California Minimum Wage by City (2026)

How local minimum wages work in California

California sets a statewide wage floor, and Labor Code section 1197 expressly lets cities and counties require more. When a local ordinance sets a higher minimum wage, it applies based on where you perform the work, and your employer must pay whichever rate, state or local, is highest. Some cities also set even higher industry rates, such as for hotel and airport workers.

Meal and rest break rules, overtime, and reporting-time pay are set by state law and are the same across California. If you want to check your overtime, try our California overtime calculator, or read our guide to unpaid wages and overtime.

Tips, and jobs with a higher minimum

California allows no tip credit. Your employer cannot count your tips toward the minimum wage. You must be paid the full minimum wage first, and your tips are yours on top of it. An employer that credits tips against the minimum is committing wage theft.

Some industries also have their own higher statewide minimums. Fast-food restaurant workers are at $20.00 an hour, and covered health-care workers are at $25.00 as of July 1, 2026, up from $24.00. Both are above every city rate in the table above, and both are set by statute rather than by a local ordinance. If you work in one of these fields, confirm the current figure with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (opens in a new tab).

You must be paid the minimum for every hour, not on average

This is where California and federal law split, and it is worth knowing because most explanations online describe the federal rule. Under federal law an employer can average: if your total pay for the week divided by your total hours clears the minimum wage, there is no violation, even if some of those hours were unpaid.

California rejects that. You must receive at least the minimum wage for each hour worked in the pay period, and a higher rate paid for some hours cannot be borrowed to cover hours paid at nothing. That rule comes from Armenta v. Osmose and was reaffirmed by the California Supreme Court in Oman v. Delta Air Lines.

It matters most if you are paid by the piece, by commission, or on any system that pays for output rather than time. Under Gonzalez v. Downtown LA Motors and Labor Code section 226.2, a piece-rate worker must be separately paid for nonproductive time— time under the employer’s control that is not the piece-rate task, such as waiting for parts, cleaning up, attending meetings, or travelling between jobs — and for rest breaks. Mechanics, salon workers, delivery drivers, farm workers, and installers are the common examples. If your pay stub shows only a piece or commission figure with no separate line for that time, that is the thing to look at.

Two extra payments the Wage Orders require

Split shifts. If your employer breaks your day into two shifts with an unpaid gap in between — a lunch rush and a dinner rush, a morning route and an evening one — you are owed an extra hour at the minimum wage for that day, on top of your hours. A shift that simply runs across midnight is not a split shift.

Reporting-time pay.If you report for a scheduled shift and are sent home early or given no work, you are generally owed half your scheduled day, and never less than two hours or more than four. It does not apply when the cause is outside the employer’s control, such as a utility failure or a threat to safety.

Frequently Asked Questions