When the Check Does Not Come
ORC 4113.15 — the schedule wages are owed on, and what late costs
Ohio sets a schedule for when earned wages have to be handed over, and it is a calendar rule rather than a matter between the parties. Wages earned in the first half of a month are payable on or before the first day of the month after, and wages earned in the second half are payable on or before the fifteenth of the month after.
Who handles this in Ohio: legal aid programs, lawyer referral and the state offices, listed in the Ohio directory.
Being late has a price attached, and it is a floor rather than a percentage. Where wages stay unpaid for thirty days past the scheduled payday, the section makes the employer liable for liquidated damages on top of the wages themselves: six percent of the amount still unpaid, or two hundred dollars, whichever is greater. On a small unpaid amount the two hundred is what applies, which is the point of writing it as the greater of the two.
Where there is no regularly scheduled payday, the clock is sixty days instead, running from the filing of a claim or from the agreement, award or other act that made the wages payable.
A genuine dispute switches the damages off. The liquidated damages apply where no contest, court order or dispute of the wage claim exists. An employer who genuinely disputes the amount, in good faith, is outside that part of the section. The wages themselves are still owed if they are owed; it is the six percent or two hundred that a real dispute removes.
A last pay check is not carved out separately. People often expect the final check on the last day worked, or handed over at the door. The schedule in this section is the schedule, and the check that covers a final half month arrives on the date that half month's wages were payable.
“Which half of which month were these wages earned in, and what date were they payable.”
Minimum wage, overtime and how hours are counted run under separate state and federal law and are not on this page. Employees of some public bodies, and people who are contractors rather than employees, sit outside this section. Whether a deduction was lawful, whether a dispute is genuine, and whether a particular worker is an employee at all are questions for a licensed Ohio attorney, and the Ohio Department of Commerce takes wage complaints. Small claims court handles many unpaid wage cases without a lawyer.
Sources for this section (1)
- ORC 4113.15 — Semimonthly payment of wages, and the liquidated damages when they go unpaid
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Ohio attorney.