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Minimum wages in Delhi are fixed under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and notified by the Office of the Commissioner (Labour), Government of the NCT of Delhi. Delhi has historically maintained one of the highest wage floors in India, and it applies a single uniform rate across the entire National Capital Territory - there is no zone or city-class split.
The short answer Delhi minimum wages rate is revised twice a year, with effect from 01 April and 01 October, against movement in the Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers. Reported figures place the unskilled rate at ₹19,846 a month, or ₹763 per day, from 01 April 2026, with the schedule also covering semi-skilled, skilled and separately graded clerical and supervisory categories. Published sources diverge on the figures for the current period, so read the exact rate from the Labour Department notification before setting payroll. Domestic workers and construction workers fall under separate notifications.
The monthly minimum is the notified basic plus the current VDA. Under the April 2025 order, for example, unskilled work was ₹8,446 basic plus ₹10,010 VDA, totalling ₹18,456 a month – the allowance being the larger of the two components. The daily rate is the monthly figure divided by 26 and the hourly rate is the daily figure divided by 8. Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate.
The mistake to avoid: letting the gap between notification and payroll update run. Delhi revises every April and October, and the period between the effective date and the date your payroll team applies the new figure is a period of non-compliance carrying full penalty exposure. Getting the revision date right matters as much as getting the rate right.
Worked example – unskilled worker
Reported monthly rate from 01 Apr 2026 = ₹19,846
Per day = 19,846 ÷ 26 = ₹763
Per year = 19,846 × 12 = ₹2,38,152
Per hour at an 8-hour day = 763 ÷ 8 = ₹95.38
One overtime hour = 95.38 × 2 = ₹190.76
Delhi notifies rates against four skill levels and, separately, against clerical and non-technical supervisory staff graded by educational qualification — non-matriculate, matriculate but not graduate, and graduate and above. That second track is the one employers most often miss, because office staff do not map onto the manual skill ladder.
Clerical and non-technical supervisory staff
A separate track graded by qualification: non-matriculate, matriculate but not graduate, and graduate and above. Office staff read from this schedule rather than from the manual skill ladder, and the graduate grade sits at the top of the Delhi table.
Act on this: check which of the two tracks each employee sits on before checking the rate. A back-office graduate on a general staff band is being paid against the wrong schedule entirely, not merely at the wrong level within one.
Minimum wages in Delhi apply across all scheduled employments in the National Capital Territory, and coverage does not depend on headcount. Domestic workers and construction workers fall under their own notifications rather than the general schedule. Under the Code on Wages framework, employers must pay whichever is higher of the central floor wage or the state-scheduled rate. Contract workers are covered on the same footing as directly employed staff, with the principal employer liable for a contractor’s shortfall.
Paying below the notified rate exposes an employer to recovery of the shortfall for the whole affected period, compensation on top, and prosecution. Under the Code on Wages, 2019 a first offence attracts a fine of up to ₹50,000, and a repeat offence within five years can mean up to three months imprisonment and a fine of up to ₹1 lakh. Because Delhi’s floor is among the highest in India, the rupee value of a shortfall per worker is correspondingly larger than in most states.
Act on this: set a calendar reminder for September and March to check the incoming notification before it takes effect, rather than after. In Delhi the revision is predictable in timing even when the figure is not, and an employer who prepares in the month before the effective date never runs a non-compliant cycle.
Delhi minimum wages are fixed in two parts. The basic rate is set by the Government of the NCT of Delhi under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, and the Variable Dearness Allowance is revised twice a year, effective 01 April and 01 October, against movement in the All-India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers. The April 2025 order, for instance, was based on a CPI-IW figure of 413.42 for July to December 2024, an increase of 11.32 points over the preceding period. Because the VDA is roughly half the total wage in Delhi, each revision moves the payable figure materially.
Act on this: reconcile against the notification rather than a compliance aggregator. Published figures for Delhi diverge between secondary sources on which rates applied to which period, and with a floor this high the cost of applying the wrong one across a workforce is significant.
Revision history for scheduled employments in Delhi. The April 2025 figures are shown with the basic and VDA split as notified.
| Period | Unskilled / Month | Semi-Skilled / Month | Skilled / Month | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| From 01 Apr 2026 | ₹19,846 | — | — | Reported; confirm against the notification |
| 01 Apr 2025 order | ₹18,456 | ₹20,371 | ₹22,411 | Unskilled = basic ₹8,446 + VDA ₹10,010; CPI-IW 413.42 |
| Earlier revision | ₹17,494 | ₹19,279 | ₹21,215 | Reported figures for the preceding period |
Published sources diverge on which figures applied to which period, and figures marked – are to be filled from the notification. Read the current rate from the Office of the Commissioner (Labour), GNCTD before finalizing payroll. Graduate and above clerical and supervisory staff carry a higher rate than the manual skill ladder — reported at ₹24,356 a month under the April 2025 order.
Delhi runs the highest state wage floor in India by a wide margin, and it does so with a structure that is otherwise simple – one uniform rate across the whole territory, no zones, basic plus VDA. For employers operating across the NCR, the practical consequence is that a worker on one side of a boundary can be entitled to substantially more than a colleague doing identical work on the other.
Unskilled minimum wage per day, compared with other states. Comparison figures are to be filled from each state’s own notification.
| State / Benchmark | Unskilled / Day | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| Delhi (NCT) | ₹763 | Basic + VDA, single uniform rate across the territory, revised 01 Apr and 01 Oct |
| Uttar Pradesh | ₹435.14 | Basic ₹5,750 + VDA ₹5,563.65 a month, three skill bands |
| Haryana | — | Consolidated rate with sub-categories within skill bands |
| Chandigarh (UT) | ₹560 | Consolidated monthly rate, nine categories, no zone split |
| Goa — Zone A | ₹561.00 | Basic ₹412.00 + VDA ₹149.00 a day |
| National Floor Wage | — | Employers pay whichever is higher of the floor wage or the state rate |
Act on this: if you run establishments across Delhi, Noida, Gurugram and Faridabad, hold four separate rate masters. The NCR is a single labour market and three different jurisdictions, and Delhi sits well above the others – a shared NCR band will underpay in Delhi.
The table below sets out the structure of the Delhi minimum wages rate. Delhi applies one uniform rate across the National Capital Territory with no zone classification, and notifies separate grades for clerical and non-technical supervisory staff. Confirm current figures against the Labour Department notification.
| Category | Reported / Month | Reported / Day | Structure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unskilled | ₹19,846 | ₹763 | Basic + VDA, reported from 01 Apr 2026 |
| Semi-Skilled | — | — | Basic + VDA; read from the current notification |
| Skilled | — | — | Basic + VDA; read from the current notification |
| Highly Skilled | — | — | Basic + VDA; read from the current notification |
| Clerical — non-matriculate | — | — | Separate track graded by qualification |
| Clerical — matriculate, not graduate | — | — | Separate track graded by qualification |
| Clerical — graduate and above | — | — | Highest grade in the Delhi schedule |
Source: Office of the Commissioner (Labour), Government of the NCT of Delhi – notifications under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, revised with effect from 01 April and 01 October each year. Figures marked – are to be filled from the current notification. Published secondary sources diverge on the current period and should not be relied on for payroll.
No. Delhi applies one uniform rate across the entire National Capital Territory, which is unusual among the larger jurisdictions and removes the zone question from compliance entirely.
Because Delhi has no wage zones, the minimum wage rate in Delhi is the same everywhere inside the National Capital Territory – New Delhi, Dwarka, Rohini, Okhla, Narela and every other locality read the same schedule. The complication is at the boundary rather than inside it. A warehouse in Noida applies the Uttar Pradesh schedule and an office in Gurugram applies Haryana’s, both materially below the Delhi floor, even though staff may commute between all three in the same week. Apply the rate of the jurisdiction the workplace physically sits in.
Delhi revises minimum wages every April and October. Reported figures place the unskilled rate at ₹19,846 a month or ₹763 a day from 01 April 2026. Because published sources diverge on the figures for the current period, confirm the exact rate for each category against the Office of the Commissioner (Labour), GNCTD notification before setting payroll.
Twice a year, with effect from 01 April and 01 October, through a Variable Dearness Allowance revision linked to the All-India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers. The April 2025 order was based on a CPI-IW figure of 413.42 for July to December 2024, an increase of 11.32 points.
No. Delhi applies one uniform rate across the entire National Capital Territory with no zone classification. Noida and Ghaziabad follow the Uttar Pradesh schedule and Gurugram and Faridabad follow Haryana, so the boundary matters even though the NCR functions as one labour market.
Yes, and it is the larger component. Under the April 2025 order the unskilled wage was ₹8,446 basic plus ₹10,010 VDA, totalling ₹18,456 a month. Building a salary structure from the basic column alone would underpay by more than half the wage.
Yes. Delhi notifies a separate track for clerical and non-technical supervisory staff graded by qualification — non-matriculate, matriculate but not graduate, and graduate and above. Office staff read from this schedule rather than the manual skill ladder, and the graduate grade sits at the top of the Delhi table.
Divide the notified monthly figure by 26 for the daily rate, then by 8 for the hourly rate. At a reported ₹19,846 a month, unskilled work gives ₹763 a day and ₹95.38 an hour, with overtime at twice that. Under the Code on Wages framework, employers pay whichever is higher of the central floor wage or the state-scheduled rate.
Alpesh Vaghasiya (CEO)
Alpesh Vaghasiya is the Co-founder and CEO of Superworks, a smart business management solution that Indian SMBs and large enterprises use to run attendance, payroll, and statutory compliance from a single system. He has spent over 15 years building software out of Surat, founding Artoon Solutions, now a 350+ person product engineering firm serving clients across 30+ countries, in 2009, before launching Superworks in 2020.
His writing comes from the operator's side of compliance - what actually breaks when payroll has to absorb a minimum wage revision, reconcile attendance across multiple sites, or file returns under different state rules in the same month. A Charter Member of TiE Surat and an active angel investor in early-stage Indian startups, he holds a B.E. in Computer Engineering from Gujarat University.
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