Tipped Minimum Wage in Evanston (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

How Evanston tipped pay works

Start with the floor. The Cook County Minimum Wage Ordinance covers Evanston along with the rest of suburban Cook County, and as of July 1, 2026 it requires $15.40 an hour for non-tipped workers and $9.25 in cash wages for tipped workers, tips making up the rest, per the county's official ordinance page. Illinois sits just below at $15.00 with a $9.00 tipped cash wage, per the Illinois Department of Labor — the mechanics of that state system are laid out on our Illinois tipped minimum wage page. Wherever two laws apply, the higher one governs, and on every line — full minimum and tipped cash — the county beats the state.

Evanston then raises the stakes with its own ordinance. In March 2024 the City Council amended Title 3 of the city code to set a local minimum wage reported at $15.50 an hour for employers with 4 to 99 employees and $16.25 for employers with 100 or more, and — unlike Chicago — it kept the tip credit rather than phasing out the tipped subminimum. The city has since debated further changes, including proposals to raise the base toward $16.00 and eliminate the subminimum entirely. We could not verify a published, current 2026 city rate or a city-specific tipped cash figure; treat the county numbers as your verified floor and confirm what your employer actually pays under with the city's Workers' Rights page or 311.

Worked example on the verified floor, 30-hour week: the all-in minimum is 30 × $15.40, or $462.00, of which at least 30 × $9.25, or $277.50, must be cash. Tips owe the remaining $184.50. Keep $280 in tips and the week pays $557.50, an effective $18.58 an hour; keep $120 and the week lands at $397.50, $64.50 short, and the employer owes make-up pay for the difference. If the higher city base applies to your restaurant, the floor rises — at a $16.25 base, the same week is worth $487.50 all-in — and the server paycheck calculator will re-run the whole table for any base you enter.

Evanston vs. Illinois and the federal floor

The hierarchy is simple even when the paperwork is not: the highest applicable rate wins on every line, per the U.S. Department of Labor's tipped minimum wage table for the federal baseline. A tipped Evanston server is guaranteed $2.13 in cash under federal law, $9.00 under Illinois law and $9.25 under the county ordinance — and if Evanston's own ordinance sets a higher tipped figure, that one governs instead. Evanston's Workers' Rights page is the city's official pointer for wage questions and directs enforcement to the Cook County Commission on Human Rights.

What Evanston servers should watch

Which law your payroll is running. Evanston employers must satisfy three laws at once, and a payroll set to the wrong one can be short you 15 to 85 cents an hour all year. Ask which base your restaurant uses — state, county or city tier — and check the pay stub's cash wage against it. The verified 2026 floors are $9.25 cash and $15.40 all-in; anything lower is a red flag unless a higher city figure is being applied instead.

The July 1 reset — and the city calendar. Cook County re-indexes every July 1; Illinois moves January 1; Evanston's own ordinance moves on its own schedule and has been amended more than once. Rates in this corridor change on three different dates, so verify each spring and each summer. Our city minimum wage tracker keeps the neighboring numbers current.

Overtime after 40. Time-and-a-half is owed past 40 hours in a week, computed on the full minimum — never on the $9.25 cash wage. The county's published compliance rates are $23.10 an hour for non-tipped and $16.94 in cash for tipped workers, tips on top; the overtime calculator turns your actual hours into the exact premium. Chicago next door is a different universe for tipped pay — a reported $12.96 base as its phase-out climbs — covered on our Chicago page.

The tip credit is conditional. Keeping the tip credit means your employer must prove, every workweek, that cash plus tips reached the applicable full minimum. The test is weekly: a great Saturday cannot backfill a slow Tuesday, and if the week comes up short, make-up pay is owed on the next check. Tips themselves belong to the tipped staff — managers cannot take a share of the pool.