Tipped Minimum Wage in Long Beach (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

How Long Beach tipped pay works

For restaurants, bars and most private employers, Long Beach follows the state: the city does not set its own general minimum wage, so California's $16.90 an hour — effective January 1, 2026, per the Department of Industrial Relations — is the floor, and the city's finance department confirms the state rate on its own compliance page. California is one of the states that bans the tip credit outright, as we detail on our California tipped minimum wage page: an employer cannot count even a cent of tips toward the minimum, and the federal apparatus of $2.13 cash wages and weekly make-up pay simply never triggers.

Long Beach's local ordinances then carve out two well-paid exceptions. Under Measure N, the voter-approved hotel worker law in Municipal Code Chapter 5.48, hotel workers must earn at least $26.50 an hour as of July 1, 2026, and an ordinance covering Long Beach Airport and Convention Center concession workers sets the same $26.50 rate on the same date. Those rates re-adjust each July 1 while the state rate moves each January 1. If you pour banquets at a hotel or sling drinks at an airport bar, the $26.50 figure is the one to confirm with the employer — how the ordinance interacts with tipped roles is a question for the city's labor compliance office at 562-570-WAGE.

Worked example, standard restaurant, 30-hour week: the guarantee is 30 × $16.90, or $507.00, in cash wages before a single tip. Keep $300 in tips and the week pays $807.00 — an effective $26.90 an hour. Keep $90 on a dead week and the week still pays $597.00; the cash wage does not move, because there is no tip credit to absorb it. Our server paycheck calculator turns your schedule into that weekly number in seconds.

Long Beach vs. California and the federal floor

The spread in that table is the whole story of tipped pay in America compressed into one row: identical work guarantees $2.13 an hour in cash under the federal floor and $16.90 inside Long Beach — a $14.77-an-hour difference in guaranteed cash, per the U.S. Department of Labor's tipped minimum wage table. And unlike neighboring Los Angeles, which sets its own city minimum above the state figure, Long Beach simply rides the state rate — the local action is reserved for hotels and the airport. The city's minimum wage compliance page is the official source for both layers.

What Long Beach servers should watch

Two calendars. The state rate resets every January 1 with inflation; the city's hotel and concession rates reset every July 1. A hotel banquet bartender earning $26.50 should see the adjustment land in July, while the restaurant down the Pine Avenue pier moves in January. Payroll systems that miss either date short every hour after it — our city minimum wage tracker posts both moves as they happen.

Daily overtime. California owes overtime after 8 hours in a single day — not just after 40 in a week — and after 12 hours the rate doubles. On the full $16.90 base, daily overtime is about $25.35 an hour and double time about $33.80, all of it in cash with tips on top. A long Sunday double can quietly carry premium hours your employer never priced in; the overtime calculator prices them exactly.

What tips legally are. Tips belong to the tipped staff and can never offset the wage; managers cannot skim a tip pool, and mandatory service charges on large parties are a different animal — under the receipt's own language they can belong to the house. Read the check before assuming that auto-grat is yours. That matters more in a no-tip-credit state, because nothing about the $16.90 depends on tips.

The paycheck illusion. With no tip credit, the entire cash wage lands on the check — and so do the taxes on reported tips, which are usually withheld from that check. The deposit can look small even in a strong month. Track effective hourly (wages plus tips, divided by hours) rather than the deposit amount; that is the number that tells you whether the bar across town, or the hotel paying $26.50, is actually the better job.