Employers Must Promptly Pay Wages to Ex-Employees

Minnesota Statutes require that employees be paid promptly when their employment ends. The date payment is due depends on whether the employee was fired or quit.

  • If the employee is fired, the wages and commissions actually earned and unpaid at the time of discharge are immediately due and payable upon the employee’s written demand, and the employer must pay them within 24 hours of that demand. See Minnesota Statutes section 181.13.
  • If the employee quits or resigns, all wages and commissions earned and unpaid must be paid no later than the first regularly scheduled payday following the employee’s final day of employment, unless a collective bargaining agreement provides a different timeline. If that first payday falls fewer than five calendar days after the final day of work, the employer may delay payment until the second regularly scheduled payday, but in no event later than 20 calendar days after the final day of work. See Minnesota Statutes section 181.14, subdivision 1.

If the employer fails to make payment as required by law, the employer may be liable to the employee for a penalty. If the employee’s earned wages and commissions are not paid within 24 hours after a written demand for payment, the employer is in default. A defaulting employer is liable for a penalty equal to the employee’s average daily earnings, calculated at the employee’s regular rate of pay or the rate required by law, whichever is greater, for each day the employer remains in default, up to a maximum of 15 days. See Minnesota Statutes section 181.13 (discharged employees). The parallel penalty for an employee who quits or resigns is found in Minnesota Statutes section 181.14, subdivision 2.

Public employers are governed by the same final-wage statute, but section 181.13 contains a special timing rule for them: where a governing board must approve expenditures, the 24-hour payment period (whose lapse triggers the daily penalty) does not begin until the board’s first regular or special meeting following the discharge. The penalty itself is the same; only the start of the default period differs.

Employee Wage Demand Letter Template

Here is an example of a demand for wages:

Dear _________,

This is a demand for my final wages in accordance with Minnesota law. My last day of work was _________. I am owed ___________ (dollar amount, number of hours, etc.).

(IF THE COMPANY TERMINATED YOU, USE THIS PARAGRAPH) Under Minnesota Statutes § 181.13, I am entitled to be paid within 24 hours of this demand.

(IF YOU RESIGNED/RETIRED, USE THIS PARAGRAPH) Under Minnesota Statutes § 181.14, I am entitled to be paid in full not later than the first regularly scheduled payday following my final day of employment, which was _________.

This statute further provides that, if an employer fails to timely pay, the employer is liable for “a penalty equal to the amount of the employee’s average daily earnings at the employee’s regular rate of pay or the rate required by law, whichever rate is greater” for up to 15 days.

Under Minnesota Statutes § 181.171, subdivision 3, the employer is also liable for the employee’s attorney’s fees, and the court must order an employer found to have committed a violation to pay reasonable costs, disbursements, witness fees, and attorney’s fees.

Please mail my final wages to the address listed below within the time required by law.

Sincerely,

(Name)
(Address)
(Email)
(Phone)

Wage Disputes

If there is a dispute over the final wages or commissions owed, Minnesota law does not simply require the employer to pay an “undisputed amount.” Instead, an employer that disputes the claim and makes a legal tender of the amount it in good faith claims to be due limits its liability to that tendered amount plus interest, unless the employee recovers a greater sum in court. See Minnesota Statutes section 181.14, subdivision 3. As a practical matter, because wages actually earned and unpaid are immediately due on demand, an employer that withholds the portion plainly earned and not in dispute risks the statutory penalty; making a good-faith tender is the statute’s mechanism for capping that exposure.

A separate rule applies when the departing employee handled money or property. Where the discharged or quitting employee was, during employment, entrusted with the collection, disbursement, or handling of money or property, the employer has ten calendar days after termination of the employment to audit and adjust the employee’s accounts before the wages or commissions are required to be paid, and the statutory penalty applies only from the date of a demand made after that ten-day period expires. See Minnesota Statutes section 181.14, subdivision 4. That same subdivision also bars an employer from making any deduction from the wages of an employee who is not an independent contractor for lost, stolen, or damaged property, or to recover any other claimed debt, except as permitted by Minnesota Statutes section 181.79.