Tipped Minimum Wage in Cook County (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

How Cook County tipped pay works

The Cook County Minimum Wage Ordinance covers suburban Cook County — the whole county except Chicago, which runs its own higher schedule. The county re-indexes its rates every July 1 with inflation, and the 2026 step lifted the full minimum from $15.00 to $15.40 and the tipped cash rate from $9.00 to $9.25, per the county's official Minimum Wage Ordinance and Regulations page. The gap between those two numbers is the tip credit: $6.15 an hour that your employer may cover with tips instead of cash, and not a cent more.

The make-up rule is weekly and unforgiving. Cash wages plus tips must average at least $15.40 an hour across the workweek; if they fall short, the difference lands on your paycheck as make-up pay. A packed Saturday cannot rescue a dead Tuesday, and a strong week cannot cover a slow one. Illinois sets the fallback floors — a $15.00 minimum with a $9.00 tipped cash wage, per the Illinois Department of Labor, which we unpack on our Illinois tipped minimum wage page — so wherever the county ordinance governs, the county numbers win on both lines of the paycheck.

Worked example, 30-hour week: the county floor is 30 × $15.40, or $462.00. Your employer must pay at least 30 × $9.25, or $277.50, in cash wages, and tips must supply the remaining $184.50. Keep $280 in tips and the week totals $557.50 — an effective $18.58 an hour. Keep $120 on a dead week and the total is $397.50, which is $64.50 short, so the employer owes $64.50 in make-up pay on the check. Our server paycheck calculator runs exactly this arithmetic on your real schedule.

Cook County vs. Illinois and the federal floor

That table is the whole hierarchy in one glance. The same server, doing the same work, is guaranteed $2.13 an hour in cash under the federal floor, $9.00 under Illinois law and $9.25 under the Cook County ordinance — a $7.12-an-hour spread between the federal and county cash wages, per the U.S. Department of Labor's tipped minimum wage table. And the county line only tells the suburban story: inside Chicago the reported July 1, 2026 rates are higher still, around $17.05 with a $12.96 tipped base under the city's tip-credit phase-out — we cover that separately on our Chicago tipped minimum wage page.

What Cook County servers should watch

The opt-out map. In unincorporated Cook County the ordinance applies without exception — that is the clean case. But when the county law took effect in 2017, municipalities were given the right to opt out, and dozens did. In an opted-out suburb the Illinois numbers ($15.00 full, $9.00 tipped cash) are what bind. If you are not sure about your town, ask payroll which ordinance they pay under, or verify against the county's ordinance page before you sign anything.

The July 1 reset. The county changes rates mid-calendar-year, not on New Year's Day. The 2026 figures — $15.40 and $9.25 — took effect July 1, and a payroll system still running the prior year's $15.00 and $9.00 after that date is shorting every hour you worked. Check your pay stubs against the county notice each summer.

Overtime at the county's own rates. Overtime is owed after 40 hours in a week, and the county publishes compliance rates for it: $23.10 an hour for non-tipped workers and $16.94 an hour in cash for tipped workers, tips on top. Those premium hours are where understaffed kitchens quietly rack up owed money — the overtime calculator prices them exactly. Neighboring jurisdictions move on different calendars: Chicago on July 1 with a tipped base reported near $12.96, Illinois on January 1, and our city minimum wage tracker keeps the current numbers side by side.

What tips legally are. The tip credit is an accounting device, not ownership. Tips belong to the tipped staff, managers and supervisors cannot share a tip pool, and mandatory service charges belong to the house only when the menu or receipt says so. Report suspected shorting to the Cook County Commission on Human Rights, which enforces the ordinance.