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Massachusetts Minimum Wage: Rates, Tipped Pay, and Employer Rules
The Massachusetts minimum wage is $15.00 per hour and has not changed since January 1, 2023. Tipped employees must be paid a service rate of at least $6.75 per hour, with tips bringing their total to $15.00. Agricultural workers have a separate rate of $8.00.
No increase is scheduled for 2027. Massachusetts is one of the states where the rate sits still until the legislature or a ballot question moves it, which is why the number has held for three years running.
Key Takeaways from this Article
- The Massachusetts minimum wage is $15.00 per hour, unchanged since January 1, 2023.
- There is no scheduled increase for 2027. Massachusetts has no automatic inflation adjustment, so the rate holds until new legislation passes.
- Tipped employees get a service rate of $6.75 per hour, and the employer covers any shortfall at the end of each shift, not the pay period.
- Agricultural workers are subject to a separate rate of $8.00 per hour.
- Penalties include treble damages, meaning three times the unpaid wages, so getting the tipped math wrong is expensive.
What is the Minimum Wage in Massachusetts?
$15.00 per hour. That rate took effect on January 1, 2023 as the final step of a phased schedule enacted in 2018, and it has not moved since.
Massachusetts has no automatic adjustment tied to inflation or the Consumer Price Index. That makes it different from Maine, where the minimum wage adjusts every year with the cost of living. If you run payroll in both states, that distinction matters: one of your rates changes every January and the other does not.
Where state and federal law both apply, you pay whichever is higher. The federal minimum is $7.25, so Massachusetts employers pay the state rate.
| Category | Rate | In effect since |
| Standard minimum wage | $15.00 per hour | January 1, 2023 |
| Tipped service rate | $6.75 per hour | January 1, 2023 |
| Maximum tip credit | $8.25 per hour | January 1, 2023 |
| Agricultural minimum wage | $8.00 per hour | Ongoing |
| Federal minimum wage | $7.25 per hour | July 24, 2009 |
Will the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Change in 2027?
No. As things stand there is no scheduled increase for 2027, and the rate will stay at $15.00 unless the legislature passes something new.
This is the part that catches people out every January. In states with indexed minimum wages, employers get used to checking a new number each year and updating payroll before the first run. Massachusetts doesn't work that way, so the useful answer to "what's the 2027 rate" is the same as the 2026 rate, the 2025 rate, and the 2024 rate.
There is a live proposal. Senate Bill S.1349 would raise the minimum wage in steps from $15.00 to $20.00 per hour by 2029, add annual inflation adjustments, and raise the tipped rate alongside it. It has not passed, and a bill that has not passed changes nothing about what you owe your staff in January. If it does move, the phase-in would give employers notice rather than landing overnight.
What's worth your attention instead is whether your pay rates still sit comfortably above $15.00. In a market where the floor hasn't moved in three years, competitors raise wages on their own schedule, and a rate that was generous in 2023 may now be at the bottom of what people will accept.
Who Does the Standard Rate Apply To?
Almost everyone. The $15.00 rate covers most non-exempt employees in Massachusetts, full time or part time, and employer size is irrelevant. One employee or two hundred, revenue of $50,000 or $50 million, the floor is the same.
Agricultural Workers
Agricultural employees fall under a separate rate of $8.00 per hour. The separate rate does not apply to children aged 17 or under, or to an employer's immediate family such as a spouse, parent, or child.
How Does the Massachusetts Tipped Minimum Wage Work?
You can pay tipped staff a reduced cash wage, the service rate, as long as the service rate plus their tips reaches $15.00 per hour.
The service rate is $6.75, which means a maximum tip credit of $8.25. The part that trips employers up is the timing. If an employee's tips don't get them to $15.00, you owe the difference, and you owe it at the end of that shift, not at the end of the week and not at the end of the pay period. A server who has a quiet Tuesday can't be made whole by a busy Saturday.
You also have to tell tipped employees in writing about the tip credit before you apply the reduced rate. That usually happens during onboarding, and it's worth confirming it actually made it into your paperwork rather than assuming.
Who Counts as a Tipped Employee?
Someone who customarily and regularly receives more than $20 per month in tips. That typically means servers, bartenders, hotel and hospitality staff, tipped delivery drivers, valets and parking attendants, and banquet or catering staff. An employee who occasionally gets a tip does not qualify for the service rate.
Tip pooling is allowed among employees who directly serve customers, such as wait staff and service bartenders. Employers, managers, and back-of-house staff including kitchen workers and dishwashers cannot be in the pool. Tips belong to the people who earn them, and an employer may not keep any part of them. Our guide to the FICA tip credit covers the tax side.
Service charges are a separate thing from tips. A mandatory service charge added to a bill may only go to wait staff, service bartenders, or service employees, and your receipts have to make clear whether an amount is a service charge going to staff or a fee the business keeps.
What Are the Employer Compliance Requirements?
Knowing the rate is the easy part. Three obligations sit on top of it.
Records. Keep payroll records for every employee: names and addresses, daily and weekly hours, wage rates, total wages each period, deductions, and tips received. Massachusetts requires these for at least three years.
Posting. Display the official minimum wage poster where employees can see it. Posters are available here. Missing the notice can bring citations on its own.
Per-shift tipped math. Calculate tipped obligations shift by shift, and pay any shortfall before the employee leaves.
The penalty structure is what makes this worth getting right. Massachusetts allows treble damages, three times the unpaid wages, plus back pay and civil penalties. A small ongoing error across a few tipped staff compounds into a real number faster than most employers expect.
FAQs: Massachusetts Minimum Wage
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$15.00 per hour. The rate has been unchanged since January 1, 2023. Tipped employees have a service rate of $6.75 per hour, and agricultural workers a separate rate of $8.00 per hour.
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No. There is no scheduled increase for 2027, and the rate stays at $15.00 per hour unless new legislation passes. Massachusetts has no automatic inflation adjustment, so the rate does not change on its own each January the way it does in states like Maine.
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It does not adjust automatically. Massachusetts has no inflation or cost-of-living indexing, so any change requires the legislature or a statewide ballot question. The last round of increases was phased in from 2018 through 2023, and the rate has not moved since.
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Senate Bill S.1349 would raise the minimum wage from $15.00 to $20.00 per hour by 2029, add annual inflation adjustments, and increase the tipped rate as well. It has not been passed into law, so it does not affect what you owe employees today.
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$6.75 per hour, which is the service rate. Tips have to bring the employee to at least $15.00 per hour, and if they don't, the employer pays the difference at the end of that shift rather than at the end of the pay period. The maximum tip credit is $8.25 per hour.
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Common exemptions include executive, administrative, and professional employees who meet both a salary and a duties test, outside sales employees, members of religious orders, certain learners and apprentices, and properly classified independent contractors. Agricultural workers are not exempt but are paid a separate $8.00 rate. Massachusetts applies strict standards to exempt classification, and getting it wrong brings back wages and penalties.
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Three years, covering names and addresses, daily and weekly hours, wage rates, total wages per period, deductions, and tips received for tipped staff.
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Through the Massachusetts Attorney General's Fair Labor Division, online at mass.gov, by phone at (617) 727-3465, or in person at the Attorney General's Office in Boston. State law prohibits retaliation against employees who file wage complaints or take part in investigations.
What to Check Before January
A rate that doesn't change creates its own trap. Nothing prompts you to look at it, so nobody does.
Two things worth a few minutes before year end. First, whether anyone on your payroll has drifted to exactly $15.00 through a long stretch without a review, because a floor that held for three years isn't a competitive wage any more. Second, whether your tipped shortfall is actually being calculated per shift. That one is the most common Massachusetts wage finding we see, and it's usually a payroll configuration issue rather than anyone deciding to underpay.
Our local Maine team runs payroll across Massachusetts and the rest of New England, including the per-shift tipped calculation and the records that go with it. If you're not certain how your tipped staff are being topped up, that's a reasonable thing to have checked while it's cheap to fix.
Written: June 2026
Updated: November 2026
Written by: Chris Cluff
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