NYC minimum wage in 2026

NYC minimum wage at a glance

2026 rate

$17.00an hour, all five boroughs

Tipped food service

$11.35cash wage, $5.65 tip credit

Effective

Jan 1, 2026NYS Department of Labor

Next change

None on Jan 1, 2027stays $17.00

New York City has no minimum wage ordinance of its own. The state sets rates by region, and the five boroughs share the top tier with Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties; the rest of the state is $16.00. The state table lists a single rate for that region, with no split by employer size, so a corner deli with two workers and a bank with 2,000 owe the same $17.00.

Who gets $17.00 and who does not

The rate follows the place the work is done. Staff at a Brooklyn warehouse get $17.00; staff at the same company's Albany office get $16.00. If someone splits time between the city and an upstate site, track hours by location so each hour is paid at least the rate for where it was worked.

Tipped work is narrower than many owners think. New York reserves the tip credit for hospitality employers. A restaurant can pay a server $11.35 an hour in cash as long as tips bring the server to at least $17.00 for every hour; if they fall short, the restaurant pays the difference. Other tipped categories have different rules, so a salon or car wash should not assume the $11.35 figure applies.

Overtime is 1.5 times the regular rate after 40 hours a week, which is $25.50 an hour at the minimum.

Why NYC stays at $17.00 in 2027

State law ties raises after 2026 to inflation, with an off-ramp that pauses the increase when certain economic tests are met. The off-ramp was triggered for January 1, 2027, so the NYC rate and the $11.35 food service cash wage both hold. Home care aides are the exception: their rate in the city's tier rises to $20.00. Albany could still rewrite the pause: the governor has floated a change to the off-ramp rule, and it had not passed when we checked in October 2026.

If you budget 2027 labor costs now, budget at $17.00, and recheck the New York State minimum wage page before January.

How NYC compares with nearby rates

Across the Hudson, New Jersey pays $15.92 for most employers in 2026 and moves to $16.48 on January 1, 2027, so the gap with the city narrows to $0.52. Connecticut is $16.94 and rises to $17.48 in 2027, which will put it above NYC. Pennsylvania still uses the federal $7.25. Upstate New York, at $16.00, is $1.00 below the city.

For the national picture, see the 2026 minimum wage by state and the $7.25 federal floor. Among big cities, Seattle and Los Angeles set their own higher rates by ordinance.

What a $17.00 worker costs an NYC employer

At 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, $17.00 is $680 a week, $2,946.67 a month and $35,360 a year. A new employer then pays:

• Social Security and Medicare (FICA): 7.65% of $35,360 = $2,705.04.
• Federal unemployment (FUTA): 0.6% of the first $7,000 = $42.00.
• New York unemployment: 4.1% new employer rate (4.025% UI plus 0.075% Re-employment Service Fund) on the first $17,600 = $721.60.

That is $3,468.64 on top of wages, or $38,828.64 a year. Two more costs sit outside that total: workers comp premiums, and the employer share of disability benefits insurance (the worker's share is 0.5% of pay, capped at $0.60 a week, and your insurer bills you for the rest). Paid Family Leave is an employee deduction of 0.432%, capped at $411.91 for 2026.

City residents also have New York City income tax withheld from pay; that is the employee's tax, but your payroll has to calculate it. The NYC and Yonkers withholding guide covers the tables, and the New York payroll tax guide covers registration.

Running NYC payroll without mistakes

The errors that cost money here are mixing up regional rates for staff who work in more than one place, taking a tip credit outside hospitality, and forgetting city income tax for resident employees. Payroll software that stores a work location per employee and handles NYC withholding takes care of most of that. Gusto's Simple plan is $49 a month and $6 for each person paid (checked October 16, 2026); compare it with others in the best payroll software for small businesses, and see the totals for real team sizes in what payroll costs.

To test a different wage or hours, use the employee cost calculator.