How do Wyoming wage, overtime and meal break laws work in 2026?
Wyoming still has $5.15 on the books, but the federal $7.25 is what nearly everyone actually pays. Overtime is 1.5 times pay after 40 hours in a week, with no daily overtime and no state meal-break rule.
· Wyoming, United States guide
Illustration · Wind River Range, Wyoming
Wyoming is a federal-floor state with a famous quirk. Its own statute still sets a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, but that figure sits below the federal floor, so the $7.25 federal rate under the Fair Labor Standards Act is what virtually every employer pays. The federal tipped cash floor of $2.13 an hour applies where a tip credit is used.
Overtime follows the federal week: 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 headline rate.
What is the Wyoming minimum wage in 2026?
On paper the Wyoming minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, a figure last set in 2001. In practice you pay the federal $7.25 an hour under the FLSA, because federal law overrides the lower state number for any employer it covers, which is nearly all of them.
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.
The $5.15 state figure is the trap. It is still printed in Wyoming statute, so it shows up in old summaries, but it has not moved since 2001 and it sits below the federal floor. Under the higher-of rule, an employer of record or any FLSA-covered employer must pay the federal $7.25, so $5.15 is effectively a dead number for almost everyone. Pay it and you are underpaying. There is no scheduled increase and no city or county can set a higher rate, so $7.25 holds statewide until federal law moves.
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 an audit by the US DOL Wage and Hour Division. Wyoming's approach here mirrors the lean statutory environment you also see in South Dakota, another federal-floor state with minimal state overlay.
How does overtime work in Wyoming?
You pay overtime at 1.5 times the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek, exactly as the FLSA requires. Wyoming has no overtime statute of its own.
There is no daily overtime in Wyoming for private employers. 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.
Wyoming has no state overtime law and no general daily-overtime rule for private employers. It follows the federal FLSA. You owe 1.5x the regular rate for all hours over 40 in a seven-day workweek for non-exempt staff. Any non-discretionary bonus or commission folds into the regular rate calculation, so the overtime figure is based on total earnings, not base pay alone.
Source: Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, Labor Standards
This is where Wyoming differs from states like Colorado and California, which add daily overtime after eight hours. In Wyoming, a four-day, ten-hour roster carries no premium, because the week lands at exactly 40 hours. Contrast this with Colorado's overtime rules, where a twelve-hour day triggers a daily premium regardless of weekly hours. One narrow Wyoming exception exists: laborers, workmen and mechanics on Wyoming public-works projects get 1.5x after eight hours in a day, a prevailing-wage rule that does not touch ordinary private employment. Get the regular-rate base wrong and every overtime hour is underpaid, which is the single most common audit finding the DOL Wage and Hour Division raises in Wyoming investigations.
What are the meal and rest break rules in Wyoming?
Wyoming 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 only decide whether a break you do give is paid. A short rest break of 20 minutes or less counts as paid time under FLSA guidance. A genuine meal break of 30 minutes or more, fully relieved of duty, can be unpaid.
Because Wyoming 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, full stop. This is the same federal-only framework you encounter if you hire across the border in Montana, though Montana adds its own meal-break rules on top.
The practical 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. 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 is free just because Wyoming's Labor Standards office does not require one. Payroll accuracy across meal-break rules and leave accruals is part of what Teamed tracks on the $599 flat-rate plan.
Who is exempt under federal law in Wyoming?
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.
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 and formally rolled back by the US Department of Labor in May 2026. The in-force 2026 figure is $684 a week, not the higher number some payroll tables still show. Wyoming sets no salary threshold of its own, so the federal bar is the only one.
Misclassification is the expensive Wyoming 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. Test the duties, not just the salary, before you classify anyone as exempt. Teamed's onboarding review covers this before your first Wyoming hire is set to exempt status. You can also use the employer cost calculator to model total Wyoming labour cost, including the overtime premium, before you commit to a headcount.
How Teamed runs Wyoming wage and hour compliance
Teamed becomes your legal employer of record in Wyoming for $599 per employee per month flat. Zero FX mark-up. We run the timesheet-to-payslip path so overtime, the $7.25 federal 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.
Real HR and legal experts with deep employment-law experience handle your Wyoming hires and know the federal floor, the $5.15-versus-$7.25 trap, 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 pass through at cost, itemised and auditable on every invoice. No setup fee, no exit fee.
Contractor onboarding, EOR payroll and entity graduation all live on one platform: a Wyoming 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. Your Wyoming payroll sits alongside any other US state you hire in, including the paid-leave obligations tracked under Wyoming's leave and PTO rules and the withholding logic covered in Wyoming's state tax and UI guide. Use the Crossover Calculator to see the month the model flips. EOR is the right model for a first Wyoming hire, until it isn't.
The Wyoming mistake we see most starts with that $5.15 state figure. An employer reads it in an old summary, pays it, and is underpaying every hour, because federal $7.25 is the real floor. After that, the catch is exemption: a salary over the threshold does not make someone exempt unless the duties test is met. We pay the federal floor and test the duties before anyone is set to exempt.
Wyoming keeps a $5.15 minimum wage on the books that almost nobody can legally pay.
Federal law sets the real floor at $7.25, with 1.5 times pay after 40 hours, no daily overtime and no mandated break.
The figure on the statute is a decoy. The bill comes from paying it, or from getting the exemption test wrong on a salaried hire.
