How do Mississippi wage, overtime and meal break laws work in 2026?
Mississippi writes no wage rules of its own. The minimum wage is $7.25, overtime is 1.5 times pay after 40 hours in a week, and there is no daily overtime and no state meal-break rule.
· Mississippi, United States guide
Illustration · Jackson, Mississippi
Mississippi is one of the simplest wage states in the country because it writes almost nothing of its own. The minimum wage is the federal $7.25, adopted by statute, with the federal tipped cash floor of $2.13 an hour where a tip credit applies. Compare Alabama and Louisiana, which do the same: Alabama wage and overtime law follows the identical federal floor.
Overtime follows the federal week under the Fair Labor Standards Act: 1.5 times pay after 40 hours in a workweek. There is no daily overtime and no state meal or rest break for adults, so the real risk is exemption, not the rate. See also Mississippi state tax and unemployment insurance for the full payroll picture.
What is the Mississippi minimum wage in 2026?
The Mississippi minimum wage is $7.25 an hour in 2026. The state has no minimum wage law of its own and defers to the federal rate set by the US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, so $7.25 is the floor statewide.
Tipped staff can be paid a cash wage of $2.13 an hour if tips bring total pay to $7.25. If they fall short, you make up the difference that pay period.
Mississippi Code Section 25-3-40 declares the state's intent to follow the federal minimum wage as Congress sets it, so there is no separate state figure and no automatic inflation adjustment. The $7.25 floor holds until federal law moves. Mississippi also bars cities and counties from setting a higher local minimum, so the same rate applies in Jackson, Gulfport, Hattiesburg and rural counties alike. There is no city-by-city map to track, unlike states with layered local rates.
The tip credit is the one calculation that bites. A tipped worker paid $2.13 in cash must reach $7.25 an hour once tips are counted, and the burden of proving they did sits with you. Track tips against the floor each pay period and top up any shortfall, or the whole credit can be disallowed in a Wage and Hour Division audit. The same tip-credit arithmetic applies in Alabama and Tennessee, where state law similarly defers to the federal floor.
How does overtime work in Mississippi?
Mississippi pays overtime at 1.5 times the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek, exactly as the FLSA requires. The state has no overtime statute of its own.
There is no daily overtime in Mississippi. A worker can do a twelve-hour shift with no premium, as long as the week stays at or under 40 hours. Only hours past 40 in the seven-day week count.
Hire a non-exempt worker in Jackson and you owe 1.5x the regular rate for every hour past 40 in the seven-day workweek. Mississippi has no state overtime law and no daily-overtime rule; the federal FLSA overtime rules are the only game in the state.
Source: US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, overtime pay
This is where Mississippi differs from states like California and Nevada, which add daily overtime after eight hours. In Mississippi, a four-day, ten-hour roster carries no premium, because the week lands at exactly 40 hours. The regular rate still has to include non-discretionary bonuses and commissions, so the overtime figure is calculated on total earnings, not base pay alone. Get that base wrong and every overtime hour is underpaid. Use the employer cost calculator to model the real number before you set a salary. For a comparison of how this works across the South, see Tennessee wage and overtime law.
What are the meal and rest break rules in Mississippi?
Mississippi has no state meal or rest break law for adult employees. You are not required to give any break during an eight, ten or twelve-hour shift, though most employers schedule them as a matter of practice.
Federal rules under the FLSA hours-worked rules only decide whether a break you do give is paid. A short rest break of 20 minutes or less counts as paid time. A genuine meal break of 30 minutes or more, fully relieved of duty, can be unpaid.
Because Mississippi mandates nothing, break policy is yours to set, but the federal pay rule still governs how it costs out. A rest break of 20 minutes or less counts as hours worked and is paid, so it folds into the 40-hour overtime count. An unpaid meal break only works if the employee is fully relieved of duty; a working lunch at a desk is paid time under the FLSA.
The real exposure is the interrupted meal break. If you dock 30 minutes for lunch but the employee answers calls or covers a station, that time is compensable, and across a year it adds up to back-pay plus liquidated damages. Either protect the break or pay for it. Do not assume an unpaid meal break costs nothing just because Mississippi does not require one. See Mississippi paid leave and PTO rules for what you do owe on time off.
Who is exempt under federal law in Mississippi?
An employee is exempt from overtime only if they are paid at least $684 a week ($35,568 a year) on a salary basis and meet the federal duties test for an executive, administrative or professional role under the DOL white-collar regulations.
Salary alone is not enough. A worker earning over $684 a week who does not meet the duties test is still non-exempt and owed overtime after 40 hours.
The $684 weekly threshold is the 2019 federal level, restored after the 2024 increase was struck down by a federal court in Texas and formally rolled back by the US Department of Labor in May 2026. So the in-force 2026 figure is $684 a week, not the higher number some payroll tables still show.
Misclassification is the expensive Mississippi error. Because the state adds no extra wage rules, the exemption test is the main compliance surface for a salaried hire. If the salary or duties test is not met, every over-40-hour week becomes back-pay, often doubled as liquidated damages under the FLSA. Test the duties, not just the salary, before you classify anyone as exempt. The same test applies to every hire you run through an employer of record arrangement.
How Teamed runs Mississippi wage and hour compliance
Teamed becomes your legal employer of record in Mississippi for from $599 per employee per month flat. Zero FX mark-up, no setup fee, no exit fee. We run the timesheet-to-payslip path so overtime, the $7.25 floor and the tip credit are calculated correctly, every cycle.
You set the schedule. Teamed applies the 1.5x rate after 40 hours, costs tipped roles against $2.13, and tests every salaried hire against the $684 exemption bar before it becomes back-pay. Everything runs on one platform, employer costs pass through at cost, itemised on every invoice.
Real HR and legal experts handle your Mississippi hires, knowing the exemption bar, the tip-credit top-up and the regular-rate maths by heart. An actual person, not a chatbot or a pooled queue. Overtime, premium pay and any tip make-up are computed and itemised on every invoice. You see every cost.
Contractor onboarding, EOR payroll and entity graduation all live on one platform: a Mississippi contractor who converts to W-2 keeps their record, and that same employee can graduate to your own US entity without switching systems. Use the Crossover Calculator to see the month the model flips. Review Mississippi state tax and UI and Mississippi leave rules alongside this page for the complete payroll picture. EOR is the right model for a first Mississippi hire, until it isn't.
The Mississippi mistake we see most is not overtime, it is exemption. Employers assume a salary over the threshold makes someone exempt, so they pay no overtime. If the duties test is not met, that worker is non-exempt, and every long week is back-pay. In a state with no extra wage rules, classification is the whole game, and we test the duties before anyone is set to exempt.
Mississippi does not write its own wage rules. It points at the federal ones and stops.
No daily overtime, no mandated break. A $7.25 floor and 1.5x pay after 40 hours. See the full US hiring guide.
The catch is exemption. Get the duties test wrong and the simplest wage state hands you a back-pay bill.
