California's health care worker minimum wage: who it covers and how to check your rate

The short answer

The health care minimum wage applies when both of these are true:

1. You work for a covered health care facility. Examples include a hospital, a clinic, a dialysis center, an urgent care, a licensed home health agency or a medical group with 25 or more physicians. Workers sent there by a contractor can also be covered (see Step 2).
2. Your work is patient care or supports it. Nurses and aides count. So do janitors, cooks, guards, schedulers, billing staff and gift shop workers, whatever their job title.

Since July 1, 2026, the minimum is $25, $23, $22 or $19.28 an hour, depending on the type of facility. The next scheduled raises come on July 1, 2027: the clinic group goes to $25 (unless a clinic has a state waiver), and safety-net hospitals and small-county facilities go to $19.95.

If you are paid less than you are owed, you can file a wage claim with the California Labor Commissioner. For minimum wage, the deadline is generally three years.

This is general information, current as of October 22, 2026, not legal advice.

Rates in effect now

Health care minimum wage by type of employer, in effect October 22, 2026

What the table's terms mean:

• Run by a county means owned or operated by, or affiliated with, a county. County size is the county's population on January 1, 2023.
• Safety-net hospitals are on a list kept by the Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI). They are hospitals where Medicare and Medi-Cal pay for 90 percent or more of patient days, independent hospitals where they pay for 75 percent or more, and rural independent hospitals.
• Clinic waivers. A clinic in the $22 group that proves serious financial strain can get a state waiver that delays its schedule 12 months at a time. Within 10 days it must post the waiver and give each worker written notice of the rate. No waivers are available after July 1, 2032, and from July 1, 2033 every clinic in this group must pay the full adjusted rate.

All of these rates are higher than California's general minimum wage, which is $16.90 an hour in 2026 and $17.40 from January 1, 2027 (see California minimum wage 2027). If your city's general minimum wage for all workers is higher than your health care rate, the higher local rate applies. Under current state law, cities and counties cannot set a separate wage just for covered health care workers.

How each group reaches $25, and what happens after

SB 525 (2023) created the health care minimum wage. Two 2024 laws, SB 828 and SB 159, delayed the first raises to October 16, 2024 (January 1, 2025 for county-run facilities).

Safety-net hospitals and small-county facilities have the longest path: 3.5 percent a year from $18. The Labor Commissioner has published these steps:

Once a group reaches $25, its rate is adjusted every January 1 after that. The state Department of Finance calculates the raise by August 1 of the year before. The raise is the smaller of 3.5 percent or the past year's rise in a federal consumer price index for wage earners (the CPI-W), rounded to the nearest 10 cents. If prices fall, the rate stays the same.

The first adjustments are due on:

• January 1, 2028 for the $25 group. With the 3.5 percent cap, that rate can rise to no more than $25.90.
• January 1, 2029 for the clinic group.
• January 1, 2030 for other covered facilities and medium-sized counties.
• January 1, 2035 for safety-net hospitals and small counties.

Step 1: Check whether your workplace is covered

Coverage depends first on who you work for. The main types of covered health care facility are:

• Hospitals: general acute care hospitals, acute psychiatric hospitals and psychiatric health facilities, including their outpatient clinics and staff who care for patients at home.
• Integrated health systems: any work site that is part of a group of related organizations that includes at least one hospital plus, for example, physician groups or a health plan.
• Medical groups with 25 or more physicians.
• Clinics: community and intermittent clinics, licensed rural health clinics, urgent care clinics, dialysis clinics, psychology clinics, Medicare-certified surgery centers, specialty and rehabilitation clinics, alternative birth centers, teaching clinics, and clinics run by a city, a county or the University of California.
• Care at home and in residential settings: licensed home health agencies; skilled nursing facilities owned, run or controlled by a hospital or health system; and residential care facilities for the elderly that are affiliated with or controlled by a hospital.
• County and mental health settings: county mental health facilities, county jails that provide health care, and mental health rehabilitation centers.

Not covered, according to the statute and the Labor Commissioner:

• Facilities run by the State of California or a state agency, including the California State University and community colleges. The University of California, health care districts, cities and counties are covered.
• Tribal clinics, and outpatient settings run by a federally recognized tribe, a tribal organization or an urban Indian organization.
• Skilled nursing facilities not tied to a hospital or health system (for now, as the table shows), and congregate living health facilities.
• Physician practices with fewer than 25 physicians, independent practice associations and stand-alone private physical therapy practices. The exception is an office that fits another covered type, for example because it is part of an integrated system or is an urgent care clinic. Small for-profit mental health practices may also fall outside the law, the Labor Commissioner says.

If your workplace is not a covered type, the regular state or local minimum wage applies instead.

Step 2: Check whether your job counts

At a covered facility, the law covers anyone who provides patient care or health care services, or who supports that care, "regardless of formal job title." Examples it names include nurses, physicians, caregivers, medical residents, patient care technicians, janitors, housekeepers, groundskeepers, guards, clerical and nonmanagerial office staff, food service, gift shop, laundry, call center and warehouse workers, schedulers, and medical coders and billers. Medical assistants, nursing assistants and phlebotomists at covered facilities fit within this; for training routes, see how to become a medical assistant, CNA or phlebotomy technician in California.

Some people who work at covered facilities are not covered:

• Outside salespeople.
• Delivery, waste collection and medical transportation workers, unless they are employed by the company that owns or runs the facility.
• Public employees who spend half or less of their workweek doing covered work for a covered facility.

Contractor, staffing agency and subcontractor workers are covered when both of these apply:

1. Your employer contracts with a covered facility, directly or through another contractor, to provide health care or support services.
2. Either the facility also controls your pay, hours or working conditions (making it a "joint employer"), or you work at the facility more than half of your workweek.

Public employees differ: a city or county worker who spends more than half a workweek on covered work for a covered facility gets the health care rate for every hour that week.

Step 3: Work out your facility's group

• Find your employer's legal name. It must appear on every pay stub with an address. It may differ from the name on the building.
• Look for the notice your employer had to give you. When the law took effect, covered employers had to tell each worker in writing, in the language they normally use for work matters, which schedule applies. They must also post the state's health care minimum wage supplement next to other wage notices.
• Check HCAI's lists. HCAI's 10,000-employee list names 12 systems: Adventist Health, Cedars-Sinai, Dignity Health, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Los Angeles County Health Services, Providence, Scripps Health, Sharp HealthCare, Stanford Health Care, Sutter Health, Tenet Healthcare and University of California Health. Facilities that are part of these systems follow the $25 schedule, as do employers that had 10,000 or more full-time-equivalent employees on January 1, 2022 but did not report to HCAI. The safety-net list codes each hospital H (high government payer mix), I (independent, elevated mix) or R (rural independent). It uses 2021 data and closed to new requests after January 31, 2025.
• Confirm the facility's licensed type. The California Department of Public Health's Cal Health Find database, linked from the Labor Commissioner's FAQ, lets you search by facility name or location and shows the facility type.
• If a county runs your facility, check the county's size. Los Angeles is the only county with more than 5 million people. In the Central Valley, Fresno, Kern, Tulare, Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties are in the 250,000-to-5-million group ($23 now). Madera, Kings and Mariposa counties are under 250,000 ($19.28 now). These groupings use state Department of Finance estimates for January 1, 2023.
• At a clinic in the $22 group, look for a posted waiver notice, or ask whether the clinic has received a waiver.
• Still unsure? Ask in writing. Ask HR or payroll which paragraph of Labor Code section 1182.14(c) it applies to your job and why, and keep the reply. The required notice had to name that paragraph.

If your employer says you are not covered, the Labor Commissioner says the employer carries the burden of showing that.

Step 4: Check your pay

If you are paid by the hour, your pay stub must list every hourly rate in effect during the pay period and the hours worked at each rate. Compare each rate with the table above. Raises apply from their effective date, so if a pay period includes July 1, hours worked from July 1 onward are owed the new rate.

If you are paid a salary and do not get overtime, check the salary floor. In a covered job, your full-time salary must be at least the greater of 1.5 times your health care minimum wage or 2 times the state minimum wage, and your duties must meet the legal test for the exemption.

Minimum yearly salary for an overtime exemption (full time)

If your salary is below your group's figure, the Labor Commissioner says you should be paid overtime.

If your pay is short

1. Keep records. Write down your start and end times and breaks each day. Keep your pay stubs, the employer's notice and any messages about your rate.
2. Raise it with your employer. Write to payroll or HR, and keep a copy.
3. File a wage claim with the Labor Commissioner if the problem is not fixed. File online, by email, by mail or in person; forms come in several languages. For minimum wage, file within three years. Most claims start with a settlement conference; if that fails, a hearing officer decides the claim after a hearing.
4. Know the other routes. You can sue in court, or use arbitration if your employment agreement requires or allows it. You can also file a Report of Labor Law Violation with the Labor Commissioner's Bureau of Field Enforcement, which may investigate and cite the employer but does not pursue individual claims.
5. If you are punished for speaking up (for example, fired, given fewer hours or threatened), you can file a retaliation complaint with the Labor Commissioner, generally within one year.

California's labor laws protect all workers, whatever their immigration status.

Sources

1. Health Care Worker Minimum Wage Frequently Asked Questions — California Labor Commissioner's Office, Department of Industrial Relations, June 2025 version, accessed October 22, 2026.
2. California Minimum Wage Supplement for Covered Health Care Employees, July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 — Department of Industrial Relations, accessed October 22, 2026.
3. Health Care Worker Minimum Wage Law Clinic Waiver Program — California Labor Commissioner's Office, April 2026 version, accessed October 22, 2026.
4. California Labor Code section 1182.14 — reproduction of the official text as amended June 29, 2024, California.Public.Law, accessed October 22, 2026.
5. California Labor Code section 1182.15 — reproduction of the official text, California.Public.Law, accessed October 22, 2026.
6. California Labor Code section 1182.16 — reproduction of the official text, California.Public.Law, accessed October 22, 2026.
7. California Labor Code section 226 (itemized wage statements) — reproduction of the official text, California.Public.Law, accessed October 22, 2026.
8. SB 525 Hospital Lists: Health Care Workers Minimum Wage — Department of Health Care Access and Information, fact sheet dated December 9, 2024, accessed October 22, 2026.
9. SB 525 (Chapter 890, Statutes of 2023), SB 828 (Chapter 12, Statutes of 2024) and SB 159 (Chapter 40, Statutes of 2024) — bill status and chaptered text, LegiScan, accessed October 22, 2026.
10. Minimum Wage Frequently Asked Questions — California Labor Commissioner's Office, accessed October 22, 2026.
11. California's minimum wage set to increase to $17.40 per hour on January 1, 2027 — Department of Industrial Relations news release, August 13, 2026.
12. How to File a Wage Claim — California Labor Commissioner's Office, accessed October 22, 2026.
13. How to File a Retaliation Complaint and Retaliation Complaint Investigation Unit — California Labor Commissioner's Office, accessed October 22, 2026.
14. Labor Commissioner's Office locations, contacts and hours — Department of Industrial Relations, accessed October 22, 2026.
15. E-4 Population Estimates for Cities, Counties, and the State, 2021–2026 — California Department of Finance, January 1, 2023 county estimates, accessed October 22, 2026.