Minimum wage in Nepal 2082/83: the monthly, daily and hourly floor, and who it covers

The woman who irons clothes near my tole charges by the piece, but the shop she works at pays her a monthly wage. She mentioned it once: a round Rs 18,000, cash, no slip. She had no idea whether that was legal, low, or fine. Most people being paid at the bottom of the market never check the number against the floor the law actually sets, because the floor is published in a gazette nobody reads and quoted in basic-plus-allowance splits nobody explains.

So here is the floor for FY 2082/83, what it breaks into, and the part that trips everyone up: which workers it covers, and why the split between basic and allowance quietly decides your retirement and your Dashain bonus.

The number for 2082/83

The Ministry of Labour fixes one floor that the gazette then expresses three ways. The reproduced gazette notice lays out the basic and dearness-allowance split for each:

Floor	Basic	Dearness allowance	Total
Monthly	Rs 12,170	Rs 7,380	Rs 19,550
Daily	Rs 470	Rs 284	Rs 754
Hourly (full-time)	Rs 63	Rs 38	Rs 101
Hourly (part-time)	—	—	Rs 107

Two things are worth pausing on. The dearness allowance is roughly 38% of the package, which is high and which matters for the reasons below. And the part-time hourly rate of Rs 107 is higher than the full-time Rs 101, not a typo (gazette source). The gazette does not spell out why; the usual reading is that a part-timer forgoes the leave, festival expense and other benefits a full-timer accrues, so the cash rate is set a notch above.

What it was, and how often it moves

The Rs 19,550 figure replaced Rs 17,300 (basic Rs 10,820 + DA Rs 6,480), a rise of about 13%, and took effect from 1 Shrawan 2082, the first day of the fiscal year (Himalayan Times, WageIndicator).

The cadence is fixed by law. Section 106 of the Labour Act 2074 requires the Ministry to fix the minimum wage at least once every two years, on the recommendation of a Minimum Remuneration Fixation Committee under Section 107. That committee is tripartite: government, employers, and trade unions negotiate the figure, the gazette publishes it, and it takes effect on the first day of the new fiscal year. Because 2082 was a revision year, the next change is due around 2084. Between revisions the number is frozen, which is why a multi-year stretch of inflation can quietly erode it, the same way it erodes a flat salary's purchasing power.

Who the floor actually covers

This is where most of the confusion lives. The old 1992 Act only bit on establishments with 10 or more workers, so small shops assumed they were exempt. The Labour Act 2074 removed that threshold. The floor now applies to every enterprise regardless of headcount, and to full-time, part-time, contract, temporary, casual and daily-wage workers across sectors (Pioneer Law summary).

A few groups sit outside it:

• Civil servants, the Nepal Army, Nepal Police, and the Armed Police Force. They are paid under their own service laws and pay scales, not the labour-market floor.
• Tea-estate workers. The gazette explicitly carves them out and sets a separate schedule for the tea gardens.
• Domestic workers and casual agricultural labour. The Act's text reaches them, but in practice the statutory floor is rarely enforced in private homes or informal farm work, where there is no slip, no contract, and no inspection.

The ironing-shop worker on Rs 18,000 cash, then, is being paid below the Rs 19,550 floor that legally applies to her, because the shop is an enterprise regardless of how few people it employs. Whether that gap is ever enforced is a separate question from whether it is owed.

Basic versus total: the split that decides your SSF, gratuity and Dashain bonus

The gazette could have published one number. It publishes a basic-plus-allowance split because the split, not the total, drives everything downstream.

The Act's definitions in Section 2 draw the line. "Remuneration" means basic plus allowances. "Basic remuneration" is the base wage plus any annual increment earned after a year of service. The dearness allowance, despite being part of the minimum-wage package, is an allowance and therefore not part of the basic base.

That distinction is not academic, because three of your largest entitlements are a percentage of basic alone:

• SSF or PF. Your social-security contribution runs on basic. For an SSF member that is 11% from you and 20% from the employer, 31% in total of basic, not of gross.
• Gratuity. The employer deposits 8.33% of basic every month toward your gratuity in the SSF.
• Festival expense. Your mandatory one-month Dashain bonus is one month of basic, not one month of gross.

So a minimum-wage worker's festival expense is Rs 12,170, the basic, not Rs 19,550. Their SSF and gratuity are calculated on Rs 12,170 too. A package that loads more into dearness allowance and less into basic looks identical on payday and is quietly worse for retirement and bonus. When you read your salary slip or weigh an offer, the basic figure is the one to interrogate, not the headline gross.

The hours behind the wage

The floor assumes a standard working week. Section 28 caps regular work at 8 hours a day and 48 hours a week, with a half-hour rest break after five continuous hours. Work beyond that is overtime, paid at a higher rate, and the overtime and allowance rules are their own subject. The minimum monthly wage is the floor for those standard hours; it does not absorb unlimited extra work.

If you're paid below the floor

Underpaying is not a grey area. Under Section 163, the Labour Office can order an employer who pays below the minimum, or makes unlawful deductions, to hand over the shortfall plus compensation of up to twice the underpaid amount. A separate fine of up to Rs 20,000 covers obstructing inspectors or filing false statements.

The path mirrors the one for a skipped festival expense: document the pay and the gap, then file a complaint at the local Labour Office, which opens negotiation and can issue a binding decision. The leverage is real even when enforcement is patchy, because the order is not a request, it is a directive with a compensation multiplier attached.

What you actually need to know

• The floor for 2082/83 is Rs 19,550 a month, Rs 754 a day, Rs 101 an hour. It rose from Rs 17,300, applies to every enterprise no matter how small, and covers part-time and casual workers as well as full-time staff. Civil servants, the army and police, and tea-estate workers sit under separate rules.
• The basic-versus-allowance split is the part that matters. Only Rs 12,170 of the Rs 19,550 is basic, and your SSF, gratuity and Dashain festival expense are all calculated on that basic, not the total. Interrogate the basic figure in any offer.
• Underpayment carries a real remedy. Section 163 lets the Labour Office order the shortfall plus up to double it as compensation. The minimum wage is a legal floor, not a living wage; in Kathmandu it sits below a single adult's cost of living.

If you are being paid a round cash figure with no slip and want to check it against the floor and the basic split, email parjanya57@gmail.com with the amount and how it is described.

This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the understand-your-money section.