Georgia Minimum Wage 2026
Figure basis: Official Georgia Department of LaborGeorgia's own minimum wage is $5.15 per hour, but because that is below the federal minimum, most Georgia workers are covered by the federal rate of $7.25 per hour. This Georgia minimum wage calculator turns that hourly rate into the numbers that actually matter to you: weekly, monthly and yearly pay. At $7.25 an hour, someone working a full 40-hour week earns about $290.00 before tax, or roughly $15,080.00 across a full year. Enter your own hours per week and weeks worked to see your gross pay, and edit the rate if you are paid above the minimum. The minimum wage is a floor, not a ceiling: employers can pay more, and some cities in Georgia set their own higher local minimums. Tipped workers can be paid a lower cash wage as long as tips bring them up to the minimum; see the tipped calculator for that. The figure here is the state rate for 2026, sourced directly from the Georgia Department of Labor; the pay calculation is simply hours times the rate.
Georgia's 2026 minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Full time (40 hrs/week) that is about $290.00 a week and $15,080.00 a year before tax.
How Georgia minimum wage pay is calculated
weekly pay = hourly rate x hours per week
annual pay = hourly rate x hours per week x weeks per year
overtime = hourly rate x 1.5 (hours over 40 in a week, FLSA)
These are gross figures before federal and Georgia income tax, Social Security and Medicare. Your take-home pay is lower; see our Georgia paycheck calculator for the after-tax amount.
Why Georgia's $5.15 minimum rarely binds a paycheck
Georgia is one of just two states, along with Wyoming, that still keeps a statutory minimum wage below the federal floor. The state figure, set at $5.15 an hour under O.C.G.A. 34-4-3, has not moved in decades, yet it rarely governs anyone's paycheck. Georgia's own law reaches only employers of 6 or more employees, and it expressly excludes any job already covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act whenever the federal rate is higher. Because almost every business of any size is FLSA-covered, the number that actually binds is the federal $7.25, unchanged since July 24, 2009.
That leaves the $5.15 rate applying to only a narrow slice of workers: those at small, purely local employers who fall outside FLSA coverage. For everyone else the practical answer is $7.25 an hour, or about $15,080 a year at 40 hours a week across 52 weeks. It is a floor Georgia workers have watched stay flat for more than 16 years while the cost of living kept climbing.
Tipped work follows the federal rule as well. Georgia's wage law does not cover tipped employees, so employers use the FLSA tip credit: a cash wage of $2.13 an hour plus up to $5.12 in tips to reach $7.25. If tips fall short in any single week, the employer must make up the gap, a detail that is easy to overlook when a slow shift leaves tips thin.
Georgia minimum wage: frequently asked questions
What is the minimum wage in Georgia in 2026?
Georgia's own minimum wage is $5.15 per hour, but because that is below the federal minimum, most Georgia workers are covered by the federal rate of $7.25 per hour. At $7.25 an hour, a full-time worker (40 hours a week) earns about $290.00 a week and $15,080.00 a year before tax. This rate took effect on July 24, 2009.
How much is full-time minimum wage in Georgia per year?
At Georgia's $7.25 minimum wage, 40 hours a week for 52 weeks is 2,080 hours, which comes to about $15,080.00 a year ($1,256.67 a month) in gross pay before tax and deductions. Part-time hours scale down from there; use the calculator to enter your own hours.
Is Georgia's minimum wage going up?
Georgia does not automatically index its minimum wage to inflation, so it changes only when the law changes. The figure here is the 2026 rate verified with the Georgia Department of Labor.
What is the tipped minimum wage in Georgia?
Georgia lets employers pay tipped workers a lower cash wage of $2.13 an hour and count up to $5.12 of tips toward the minimum (a "tip credit"). If cash wage plus tips does not reach $7.25 an hour, the employer must make up the difference. See our Georgia tipped minimum wage calculator for the full breakdown.
Is Georgia's minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage?
No. The rate that applies in Georgia is the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. Where a state and the federal rate differ, workers are entitled to the higher of the two.
Official sources
- Georgia 2026 minimum wage rate: Georgia Department of Labor, as at July 11, 2026.
- Federal minimum wage ($7.25) and overtime rules: US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division.
Reviewed by the CalculatorHub team, edited by James Graham, 11 July 2026. See our methodology. General information, not legal or financial advice. Georgia's statutory state rate is $5.15/hr, below the federal minimum. Most Georgia workers are covered by the FLSA, so the effective floor is the federal $7.25; the $5.15 state rate only reaches workers exempt from the FLSA.