Ohio’s minimum wage will be $11.40 an hour on January 1, 2027, but that figure is not owed to every hourly worker in the state. The Ohio Department of Commerce says it applies to employers with annual gross receipts of more than $420,000. Workers at businesses at or under that line, and 14- and 15-year-olds everywhere, are tied to the federal $7.25.
The dividing line is a fact about the employer’s books, not about the worker, the job or the paycheck. Two cashiers doing identical work can fall on opposite sides of it.
Where the Commerce Department puts the line
The department’s September 30 release states the rule in one sentence: “Effective Jan. 1, 2027, the Ohio minimum wage will apply to businesses with annual gross receipts of more than $420,000, which is an increase from the current $405,000 threshold.” The threshold moves up $15,000 in a year. Gross receipts are the business’s total yearly receipts, so a figure like $420,000 works out to roughly $35,000 a month, a simple division and not a number the state prints.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s state minimum wage table, updated July 1, 2026, shows the 2026 version of the same split. Employers with receipts of $405,000 or more are listed at $11.00 an hour, and employers under $405,000 at $7.25. The two descriptions differ at the exact boundary: the federal table says “$405,000 or more” for the higher rate, while the 2027 release says “more than $420,000,” with $420,000 itself on the federal side. A business sitting precisely on the line is the only case the wording could change.
What stays at $7.25
The release is explicit about who is left out. “For employees at businesses with annual gross receipts of $420,000 or less per year after Jan. 1, 2027, and for 14- and 15-year-old workers, the state minimum wage remains tied to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.” Two groups, then, share the lower rate, and the second group has nothing to do with the employer’s size: a 15-year-old at a business with receipts well above $420,000 is still on $7.25.
The gap between the two tiers is $4.15 an hour ($11.40 less $7.25). Across a 2,080-hour year of full-time work that is $8,632 before taxes. The release does not estimate how many Ohio workers sit on the lower side, and neither the Commerce Department nor the federal table publishes a headcount, so the size of the excluded group is not something the sources state.
The tipped cash wage is the covered tier’s own number
Alongside the $11.40 non-tipped rate, the department lists a tipped cash wage of $5.70 an hour for 2027, up from $5.50 in 2026. For tipped employees at covered employers, $5.70 is the employer’s cash portion, not the whole wage, since tips must bring total pay up to the full state rate. The federal table lists no separate tipped rate for Ohio in the document read for this article, and the release does not describe a tipped rate for the $7.25 tier, so that question is left open here.
How the increase is set
The change flows from the state constitution. The release traces it to Article II, Section 34a, passed by Ohio voters in November 2006, which requires the minimum wage to rise each year with the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers. The department’s state news page puts it in one line: “Ohio’s minimum wage shall increase on Jan. 1 each year by the rate of inflation.” The same page describes the move to $11.40 as “a 3.5% increase from the current 2026 rates of $11 for non-tipped.” The dollar change is 40 cents; the percentage is the department’s own figure, and the page does not say which measurement period it used.
The release does not say how the receipts threshold itself is set. A business whose receipts grow past the line in the middle of a year is a case the release does not cover, and the sources read do not say when the status is tested.
Where questions about coverage go
The department’s wage and hour bureau is the enforcement body. Its wage and hour page says it enforces the state’s minimum wage requirements and links to guides for filing a minimum wage complaint and a minor labor law complaint. That page lists a mailing address, 77 South High Street, 23rd Floor, Columbus, and a contact form. It does not mention the receipts threshold or tipped wages, so the release remains the place those details appear. The department’s public information officer on the release is Franklin Freytag.
The record as the state published it: $11.40 non-tipped and $5.70 tipped from January 1, 2027, for employers above $420,000 in annual gross receipts, with $7.25 for everyone else covered by the carve-out.
Collection letters and frozen accounts, kept in one place
Hourly pay, whichever tier it falls in, does not stop a collection letter from arriving or a creditor from reaching for a bank account. One paid guide is built for exactly those two situations and explains how each works; it contacts no one and settles no debt.
The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit has the frozen-account response, the debt-validation steps and a protected-funds and dispute log for writing down each letter and call.
Walk through the frozen-account response in the Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit →
This piece was drafted with AI assistance; the figures were checked against the Ohio Department of Commerce pages and the U.S. Department of Labor table linked above.
