Minimum Wages in UP 2026: Rates, Rules & Compliance Guide

Minimum wages in UP 2026 changed twice within a few weeks, and the second change wasn't a routine update. A notification dated 25 March 2026 revised rates the usual way, through the state's twice-yearly Variable Dearness Allowance (VDA) adjustment. Then, following labour unrest in Noida and Greater Noida over wages falling behind neighbouring Haryana, the government issued a fresh notification on 17 April 2026 that superseded the March one entirely — introducing, for the first time, a three-tier district classification for minimum wages across the state.

If your payroll is still running on the March rates, or on anything older, it's out of date. Here's what actually applies now.

The new three-tier structure - Minimum Wages in UP 2026

Under Notification No. 374/36-2-2026-2041256, dated 17 April 2026, districts are now split into three categories based on cost of living and industrial concentration:

• Category I — Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida, Greater Noida) and Ghaziabad
• Category II — All other districts with a Municipal Corporation (Nagar Nigam), such as Lucknow, Kanpur, and Varanasi
• Category III — All remaining districts

This replaces the earlier system where a scheduled employment's minimum wage applied uniformly across the state, with variation coming only from skill level, not geography.

Approximate current rates by category - Minimum Wages in UP 2026

Rates below reflect the April 2026 revision for unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled categories under scheduled employments, effective retroactively from 1 April 2026:

• Category I (Noida/Ghaziabad): roughly ₹13,690/month unskilled, ₹15,059/month semi-skilled, ₹16,868/month skilled — up to a 21% hike over the prior uniform rate
• Category II (Municipal Corporations): roughly ₹13,006/month unskilled, with semi-skilled and skilled scaling up proportionally
• Category III (remaining districts): roughly ₹12,356/month unskilled, the lowest of the three tiers

These figures move with each VDA cycle and can vary further by specific scheduled employment (the 74 categories covering shops, plastics, metal, rubber, brick kilns, and more each have their own notification). Engineering factories with 50+ workers fall under a separate notification issued by the Labour Commissioner. Given how recently this restructured and the fact that a permanent Wage Board is still being set up to decide the long-term framework, treat these as directional and confirm the exact figure for your specific district and scheduled employment against the official UP Labour Department notification before running payroll.

Where this leaves 2019, 2020, and 2024 rates

If you're comparing historical minimum wages in UP — 2019, 2020, or the 2024 revision — the broad pattern is a steady rise through periodic VDA adjustments, with unskilled monthly rates roughly in the ₹10,500–₹11,300 range through 2024 and into early 2025, before the April 2026 restructuring pushed rates meaningfully higher, especially in Category I districts. For exact historical figures tied to a specific notification date, the UP Labour Department's notification archive is the authoritative source — older third-party summaries are easy to find but not always current.

What payroll teams need to do now

1. Identify which category each work location falls under — Category I, II, or III
2. Update wage structures per category, not a single statewide figure
3. Cross-check the specific scheduled employment notification, since rates vary by industry
4. Recalculate and correct any payroll run processed between 1 April and the date you update your system, since the revision applies retroactively
5. Set a reminder for the next VDA cycle, expected around October 2026

See how OfficePortal's payroll software handles compliance updates →

Reference Pages

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