Are you being paid the minimum wage? How to check, and what to do if you’re not

If your pay looks low for the hours you’re actually working, you’re allowed to check. Nobody is being accused of anything by asking the question. You’re finding out where you stand, and what to do next.

What you’re legally entitled to

From 1 April 2026, the minimum hourly rates are:

• 21 and over (National Living WageThe legal minimum hourly rate for workers aged 21 and over. From 1 April 2026, it's £12.71. Your tips can't be used to top up your pay to reach it, whatever form they come in. This rate rises every A...): £12.71
• 18 to 20: £10.85
• 16 to 17: £8.00
• Apprentices: £8.00, but only if you’re under 19, or 19 or over and still in the first year of your apprenticeship. Once you’re 19+ and past your first year, you move to your age rate.

The Low Pay Commission reviews these rates every April. This figure applies to pay from 1 April 2026 until the next annual uprating.

Not everyone is covered. You’re not entitled to the minimum wage if you’re genuinely self-employedA working arrangement where you are in business on your own account rather than working under a contract of employment. The label your employer gives the arrangement does not determine your status —..., a company director with no separate employment contract, or a volunteer. The same goes for work experience under a year as part of a course, working in a family business while living there, and some categories of prison work. Almost everyone else, including zero-hours and agency workers, casual staff, and part-time workers, is covered from day one.

Working out your real hourly rate

This is where most underpayment actually happens. It’s rarely as simple as looking at your contracted hourly rate.

Take your total pay for a pay period. Divide it by the hours you actually worked, not the hours on your contract. That number is your real hourly rate.

The following count as working time, even if your employer doesn’t pay for them separately:

• Unpaid overtime you were required to do
• Time spent travelling between appointments or sites during the working day, not your commute to your first job of the day
• Training your employer requires you to attend
• Time spent on call, if you have to be at or near a specific place

Employers who provide accommodation and charge for it face a legal daily limit on how much of that charge counts against your pay for minimum wage purposes. From 1 April 2026 that limit is £11.10 a day. Anything charged above that amount reduces your pay for minimum wage calculation purposes, even if it doesn’t reduce what actually lands in your bank account. (Accommodation offsetThe maximum amount your employer can charge you for living accommodation while still counting your pay towards minimum wage. From 1 April 2026, it's £11.10 per day the accommodation is provided. Char...)

Deductions that can pull you under the minimum wage

Some deductions and unreimbursed costs count against your pay even if your basic rate looks fine on paper. Uniform you had to buy yourself, tools or equipment your employer required, training costs your employer passed on to you, and till or stock shortages your employer deducted from your wages can all reduce your effective hourly rate below the legal minimum. Some of these deductions aren’t lawful in the first place regardless of minimum wage. See your employer can’t deduct costs from your pay unless it’s actually in your contract for how that separate question works.

Tips don’t count towards the minimum wage

This has been the law since 2009. Whatever you receive in tips, service charges, or through a troncA separate pay arrangement run by a troncmaster rather than your employer, used to share out tips and service charges among staff. A genuine tronc, run by a truly independent troncmaster, keeps those ..., none of it can be counted by your employer towards meeting their minimum wage obligation. Your base pay, before tips, has to independently meet the minimum wage on its own. See do tips count towards the minimum wage? for the full picture if tips are part of your pay.

What to do if you’re underpaid

Two routes exist here, and you can only run one at a time on the same underpayment.

Complain to HMRC. Reporting is anonymous and you don’t need to still work there. Someone else can report on your behalf too, and HMRC can investigate up to six years back. Find underpayment, and your employer has to repay the arrears in full plus a penalty: 200% of the arrears, capped at £20,000 per workerA legal category that sits between employee and self-employed. Workers are entitled to certain rights including national minimum wage, paid holiday, and protection from unlawful deduction from wages, ... with a £100 minimum. Paying both within 14 days halves that penalty.

Bring an employment tribunalAn independent court that hears disputes between employees and employers. It is free to bring a claim as a claimant, and most hearings take place in public. claim for unlawful deduction from wagesAn unlawful deduction from wages happens when your employer takes money out of your pay without a proper legal basis, whether that's the law itself, your contract, or your prior written consent. If no..., which covers minimum wage underpayment. You have 3 months minus 1 day from the date you should have been paid correctly, or from the most recent underpayment if there’s been more than one. ACASThe Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. A public body that provides free, impartial guidance on workplace rights and disputes, and runs the mandatory early conciliation process before any ... early conciliationA free process run by ACAS that you must go through before you can submit a claim to an employment tribunal. ACAS contacts your employer to see if a settlement can be reached, and the process pauses y... is required before you can submit a claim. If the underpayments are linked and no more than 3 months apart from each other, you can claim back further, up to 2 years. (Unlawful deduction from wages)

If your employer has never given you anything in writing about your pay, hours, or job title either, that’s a separate legal problem worth raising too. See what your employer has to give you in writing about your job, and by when.

What this means for your situation

Start by checking a normal pay period against the hours you actually worked, not the hours on your contract. If the sum doesn’t reach the rate for your age band, raising it directly with your employer resolves most cases without either of the two routes above ever being needed. If that doesn’t work, HMRC and the tribunal route are both there, and neither requires you to have left the job first.