Topic: Minimum wage: who sets it, how often, and who it covers
What does Taiwan require?
Everyday topic
Taiwan's minimum wage is governed by the Minimum Wage Act, enacted December 27, 2023, which replaced the older administrative-order-level Regulations Governing the Review of the Basic Wage. The Minimum Wage Review Council has 21 members: the Minister of Labor as convener, one representative each from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the National Development Council, seven labor representatives, seven employer representatives, and four scholars and experts, with no gender making up less than a third of the seats. The Council meets in principle in the third quarter each year; once it approves a rate, the Ministry of Labor must report it to the Executive Yuan for approval within ten days, and the rate takes effect on January 1 of the following year unless the Council sets and gets approval for a different date. The rate effective in 2026 is NT$29,500 a month or NT$196 an hour, up 3.18% from the year before and the tenth consecutive annual increase. It is a single national figure with no regional or industry variation; the hourly rate mainly applies to part-time and other non-full-time workers.
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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