Tipped Minimum Wage by State (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

First, the federal floor

Federal law sets a $2.13/hr cash wage for tipped employees. The employer takes a "tip credit" of up to $5.12 — the gap to the $7.25 full minimum — and your tips must cover it. If they don't, the employer owes a top-up to full minimum for every hour. Many states replace this with better rules, and state law wins when it's stronger. Check the full official table at the U.S. Department of Labor.

All 50 states, at a glance

Rates below come from the U.S. Department of Labor's tipped-wage table (revised July 1, 2026). Several states adjust rates every January — always confirm your current rate with your state labor department or the official DOL table before relying on it.

Every state has its own detailed page — click your state for exact rules, overtime treatment and what to watch.

Three rules that apply everywhere

1. Tip credit only works if you keep the tips. If your employer keeps tips or distributes them to managers, no tip credit is valid at all — you're owed full minimum in cash wages for every hour.

2. Top-up is computed per workweek. A great Saturday doesn't legalize a short Tuesday: each workweek stands alone, and slow weeks trigger make-up pay.

3. Overtime ignores the $2.13. OT is computed on the full minimum wage — the required OT cash rate is your cash wage + 0.5 × full minimum. See the tipped overtime calculator.

City rules can beat state rules

Chicago, Seattle, Denver, the District of Columbia and other cities set their own tipped minimums, frequently higher and occasionally eliminating tip credits ahead of their states. If you work in a major city, search "[city] tipped minimum wage [year]" before quoting any number from a state table — including this one.

Why states differ so much

The map of tipped wages is really a map of two philosophies. The federal system, born of a 1966 compromise, treats tips as wages: the employer's cash obligation shrinks to $2.13 because your tips are doing the legal work of the minimum. The seven full-minimum states reject that premise — tips are a gratuity on top of wages, not a substitute for them — and their servers earn the entire state minimum in cash regardless of the night's take.

Between the poles sit two dozen states that raise the cash floor partway: New York's $11.35 with a capped allowance, Florida's inflation-indexed rate, the midwestern $2.30s. The trend line, worth knowing if you make geographic decisions with your career, runs one direction — toward higher cash wages and smaller tip credits — with several states legislating their credit to zero over multi-year schedules. Chicago's tiered phase-out and D.C.'s Initiative 82 are the visible edge of it.

What it means practically: the same serving skills in two adjacent states can differ by $10+ per hour in guaranteed cash wages, before the first tip. When comparing job offers across state lines, compare cash wage floors first and tip averages second — the floor is law, the average is weather.