Topic: Minimum wage: who sets it, how often, and who it covers
What does Japan require?
Everyday topic
Japan runs two kinds of minimum wage — a regional (地域別) rate that is the main one, and an industry-specific (特定) rate — both under the Minimum Wage Act. The process has two stages: the Central Minimum Wage Council first groups the 47 prefectures into ranks by economic conditions and issues a nationwide adjustment guideline (目安) for each rank; each prefecture's own local minimum wage council then decides the actual figure, weighing local workers' cost of living, general wage levels, and employers' ability to pay. For fiscal 2026, the central council's guideline, issued July 28, points to a national weighted average of ¥1,176 an hour (up ¥55, or 4.9%, from the year before), but each prefecture's local council still has to issue its own decision, so the actual amount — and the effective date, mostly in October — varies by prefecture. That means Japan does not have one national rate; it has 47 coexisting ones. An employer who underpays the regional rate can be fined up to ¥500,000; underpaying the industry-specific rate carries a lower cap of ¥300,000.
What is this topic?
Taiwan's Minimum Wage Act (enacted 2023) is decided each year by a 21-member Minimum Wage Review Council that meets in the third quarter; the rate for 2026 is NT$29,500 a month or NT$196 an hour, a single national figure with no regional variation.
Japan runs 47 separate rates instead: local minimum wage councils in each prefecture set their own number after the central council issues a nationwide guideline — the 2026 guideline points to a weighted average of ¥1,176 an hour, but the actual figure differs prefecture by prefecture.
China's Regulation on Minimum Wages requires provincial governments to review their rates at least every two years, and a single province can still run two to four tiers — Shaanxi's 2026 notice sets ¥2,376 a month in its top tier and ¥2,140 in its lowest.
The US federal minimum has sat at $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009 — seventeen years unchanged — while states are free to set higher floors (Washington, D.C. runs $18.40) or simply default to the federal rate.
India's Code on Wages, 2019 only became fully operative on April 1, 2026, extending statutory minimum-wage coverage from the roughly 30% of workers under "scheduled employment" to nearly everyone — but the binding national floor wage it authorizes was still under consultation as of August 2026, with the only reference point being a non-binding ₹176-a-day benchmark unchanged since 2017.
Indonesia's 2025 regulation lets each of its 34 provincial governors set an annual UMP tied to local economic growth; Jakarta's 2026 figure, the country's highest, is Rp5,729,876 a month.
Brazil sets one national number by presidential decree, adjusted each year for the prior year's INPC inflation plus GDP growth two years back — R$1,621 a month from January 2026 — though a handful of states such as São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul are allowed under a 2000 law to set their own regional floor above it.
Sources and dates
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