Chicago Fair Workweek 2026: Are You Covered at $33.85 an Hour?

As of 1 July 2026, Chicago's Fair Workweek Ordinance covers employees earning up to $33.85 an hour or $64,945.55 a year, and only when their employer has 100 or more employees worldwide. That second condition is the one that surprises people. A lot of Chicago operators have heard the term and assume it applies to them. Many of them are outside it.

This page is the narrow version: who is covered, what you owe, what it costs when you get it wrong, and who enforces it. If you want the multi-city picture, start with our guide to predictive scheduling laws and come back here for the Chicago detail. The code figures below were checked on 12 October 2026 against the Municipal Code of Chicago, which its online publisher lists as current through the Council Journal of 17 June 2026. The earnings threshold is the one figure the code does not spell out, because the City adjusts it every year, so it gets its own source below.

Who does the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance cover?

Two tests have to be met at once: the employer has to qualify, and the individual employee has to qualify. Fail either one and the ordinance does not apply to that person.

The employer test is in section 6-110-020 of the code. A covered employer has 100 or more employees globally (250 or more for not-for-profits), at least 50 of whom are covered employees, and is primarily engaged in one of seven covered industries: building services, healthcare, hotels, manufacturing, restaurants, retail and warehouse services.

The employee test has four parts. The person is an employee under IRS guidelines (or a temp worker with 420 or more hours in 18 months), most of their work is physically in Chicago, most of their work is in a covered industry, and they earn at or under the threshold.

The ordinance took effect on 1 July 2020, according to the City's own Fair Workweek page. The advance notice period has been 14 days since 1 July 2022.

Is my business a covered employer?

Run your headcount first. It is the fastest way to find out you can stop reading.

A few examples make the tests concrete:

• A 40-person restaurant group with three Chicago locations is not covered. For restaurants, the code requires at least 30 locations and at least 250 employees in total, counted globally.
• A 90-employee manufacturer with everyone in Chicago is not covered. It is under 100 employees worldwide.
• A 130-employee healthcare employer where only 35 people earn under the threshold and work mostly in Chicago is not covered, because the code requires 50 covered employees.
• A 600-employee retailer with 120 Chicago associates earning $19 to $24 an hour is covered, and every one of those associates is a covered employee.

Notice what is not in the test: how many people you employ in Chicago. The count is global, and it includes employees who never set foot in the city. A 110-person company with 15 people in Chicago can clear the headcount test. Whether it clears the 50 covered employees test is a separate question, and it is the one to work out on paper. Covered employees are counted across a single unitary business group, as defined for Illinois income tax purposes, so separate entities inside the same group count together.

The restaurant definition also has a carve-out. It excludes a business limited to three or fewer Chicago locations that are owned by one employer and operate under a sole franchise.

What is the $33.85 threshold, and when did it change?

The code sets a base figure of $50,000 a year for salaried employees or $26.00 an hour for hourly employees, and raises it every year in proportion to any increase in the Consumer Price Index, rounded up to the nearest multiple of $0.05. The Department has to publish a bulletin with the adjusted amount on or before 1 June each year. The index itself comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For the year that began on 1 July 2026, the figure is $33.85 an hour or $64,945.55 a year, which is what the City's Fair Workweek page lists as of October 2026. That is up from $32.60 an hour or $62,561.90 a year, the figure the City announced for 1 July 2025 in its press release on that year's labor law updates. Illinois Legal Aid Online lists both sets of figures, with the change on 1 July 2026. The City puts each year's figure in its Fair Workweek notice, so check the current notice from the Office of Labor Standards before you build a payroll rule on it.

There are two separate 2026 dates, and people mix them up. The amended Fair Workweek rules took effect on 1 June 2026. The earnings threshold adjusted on 1 July 2026. They are different events. One changes how the ordinance is administered; the other changes who is inside it. This page sticks to the ordinance and the threshold, so read the rules themselves on the City's Office of Labor Standards site for the administrative detail.

The threshold matters more than it looks, because it moves. Someone who earns $34.50 an hour is outside the ordinance today. If the threshold climbs past $34.50 next July, the answer for that person flips without anyone changing their pay. A rough conversion helps: $33.85 an hour over 2,080 hours is about $70,400 a year, so hourly workers get a higher effective ceiling than salaried ones.

How much notice do I owe?

Section 6-110-040 sets two notice duties.

First, at hire you owe a written good-faith estimate of the projected days and hours for the first 90 days, including average weekly hours and whether the employee is on call.

Second, you post each work schedule at least 14 days before it starts, in a conspicuous place or through your usual communication method. A work schedule means all of a covered employee's shifts for the week, with specific start and end times.

Employees who self-schedule are excepted, and so are employees who work in a venue that regularly hosts ticketed events (the code means events at venues that hold at least 5,000 people). The code defines self-scheduling as employees picking their own shifts without employer pre-approval, so if a manager signs off on every pick, read that definition closely before you lean on the exception. Our overview of work schedule types shows how those patterns differ.

What does a schedule change cost?

Once the 14-day window has closed, changes cost money. The rules are in section 6-110-050, and they come on top of regular pay for any hours worked:

• One hour of predictability pay per shift when you add hours, change the date or time of a shift with no loss of hours, or cancel or reduce hours with more than 24 hours' notice.
• At least 50 percent of the regular rate for scheduled hours not worked when you cut or cancel a shift with less than 24 hours' notice, including cuts made during the shift.
• A written, amended schedule sent to the employee within 24 hours of any change.

Employees can also decline previously unscheduled hours added with less than 14 days' notice. The section lists exceptions where none of this applies, including threats to people or property, utility failures, natural disasters, pandemics, shift trades between employees, and discipline for just cause that you document in writing. A change the employee asks for, and a change you and the employee mutually agree to, are also excepted, but only when they are confirmed in writing. So a swap between employees, or a change an employee requests, is not treated like a change you impose. The difference is the paperwork.

What does that look like on a real schedule?

Take a covered retail associate earning $22 an hour.

You add a four-hour shift five days out and she accepts it. You owe her one hour of predictability pay: $22, on top of the $88 she earns for the shift.

You cancel a six-hour shift with 12 hours' notice. She loses the hours, so you owe at least half the pay for the time not worked: 3 hours at $22, which is $66, for no work.

Neither number is large. The point is that they stack. A manager who reshuffles a week for six people can create a dozen small obligations before Wednesday, and none of them show up unless somebody is tracking the change itself. If your schedule edits already feed overtime, how overtime is calculated is the same kind of arithmetic: invisible until it hits payroll.

What is the 10-hour rest rule?

Section 6-110-070 gives a covered employee the right to decline any shift that starts less than 10 hours after the end of the previous day's shift. If the employee agrees to work it, you pay 1.25 times their regular rate for that shift. Get that agreement in writing and keep it with the schedule.

This is the clopening rule. Close at 11 pm, open at 7 am, and you have given her 8 hours. For our associate at $22, an 8-hour opening shift costs $176 at the regular rate and $220 at 1.25 times, an extra $44 for that shift alone.

The rest rule is easy to break in a schedule that looks fine week by week, because the problem sits across the boundary between two days. If you build schedules by hand, check the gap between every close and the next open, not just the hours per day.

Do I have to offer extra hours to part-timers first?

Yes, if you are covered. Section 6-110-060 says that when you need to fill additional shifts, you first offer them to existing covered employees who are qualified to do the work, as you judge it. Whenever practicable, you offer those hours to part-time covered employees first. Shifts they do not take can then go to temporary or seasonal workers who have worked for you for two or more weeks. The distribution system cannot discriminate on protected characteristics, and the section does not require you to schedule hours that would be paid at a premium rate.

The stated purpose of the chapter in section 6-110-010 includes requiring employers who need additional hours, temporary or permanent, to offer them first to current part-time covered employees. So this is not a side detail. It changes how you fill a gap, and it touches the staffing mix we cover in part-time versus full-time.

Who enforces it, and what does a violation cost?

The code says the Department administers and enforces the chapter and may adopt rules to do it (section 6-110-120). The City's own announcement of its 2025 labor law updates says all Chicago worker protections are enforced by the Office of Labor Standards (OLS) in the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP). That is the office a Fair Workweek complaint goes to.

The penalty is in section 6-110-130: a fine of not less than $300 nor more than $500 for each offense. Each affected covered employee counts as a separate offense, and so does each day a violation occurs. An agreement between you and an employee that would violate the chapter is not a defense.

Here is how that adds up. A manager who breaks the 10-hour rest rule for three employees on five days has 15 offenses. That is $4,500 at the minimum and $7,500 at the maximum, before the premium pay those shifts should have carried.

Employees can also sue. Under section 6-110-140, an employee files a written complaint with the Department first, you get a chance to contest or cure it, and the Department tells both sides in writing that the complaint is closed before a civil action can start. Claims have to be made within two years of the conduct. A winning employee is entitled to compensation for any damages, including unlawfully withheld predictability pay, plus litigation costs, expert witness fees and reasonable attorney's fees.

What if I am just under the line?

Staying under it on purpose is risky. Section 6-110-110, titled "Avoidance of application," makes it unlawful to do any of three things to avoid coverage: change a regular rate of pay; interfere with, restrain, deny or change scheduled work days or hours; or hire, rehire, terminate or suspend someone, even temporarily. Each of those can be an ordinary business decision. Done to stay outside the ordinance, it is a violation.

If you are under the line honestly, the more useful question is whether you will cross it. Three things move you in: crossing 100 employees globally, reaching 50 covered employees, or a threshold increase that sweeps more of your pay scale under the cap. The third one happens without any decision on your part.

What should I do on Monday?

1. Count employees globally and compare the number to 100 (or 250 for a not-for-profit, or the restaurant test).
2. Count how many employees work mostly in Chicago, in a covered industry, at or under $33.85 an hour or $64,945.55 a year.
3. If you are covered, post schedules 14 days out and send the 90-day estimate at hire.
4. Check every close-to-open gap for 10 hours.
5. Keep a log of schedule changes with the time you made them, so you can tell a 24-hour change from a 12-hour one.

If you are not covered, write down the date you checked and the numbers you used. The threshold moves every July, and the headcount test moves with your hiring.

Federal law is a separate layer. The Department of Labor describes overtime at time and one-half for hours over 40 in a workweek for covered, non-exempt employees, and that applies whether or not Chicago's ordinance reaches you.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Coverage depends on your headcount, industry and pay, and the City adjusts the earnings threshold every July, so confirm current figures with the City of Chicago's Office of Labor Standards or an employment attorney.