How do Tennessee wage, overtime and meal break laws work in 2026?
Tennessee borrows federal wage law: a $7.25 minimum and 1.5 times pay after 40 hours, with no daily overtime. The one rule it writes itself is a 30-minute meal break for a six-hour shift.
· Tennessee, United States guide
Illustration · Nashville, Tennessee
Hire in Tennessee and you work with federal wage law by default. The minimum wage is the federal $7.25, with the federal tipped cash floor of $2.13 an hour where a tip credit applies, and overtime runs at 1.5 times pay after 40 hours a week, with no daily premium anywhere in the state.
The one rule Tennessee writes for itself is the break. Unlike most Southern states, Tennessee mandates a 30-minute meal break for any employee scheduled for six consecutive hours. Miss that and a state with almost no wage law of its own bites back.
What is the Tennessee minimum wage in 2026?
The Tennessee minimum wage is $7.25 an hour in 2026. Tennessee has no minimum wage statute, so the federal floor from the Fair Labor Standards Act is the rate statewide.
Tipped staff can be paid a cash wage of $2.13 an hour if tips bring total pay to $7.25. If tips fall short in a pay period, you make up the difference.
There is no scheduled increase and no automatic inflation adjustment under Tennessee law, so the $7.25 floor holds until Congress moves. Tennessee also pre-empts cities and counties from setting their own higher rate, so the same number applies in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and every rural county. Compare that with states like Kentucky and Georgia, where the same federal floor applies with no patchwork of local rates to track.
The tip credit is the 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. The FLSA Wage and Hour Division is the enforcement body. Track tips against the floor every pay period and top up any shortfall, or the credit is disallowed in an audit.
How does overtime work in Tennessee?
Tennessee pays overtime at 1.5 times the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek. The state has no overtime statute of its own and follows the FLSA exactly.
There is no daily overtime in Tennessee. A worker can run 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 cycle trigger the 1.5x rate.
Schedule a Nashville hire for four ten-hour days and you owe zero overtime premium: the week sits at exactly 40 hours, the FLSA threshold. Hour 40 plus one is the first that costs 1.5x. Tennessee adds no daily-overtime layer on top.
Source: Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Wages and Breaks
That puts Tennessee in the same camp as Georgia and North Carolina, and well away from California or Nevada, which add a daily premium after eight hours. The regular rate calculation is where errors hide: non-discretionary bonuses and commissions fold into the base before you multiply by 1.5. Pay overtime on base pay alone and every over-threshold hour is short. Check out Tennessee's paid leave rules and the termination rules alongside these wage requirements for the full compliance picture.
What are the meal and rest break rules in Tennessee?
Tennessee requires a 30-minute meal break for any employee scheduled to work six consecutive hours, under Tennessee Code 50-2-103. The break is unpaid and cannot be scheduled during or before the first hour of the shift.
That is unusual in the South. Georgia and North Carolina mandate no breaks at all. Here, one state-specific rule sits on top of the federal framework, and the pullquotes from wage claims show it is the one employers miss.
For the break to be unpaid, the employee must be fully relieved of duty. A working lunch at a desk or counter is paid time and folds straight into the 40-hour overtime count. Tennessee requires no short rest breaks, but if you do offer a break of twenty minutes or less, the FLSA treats it as paid time regardless of what your policy says.
The waiver is the part employers get wrong. A tipped worker who reports tips may waive the 30-minute break, but only on a signed written form, one worker at a time. You cannot pressure anyone into signing. Under Tennessee Code 50-2-103, coercing a waiver is a misdemeanour offence. Build the break into the rota, treat a written waiver as the documented exception, and you will not see this section of the code in a complaint. Also see how Tennessee's unemployment insurance rules affect part-time and break-waiver workers who leave.
Who is exempt, and how does federal law apply in Tennessee?
An employee is exempt from overtime only if you pay them at least $684 a week ($35,568 a year) on a salary basis and they meet the federal duties test for an executive, administrative or professional role.
Salary alone is not enough. Pay someone $684 a week and they still owe overtime after 40 hours if their actual duties do not fit the exemption. Test both gates before you classify.
The $684 weekly figure is the 2019 federal level still in force for 2026. The 2024 increase was struck down by a federal court and never took effect, so payroll tables showing the higher number are wrong. The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development enforces these requirements at the state level, but the salary floor itself is a US DOL Wage and Hour Division rule.
Because Tennessee levies no state income tax, wage, overtime and break compliance is the primary surface to manage for a Tennessee hire. Review the state tax and unemployment insurance guide for what else sits on the payroll. Misclassifying an exempt worker is the most expensive error: if the salary or duties test fails, every over-40-hour week produces back-pay, often doubled as liquidated damages under the FLSA. Use the Employer Cost Calculator to model full on-costs for an exempt versus non-exempt role before you hire.
How Teamed runs Tennessee wage and hour compliance
Teamed becomes your legal employer of record in Tennessee for $599 per employee per month flat. Zero FX. 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, tracks the 30-minute meal break for six-hour shifts, and tests every salaried hire against the $684 exemption bar before it becomes back-pay. Everything runs on one platform.
Real HR and legal experts handle your Tennessee hires: they know the 30-minute meal-break rule, the tip-credit top-up obligation and the $684 exemption bar. An actual person, not a chatbot or a pooled queue. Overtime, premium pay and any tip make-up are computed and pass through at cost, itemised on every invoice. No setup fee, no exit fee.
Contractor onboarding, EOR payroll and entity graduation all live on one platform: a Tennessee contractor who converts to W-2 keeps their record, and that same employee can graduate to your own US entity when the model no longer fits, without switching systems. Use the Crossover Calculator to see the month the model flips. EOR is the right structure for a first Tennessee hire, until it isn't.
Every Tennessee client we on-board asks the same question: what's different from Texas? The answer is one line. Tennessee Code 50-2-103 puts a thirty-minute meal break on any six-hour shift. Texas has no break mandate at all. Employers who run six-hour rosters as if they're in Dallas get that wrong on day one. We build the break into the schedule, document any waiver individually, and the client never sees it in a wage claim.
Hire in Tennessee and you inherit federal wage law almost in full.
$7.25 minimum, 1.5x after 40 hours, no daily premium. Straightforward.
Then Tennessee adds one rule of its own: a 30-minute meal break for any six-hour shift. One line, one rule, and the most common source of state wage complaints for out-of-state employers.
