California Minimum Wage 2025: State, Local Rates & Employee Rights

California’s minimum wage rises to $16.50 per hour statewide in 2025, with even higher rates in many cities. Employees must receive the correct wage, and legal action is available for unpaid minimum wages.

By Brad Nakase, Attorney

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Have a quick question? I answered nearly 1500 FAQs.

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. How much is California’s minimum wage?
2. Is it acceptable for a California worker to accept a salary below the minimum wage?
3. Are the minimum wage rules subject to exceptions?
4. Are waiters and additional staff members who get tips subject to minimum wage regulations?
5. If my employer doesn’t pay me the minimum wage, what should I do?

Introduction

California’s minimum wage is currently $16.50 per hour starting from 1st January 2025.

In California, employers are not allowed to pay employees anything below the minimum wage. If the California minimum wage regulations are broken by your employer, you may file:

  • A complaint to the labor board or
  • A lawsuit over wages and hours
  • A class-action suit for wages and hours may be justified if the violation impacts a large number of employees.

The following commonly asked questions concerning minimum wage regulations and workers’ rights in California are addressed by our California employment and labor law attorneys:

1. How much is California’s minimum wage?

California’s minimum statewide salary is $16.50 an hour in the year 2025.

California minimum wage statute takes precedence over the $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage. You are required to get a higher minimum wage if you are employed in California.

A lot of Californian cities and counties also have their very own minimum wage. You are entitled to the higher California minimum wage if you are employed in any of these locations.

Cities in California where the minimum wage is higher include:

  • Berkeley: $18.67 is the minimum wage;
  • Los Angeles: $17.28 is the minimum wage;
  • Oakland: $16.89 is the minimum wage;
  • San Francisco: $18.67 is the minimum wage; and
  • San Jose has a $17.95 minimum wage.

Please take note that the minimum wage for employees at national fast-food chains is now $20 per hour starting on April 1, 2024.  Additionally, take notice that, based on the facility, the minimum pay for healthcare professionals will range from $18 to $23 per hour as of June 1, 2024.

2. Is it acceptable for a California worker to accept a salary below the minimum wage?

Employees in California cannot consent to be paid less than the statutory minimum wage.

In California, the minimum wage serves as a definitive floor on pay. Workers and their employers cannot consent to forgoing California minimum wage rules, just like they cannot with other significant wage and hour legislation like California overtime regulations.

Don’t forget that non-exempt workers have a right to the California minimum wage throughout the duration of their on-call shifts.

A minimum salary must be paid to garment workers starting from September 2021. It is no longer possible to pay them by clothing (“piecework”).

3. Are the minimum wage rules subject to exceptions?

The minimum wage standards in California are subject to several limitations under the state’s wage & hour regulations.

The following are exempt from California’s minimum wage regulations:

  • Employees of established camps who are students, camp counselors, & program counselors are entitled to only 85% of the minimum salary;
  • Members of national service initiatives like AmeriCorps;
  • Outside salesperson. A worker who sells goods or takes orders more than half of the time away from the company’s place of work is known as an “outside salesperson.”

Workers who are physically or mentally disabled are now required to receive the minimum wage. This regulation is gradually being phased out of any legal exceptions.

Employees who are categorized as self-employed workers under California employment legislation are likewise exempt from the minimum wage requirement.

Furthermore, as a requirement of the California wage & hour legislation, “exempt employees” (those who are excluded from the state’s requirements for overtime compensation and meal/rest breaks) usually have to make no less than the minimum wage.

4. Are waiters and additional staff members who get tips subject to minimum wage regulations?

Workers who get a large percentage of their pay in tips, like waiters, aren’t exempt from California’s minimum wage regulations. In California, servers must get the same minimum salary as other workers.

5. If my employer doesn’t pay me the minimum wage, what should I do?

A California wage & hour attorney can assist you in bringing a lawsuit against your employer if they fail to give you the appropriate state or municipal minimum salary for any reason. You might also have a case against the employer’s

  • Officers,
  • Directors,
  • Owners, or
  • Management agents if you were paid below the minimum wage as a result of them.

If you file a minimum wage case in California, you could be awarded the following minimal damages:

  • The amount of money that is due to you to raise your pay to the minimum rate;
  • Interest on the sum;
  • Fair legal expenses; and
  • One hundred dollars for the first pay period of purposeful violation and two hundred dollars for each successive pay cycle of violation (deliberate or not) constitute a civil penalty intended to penalize the employer.

Additionally, you can be eligible for “liquidated damages” in the sum of interest and unpaid necessary minimum wages. To put it another way, your entire recovery may be double what your company underpaid you.

If the company can demonstrate that paying you less than the minimum wage constitutes an honest error, they will be exempt from paying the extra “liquidated damages.”

Individuals who are underpaid are typically the ones whose entitlements to a minimum wage are infringed. These workers might not be able to afford to hire an experienced employment attorney. And when an employer doesn’t pay one worker the minimum wage, they typically don’t pay the others either.

A minimum wage class-action lawsuit frequently makes sense in these situations.

In a wage & hour class action lawsuit, a lawyer represents a bigger percentage of workers in comparable circumstances where the company has not paid the minimum wage. The attorney is able to invest more resources in the case as a result.

Last but not least, it is illegal for a company to take retaliatory action against you at work for

  • Complaining over, or
  • Pursuing legal action against them for not paying the minimum wage.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of the knowledgeable California employment and labor lawyers if you have any inquiries concerning the state’s minimum wage or would want to discuss the matter in confidence.

Have a quick question? We answered nearly 2000 FAQs.

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