Minimum Wages in Andhra Pradesh (2026): Shop, Factory and Security Rates with VDA from October 2026

If you run a shop in Vijayawada, a factory in Sri City, a hotel in Tirupati or supply security guards in Visakhapatnam, the Commissioner of Labour's half-yearly notification sets the least you can pay. Andhra Pradesh fixes a separate minimum for each of 65 industrial and 5 agricultural employments, each with its own basic wage, zones and dearness formula, and revises the dearness part every April and October. This page gives the rates from 1 October 2026 for the employments most small businesses deal with, worked out from the department's own gazette and rate sheets, with the zone rules, the VDA arithmetic, payroll examples in rupees and the mistakes that cause trouble at inspections.

Quick answer

From 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027, a helper, peon or attender in an Andhra Pradesh shop or commercial establishment must get at least ₹12,871.20 a month in Zone I and ₹12,541.20 in Zone II. That is basic wage plus VDA at 1,958 points, notified by the Commissioner of Labour on 28 September 2026.

• VDA for shops: (1,958 − 525) × ₹6.40 = ₹9,171.20 a month

• Unskilled factory worker: ₹13,432.35; skilled: ₹19,209.80

• Unarmed agency guard, Zone I: ₹14,234

• Next revision due from 1 April 2027

Andhra Pradesh minimum wages for shops from 1 October 2026

The Shops and Commercial Establishments schedule is the one most MSMEs need: it covers retail shops, offices, agencies, salons, tailoring units and laundries. The basic wages come from G.O.Ms.No.116 of the Labour, Employment, Training and Factories Department dated 7 December 2007, published in Gazette No. 705 on 19 December 2007. That G.O. ties wages to 525 cost-of-living points and pays ₹6.40 for every point above that.

The Commissioner's notification No. G/3186486/2026, published in Andhra Pradesh Gazette Extraordinary No. 400 on 28 September 2026, puts the index at 1,958 points from 1 October 2026. So every category in the shops schedule gets 1,433 points × ₹6.40 = ₹9,171.20 a month as VDA on top of its basic wage. The table adds the two.

The commercial-establishments part of the same G.O. uses similar figures, with small differences: a manager in Zone II has a basic of ₹5,138 rather than ₹5,357, and watchmen and security guards sit with peons and attenders at ₹3,700 (Zone I). Salons, tailoring shops and laundries have their own short lists — a hair dresser or beautician, tailor or laundry washerman is at ₹4,520 basic in Zone I, the same as a salesman, and helpers and pressmen are at the helper rate.

AP shops at a glance (1 Oct 2026 – 31 Mar 2027)

₹12,871.20

Helper, Zone I

per month

₹12,541.20

Helper, Zone II

₹9,171.20

VDA for every shop category

1,958

CPI points from 1 Oct 2026

was 1,923

Andhra Pradesh minimum wage calculator

Zone / employment

Factories (any manufacturing process)Shops & establishments — Zone IShops & establishments — Zone IISecurity servicesHotels & restaurants — Zone IConstruction, roads & buildingsDomestic workers

Skill level / category

UnskilledSemi-skilledSkilledHighly skilled

Days worked in the month

Overtime hours

Actual wage paid (₹/month, optional)

Months underpaid

A full month is 26 working days; the daily rate is the monthly rate ÷ 26 where the order fixes only a monthly figure.

Monthly minimum (26 days)₹13,432.35

Daily rate (monthly ÷ 26)₹516.63

Pay for 26 days₹13,432.35

Overtime at 2× (₹129.16/hour)₹0

Minimum gross pay this month₹13,432.35

Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate (daily rate ÷ 8 hours). Arrears assume the same shortfall in every month since the rates took effect on 1 October 2026; a claim under the Code on Wages must generally be filed within 3 years. Estimates only — check the order for your employment.

How the Andhra Pradesh VDA works

Andhra Pradesh does not publish a single "minimum wage". Each scheduled employment has a G.O. that fixes basic wages, a base number of cost-of-living index points, and a rupee value for each point above the base. Twice a year the Commissioner of Labour notifies the index that applies for the next six months. The VDA is simply (current index − base points) × per-point rate.

The 28 September 2026 notification declares the consumer price index numbers for state industrial workers and state agricultural workers for the half-year ending June 2026. Every one of the 65 industrial employments in Part I of its schedule carries 1,958 points from 1 October 2026, and the five agricultural employments in Part II (agriculture, horticulture, dairy, poultry and betel vines) carry 1,566 points on a separate 1986=100 series. The allowance is payable from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.

What differs between employments is the base and the rate. Shops, construction, private motor transport and most 2007-era G.O.s are linked at 525 points. Security services are linked at 590 points with ₹6.75 a point. Hotels and restaurants are at 508 points with ₹6.50. The 2012 notifications — any manufacturing process in a factory, hospitals and nursing homes, non-teaching staff in private schools and coaching centres, spinning mills — are linked at 847 points, with a different per-point rate for each skill level. Footwear and leather, revised in 2022, is linked at 1,479 points.

The jump from April is 35 points. For a shop employee that means 35 × ₹6.40 = ₹224 more a month than the ₹8,947.20 VDA paid from April to September 2026. For an unskilled factory worker, whose rate is ₹6.85 a point, it is about ₹240.

The September 2026 gazette is also the first in Andhra Pradesh to cite the Code on Wages, 2019 and rule 4 of the Code on Wages (Andhra Pradesh) Rules, 2026 as its authority, alongside the Commissioner's role under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Section 69 of the Code keeps the old G.O.s alive until the state replaces them, so the basic wages above still apply.

AP shops VDA in 2026

23 Mar 2026

Gazette notifies 1,923 points for 1 Apr – 30 Sep 2026 — shop VDA ₹8,947.20

25 Sep 2026

G.O.Ms.No.34 of the LFB&IMS Department cited as reference for the Code on Wages (AP) Rules, 2026

28 Sep 2026

Gazette No. 400 notifies 1,958 points from 1 Oct 2026

1 Oct 2026

Shop VDA rises to ₹9,171.20 — helper Zone I ₹12,871.20

1 Apr 2027

Next index revision, from the July–December 2026 average

Zones: which rate applies where

Zones are defined in each G.O., so the same town can be in different zones for different employments. Check the zone in the schedule that actually covers your business.

• Shops and commercial establishments (two zones). Zone I is all municipal corporations in Andhra Pradesh plus selection-grade and special-grade municipalities. Zone II is the rest of the state. A shop in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Nellore, Kurnool, Tirupati or Kakinada is in Zone I; a shop in a mandal headquarters village is in Zone II.
• Security services (three zones). Zone I is all municipal corporations; Zone II is all municipalities; Zone III is everywhere else. A guard deployed at a factory in an industrial park outside municipal limits is usually in Zone III.
• Hotels and restaurants (two zones). The rate sheet still defines Zone I as the municipal corporations of Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada plus selection- and special-grade municipalities — a definition written before the state was divided in 2014. Hotels in other municipal corporations should ask the local Assistant Commissioner of Labour which zone the department applies, and paying the Zone I rate is the safe course.
• Factories, construction and domestic work have a single statewide rate per category.

The zone follows where the employee works, not where the head office is. If you run a Vijayawada head office and a godown in a Zone II village, the godown staff can be paid the Zone II rate, but anyone working at the head office must get Zone I.

Factory, security, hotel, construction and domestic rates

The table applies the 1,958-point index to the basic wages and per-point rates in each G.O. Factory figures are for "any manufacturing process carried out in any factory" not covered by a more specific schedule (G.O.Ms.No.4 of 7 January 2012). Units with their own schedule — rice mills, cashew processing, garments, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, engineering foundries and others — must use that schedule.

Factory VDA is per category: ₹6.85 a point for unskilled work, ₹8.05 semi-skilled, ₹9.80 skilled and ₹12.15 highly skilled, applied to 1,958 − 847 = 1,111 points. Security VDA is (1,958 − 590) × ₹6.75. Hotel VDA is (1,958 − 508) × ₹6.50. Domestic-worker VDA is (1,958 − 835) × ₹5.40 for a full eight-hour day, and the schedule scales both basic and VDA for shorter work — an hour a day works out to about ₹1,323 a month.

Note the gap between schedules. A watchman in a factory gets ₹13,432.35, a security guard supplied by an agency in a corporation gets ₹14,234, and a watchman on a shop's own payroll gets ₹12,906.20. The employment you are in, not the job title, decides the rate.

Who is covered and how categories are decided

The Code on Wages, in force since 21 November 2025, makes the minimum wage apply to every employee, not only those in a listed employment. In practice Andhra Pradesh's 70 schedules cover nearly every kind of business an MSME runs, from oil mills and brick kilns to coaching centres and petrol bunks. If your work fits more than one schedule, use the one that describes the main activity of the establishment, and where a specific schedule exists, it applies over the general "any manufacturing process" schedule.

Category depends on the work done. The factory G.O. defines an unskilled employee as one doing simple tasks needing little or no experience and says nobody who operates a machine may be classed as unskilled. A semi-skilled worker has at least a year's experience in the trade and does repetitive work with simple tools; a skilled worker can work independently; a highly skilled worker exercises judgement and can supervise. The shops schedule lists job titles instead, and the lists end with similar categories, so a "store executive" doing a clerk's work is paid as a clerk.

Paying above the minimum is always allowed. What you cannot do is pay a monthly gross that, after you separate out overtime, bonus and reimbursements, is below the basic-plus-VDA total for the employee's category and zone.

Worked payroll examples in ₹ (October 2026)

Example 1 — a helper in a Vijayawada kirana shop. Lakshmi is an attender and helper, paid monthly, in Zone I. Her minimum gross is ₹12,871.20.

• ESI (wages below ₹21,000/month): employee 0.75% ≈ ₹96.53; employer 3.25% ≈ ₹418.31
• EPF at 12% of wages (if the shop is covered): ₹1,544.54 each from her and from you
• Professional tax: nil, because her salary is below ₹15,000
• Net pay ≈ ₹12,871.20 − ₹96.53 − ₹1,544.54 = ₹11,230.13

Example 2 — a skilled fitter in a Sri City factory. The general factory schedule gives ₹19,209.80. Add 6 hours of overtime: the Code on Wages requires twice the normal rate of wages. Using an hourly rate of monthly ÷ 26 ÷ 8 ≈ ₹92.36, overtime is about ₹1,108.32, for a gross of ₹20,318.12. Wages are above the ESI limit, so no ESI. EPF on ₹19,209.80 at 12% is ₹2,305.18. Professional tax is ₹150 a month on the minimum, but the gross with overtime crosses ₹20,000 and moves into the ₹200 a month slab for that month — see our Andhra Pradesh professional tax guide.

Example 3 — an agency guard at a Guntur warehouse. Guntur is a municipal corporation, so an unarmed guard is at ₹14,234. If your contract with the agency was priced on April's rate — ₹5,000 + (1,923 − 590) × ₹6.75 = ₹13,997.75 — the agency now owes the guard ₹236.25 more a month. As principal employer you carry that risk if it does not pay, so ask for a revised bill rather than resisting one.

Example 4 — arrears for October. Suppose a Kurnool shop ran October payroll before noticing the new gazette and paid its three Zone I helpers the April figure of ₹12,647.20. Each is owed ₹224 for October. Pay ₹672 in total with November wages, shown as a separate "VDA arrears, October 2026" line on the slip.

Monthly minimum-wage check for an AP employee

Step 1

Find the schedule for your business

Step 2

Category + zone

zone = where the employee works

Step 3

Basic + (1,958 − base) × rate

from 1 Oct 2026

Step 4

Overtime at 2×

Step 5

ESI / EPF / PT

PT only above ₹15,000

Step 6

Pay by the 7th with a wage slip

Employer obligations under the Code on Wages

The Code on Wages, 2019 replaced the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Payment of Wages Act and two other laws on 21 November 2025. The rates above stay binding because section 69 saves existing notifications until new ones are issued. The national floor wage under section 9 had not been notified when we checked; the old advisory floor of ₹176 a day (advisory, 2017) is far below any Andhra Pradesh rate.

• Pay on time. Monthly wages must be paid before the end of the 7th day of the next month. On resignation, dismissal or retrenchment, dues must be settled within 2 working days.
• Deductions. Total deductions cannot exceed 50% of wages of wages in a period.
• Equal pay. Men and women doing the same or similar work must get the same rate, including in recruitment.
• Contract labour. Under the Code, the principal employer must pay if a contractor fails to pay at least the minimum, and can recover the amount from the contractor.
• Records and slips. Keep wage and attendance registers and issue a wage slip every period.

Common mistakes Andhra Pradesh employers make

Using last half-year's VDA. The October gazette was published on 28 September, but many payroll packages keep April's points until someone updates them. The new index applies from 1 October regardless of when you notice it; the shortfall is a claim.

Applying shop VDA to every employee. VDA is per schedule. A factory using ₹6.40 a point (the shops rate) for an unskilled worker instead of ₹6.85 underpays by about ₹500 a month.

Mixing up guard rates. Guards on your own payroll and guards supplied by an agency are in different schedules. If you outsource security, the agency must pay the Security Services rate for the zone of deployment — check its wage register.

Treating Zone II as the default. Shops in selection- and special-grade municipalities are in Zone I even if the town feels small. Confirm the municipality's grade before using Zone II rates.

Counting benefits towards the minimum. Employer ESI and EPF contributions, bonus, overtime and reimbursements don't count towards the basic-plus-VDA minimum.

Paying trainees less. None of the AP schedules discussed here has a lower trainee rate. Apprentices under the Apprentices Act get a stipend under that Act; anyone else must get the rate for the work done.

What happens if you underpay

An employee, a group of employees or a union can claim unpaid minimum wages under the Code on Wages within 3 years. The authority can award the shortfall plus compensation of up to 10 times the claim. Paying less than the minimum is also an offence, punishable with a fine of up to ₹50,000 for a first offence and up to ₹1 lakh fine and/or 3 months' imprisonment for a repeat.

If you find an underpayment, calculate it period by period — April to September 2026 at 1,923 points, October onwards at 1,958 — pay it as a separate line, and keep the working on file. The department's Samadhaan and online inspection portals mean complaints now reach inspectors quickly.

Andhra Pradesh minimum wage checklist (October 2026)

0/8

• Identify the schedule (G.O.) that covers your business
• Classify each employee by category and by zone of work
• Update the index to 1,958 points from 1 October 2026
• Recalculate VDA with your schedule's base points and per-point rate
• Pay any October arrears with November wages
• Check security and manpower agencies' wage registers
• Recheck PT for anyone whose pay crossed ₹15,000 or ₹20,000
• Diary the next revision from 1 April 2027

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Official links

• CPI / VDA gazette as on 01.10.2026 (No. G/3186486/2026)Commissioner of Labour, 28 Sep 2026
• CPI / VDA gazette as on 01.04.2026
• Shops & commercial establishments rate sheet (G.O.Ms.No.116)
• Labour Department, Andhra PradeshMinimum Wages and VDA notices on the home page
• The Code on Wages, 2019 (India Code)

What to do next

Update every employee's VDA to the 1,958-point index from 1 October 2026, check each person's schedule and zone, and settle any October arrears with the next payroll. Then issue wage slips that show basic, VDA, overtime, ESI, EPF and PT separately with our free salary slip generator. If you also employ people across the border, compare the Telangana minimum wages, which use the same G.O. structure, and read our Code on Wages guide for the wider rules on deductions and payment dates.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice — confirm on the official source or with a professional.

Frequently asked questions

What is the minimum wage in Andhra Pradesh in 2026?

It depends on the scheduled employment and zone. From 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027, a helper or attender in a shop or commercial establishment gets ₹12,871.20 a month in Zone I and ₹12,541.20 in Zone II. An unskilled factory worker gets ₹13,432.35 and an unarmed agency guard in a municipal corporation gets ₹14,234.

How is VDA calculated in Andhra Pradesh?

Each employment's G.O. links wages to a base number of cost-of-living points and fixes a rupee amount per point. The Commissioner of Labour notifies the current index each April and October. As on 1 October 2026 it is 1,958 points, so shops get (1,958 − 525) × ₹6.40 = ₹9,171.20 a month as VDA until 31 March 2027.

Has Andhra Pradesh revised minimum wages from October 2026?

Yes. The Commissioner of Labour's notification No. G/3186486/2026 dated 28 September 2026, published in the Andhra Pradesh Gazette on 28 September 2026, raised the index to 1,958 points from 1,923. That adds 35 points of VDA from 1 October 2026 — ₹224 a month for shop employees. Basic wages are unchanged.

Which areas are Zone I for AP shops and establishments?

Under G.O.Ms.No.116 of 2007, Zone I covers all municipal corporations in the state plus selection-grade and special-grade municipalities — Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Nellore, Tirupati, Kurnool and similar towns. Zone II is the rest of the state. Security services use three zones: corporations, other municipalities, and everywhere else.

Is professional tax deducted from minimum-wage workers in Andhra Pradesh?

Only above ₹15,000 a month. Most shop, hotel and construction minimums are below that, so no PT is deducted. A skilled factory worker on ₹19,209.80 pays ₹150 a month, and a highly skilled worker on ₹23,820.65 pays ₹200 a month.

What is the minimum wage for a security guard in Andhra Pradesh?

Guards supplied by security agencies come under the Security Services G.O.: from 1 October 2026, ₹14,234 a month without arms and ₹15,734 with arms in Zone I, and ₹13,234 unarmed in Zone III. A guard on a shop's own payroll is in the shops schedule at ₹12,906.20 in Zone I.

Sources & verification

Figures on this page were checked against the sources below when it was last reviewed on 9 October 2026. Each rate and limit is stored once with its own official source and review date, and official update channels are monitored daily so changes are picked up. How we verify

1. 1.Code on Wages, 2019 — Cost of living index numbers applicable to employees in scheduled employments as on 01-10-2026 (No. G/3186486/2026 dated 28.09.2026, AP Gazette Extraordinary No. 400) — Commissioner of Labour, Andhra Pradesh · accessed 9 October 2026
2. 2.Cost of living index numbers as on 01-04-2026 (No. G/3186486/2026 dated 23.03.2026, AP Gazette Extraordinary No. 98) — Commissioner of Labour, Andhra Pradesh · accessed 9 October 2026
3. 3.Shops and Commercial Establishments — rate sheet (G.O.Ms.No.116, LET&F, 07.12.2007; base 525 points, ₹6.40 a point; Zone I/II definitions) — Labour Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh · accessed 9 October 2026
4. 4.Any manufacturing process in a factory; Security services; Hotels; Construction; Domestic workers — rate sheets — Labour Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh · accessed 9 October 2026
5. 5.Wages of contract labour notified under rule 25(v)(b) — as on 01.10.2026 — Commissioner of Labour, Andhra Pradesh · accessed 9 October 2026
6. 6.Labour Department, Andhra Pradesh — home (Minimum Wages, VDA gazettes, Contract Labour VDA points) — Labour Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh · accessed 9 October 2026
7. 7.The Code on Wages, 2019 (No. 29 of 2019) — India Code, Legislative Department · accessed 9 October 2026