Tennessee Minimum Wage 2026
Figure basis: Official US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour DivisionTennessee has no state minimum wage law, so the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour applies to most Tennessee workers. This Tennessee 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 Tennessee 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 US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division; the pay calculation is simply hours times the rate.
Tennessee'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 Tennessee 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 Tennessee income tax, Social Security and Medicare. Your take-home pay is lower; see our Tennessee paycheck calculator for the after-tax amount.
Why Tennessee has no number of its own
Tennessee is one of five states that has never enacted a minimum wage law, so the federal Fair Labor Standards Act sets the floor at $7.25 an hour for most workers. The absence is deliberate rather than accidental: proposals to create a state minimum have surfaced repeatedly in Nashville and stalled, and a state law separately blocks cities and counties from setting their own wage. That preemption is why Memphis and Nashville, despite very different living costs, cannot lift the floor the way many large cities elsewhere have.
With the federal rate in charge, the tipped rules follow suit. A tipped worker can be paid $2.13 in cash while the employer claims up to a $5.12 tip credit, provided tips bring the hourly total to $7.25; if they do not, the employer must make up the gap. A worker crossing in from Kentucky or Georgia will meet the same $7.25, so in practice the regional labor market, not any Tennessee statute, decides what a job pays.
The figure to keep in perspective is time. The federal $7.25 has not risen since 2009, so its buying power has fallen sharply, and many Tennessee employers now advertise well above it simply to hire. That gap between the legal minimum and the real market rate is the heart of the story here. When you use the calculator, plug in the wage you are actually offered rather than $7.25 to get weekly and annual figures that reflect today's market.
Tennessee minimum wage: frequently asked questions
What is the minimum wage in Tennessee in 2026?
Tennessee has no state minimum wage law, so the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour applies to most Tennessee workers. 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 Tennessee per year?
At Tennessee'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 Tennessee's minimum wage going up?
Tennessee 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 US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division.
What is the tipped minimum wage in Tennessee?
Tennessee 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 Tennessee tipped minimum wage calculator for the full breakdown.
Is Tennessee's minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage?
No. The rate that applies in Tennessee 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
- Tennessee 2026 minimum wage rate: US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, 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. Tennessee has no state minimum wage law; the federal FLSA rate of $7.25 (tipped $2.13) applies. Local minimums: state law bars Tennessee cities and counties from setting a local minimum wage, so the federal $7.25 applies statewide.