hour of your tips toward the minimum, but the arithmetic has to work out every single workweek: cash wages plus tips must equal at least $7.25 for each hour you worked. Fall short and the employer owes the gap in cash, and that obligation is not optional or waivable. Worked example: 30 hours at $2.13 cash is $63.90, plus $120 in tips, is $183.90 for the week — an effective $6.13 an hour. The floor for 30 hours is $217.50, so the employer owes $33.60. Switch the calculator above to Tipped Worker: Yes and it now runs this test for you: the Effective Hourly Rate row shows your real per-hour figure including tips, and an Employer Top-Up Owed row appears whenever that figure lands under $7.25. Note the test is per workweek, not per shift and not averaged across a month, so one strong Saturday cannot paper over a dead Tuesday. The statutory basis is 29 U.S.C. § 203(m); the Department of Labor explains employer duties at dol.gov/whd/flsa/tips. Updated 2026-08-21.

How to Report Unpaid Wages in Texas

Texas splits enforcement in a way that trips people up. Unpaid or short wages go to the Texas Workforce Commission under the Texas Payday Law, and the filing deadline is tight — 180 days from the date the wages were due. Minimum wage and overtime violations under federal law go instead to the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, which allows two years (three for willful violations). Filing with the wrong agency wastes the clock, so if the dispute is about overtime or the federal floor, go federal; if it is about a paycheck your employer simply did not pay, go to the TWC. Keep pay stubs and your own hour log either way. Federal minimum wage and overtime rules are published by the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division. Updated 2026-08-03.

Does This Texas Minimum Wage Calculator Include Overtime?

Yes. Enter more than 40 hours a week and the calculator splits the week the way the law does: the first 40 hours at your rate, every hour beyond that at 1.5×. At the $7.25 Texas minimum, a 50-hour week is $290 regular plus $108.75 overtime — $398.75, not the $362.50 you get by multiplying 50 × $7.25. The Regular Hours Pay and Overtime Pay rows show the split so you can check a payslip line by line. Texas has no state overtime statute of its own, so the federal rule governs: overtime is owed on each workweek separately, it cannot be averaged across two weeks, and comp time in place of cash is not lawful for private-sector employees. 29 U.S.C. § 207.