California Sets a $19.75 Minimum Wage for Farmworkers Who Work Beside Seasonal Crews

California’s general minimum wage rises to $17.40 an hour on January 1, 2027. A separate law signed on September 30, 2026, sets a higher floor for part of the state’s farm workforce. Assembly Bill 2646 adds Labor Code § 1208, which sets a California agricultural minimum wage of $19.75 an hour for out-of-state seasonal farmworkers and for the California farmworkers who do the same work beside them.

The second group is the one most local crews will care about. Under § 1208, a California resident who performs the same or substantially similar farm work as an approved seasonal worker, for the same employer, in the same county, during the same period, is owed that $19.75 minimum too. A Kern County picker working beside an out-of-state crew can be owed $2.35 an hour more than the state rate. A gap like that is a California wage and hour claim like any other underpayment.

Who Counts as an Approved Agricultural Employee?

An approved agricultural employee is a farmworker who lives outside California and is permitted to work here on a temporary or seasonal basis, as § 1208(c)(3) defines it. The permission comes through an application process in which the Labor and Workforce Development Agency or the Employment Development Department approved an application or job order to hire farmworkers from outside the state. “Temporary or seasonal” means a job the employer needs filled for no longer than one year, except in extraordinary circumstances.

The statute borrows its definitions of “agriculture” and “agricultural employer” from Labor Code § 1140.4. The rule applies only where an employer has used that approval process. A grower that hires no approved out-of-state workers is not covered by § 1208, and its crews remain on the general state minimum wage or a higher local one.

When California Farmworkers Are Owed the Same $19.75 Rate

A “corresponding employee” under § 1208(c)(4) must meet every part of the test. The worker must:

• live in California
• be engaged in agriculture
• perform work that matches or is substantially similar to an approved agricultural employee’s
• do it during that worker’s time period
• work for that worker’s employer
• work in that worker’s county

Each element turns on facts the worker can usually document. Crew assignments, field locations, harvest dates, and the job title on a pay stub show whether local workers and the approved crew shared the work, the grower, and the dates.

From January 2027, a local worker paid only the state rate while working beside an approved crew may be underpaid for every hour of that season. The Nourmand Law Firm, APC reviews situations like this one at no charge. Call 800-700-WAGE (9243) to talk it through.

When the Higher Farmworker Wage Takes Effect

AB 2646 was passed without an urgency clause, so § 1208 takes effect on January 1, 2027, the date the California Constitution sets for a regular-session statute. The section also requires the $19.75 figure to be adjusted every January 1, starting in 2027, by the cost-of-living adjustment the Social Security Administration publishes for that year. The text does not say whether the first adjustment applies on the same day the section takes effect, so the figure owed in early 2027 may be higher than $19.75.

The general rate is set by a different process. Under Labor Code § 1182.12, the state minimum wage is adjusted each year by the lesser of 3.5% or the change in the consumer price index. That is how it reached $17.40 for 2027, as the firm’s post on the 2027 minimum wage and the exempt salary line explains. The farmworker rate follows the Social Security adjustment instead, so the gap between the two may change from year to year.

What a Farmworker Can Recover for Underpayment

A worker paid less than the applicable minimum wage can recover the unpaid balance under Labor Code § 1194. Interest, reasonable attorney’s fees, and costs are added, “notwithstanding any agreement to work for a lesser wage.” Labor Code § 1197 treats a minimum wage set by “any applicable state or local law” as the legal minimum, a definition broad enough to reach the new § 1208 rate. Under § 1194.2, the worker may also recover liquidated damages equal to the unpaid minimum wages plus interest.

An employer can ask to reduce those liquidated damages by showing good faith and reasonable grounds for believing it complied. In Iloff v. LaPaille (2025), the California Supreme Court held that the employer must show a reasonable attempt to learn what the law required, and that ignorance of the law is not enough. The Nourmand Law Firm, APC brings these minimum wage claims for farmworkers in Fresno, Tulare, Kern, and Monterey counties and across California. A claim can be filed with the Labor Commissioner, following the steps for filing a wage claim in California, or brought in court.

Talking to a Lawyer About Farmworker Pay in California

Farm crews in the Central Valley, the Salinas Valley, and the Imperial Valley often work alongside seasonal workers hired from outside the state, and many will be owed the new rate starting in January. The Nourmand Law Firm, APC represents only employees, never employers, and handles wage claims for agricultural workers throughout California. The Nourmand Law Firm, APC works in English and Spanish. Call 800-700-WAGE (9243) or contact the firm to talk through what happened, at no cost.