Tipped Minimum Wage in Massachusetts (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

How Massachusetts tipped pay works

A Massachusetts employer pays a tipped employee a service rate of $6.75 per hour and may take a tip credit of up to $8.25 against the $15.00 full minimum — your tips legally cover the gap between the two figures. Those are the current numbers per the U.S. Department of Labor table, July 2026 — the official tipped-wage table maintained by the DOL Wage and Hour Division. Massachusetts is close to a fifty-fifty split: the employer puts $6.75 of the wage in cash, and tips are counted toward at most $8.25 of it.

The guarantee underneath is the weekly top-up. If the service rate plus retained tips do not average $15.00 for every hour of the workweek, the employer must pay the difference as make-up pay. Concrete numbers for a 30-hour week: the employer owes $202.50 in cash wages, and the weekly floor is 30 × $15.00, or $450.00. Keep $150 in tips — $5.00 an hour — and cash plus tips averages $11.75, $3.25 short on every hour: $97.50 of make-up pay owed for that week and that week only. A packed Saturday cannot rescue a dead Tuesday, and a strong week cannot be borrowed against. Our server paycheck calculator runs this check on your own hours and tips in seconds.

Overtime is computed on the full minimum, never the service rate. The overtime cash rate equals $6.75 plus half of $15.00 — about $14.25 an hour — and your tips for those hours come on top. Computing it as time-and-a-half on $6.75 (about $10.13) underpays every overtime hour by more than four dollars. Run your schedule through the overtime calculator before picking up the double.

Massachusetts vs. the federal $2.13 system

The destination is more than double the federal minimum and the cash portion more than triple the federal cash wage, while the qualification threshold stays at the federal $20 a month. The overtime row is the standout: the tipped overtime cash rate in Massachusetts runs nearly two and a half times the federal figure.

The $20 tip threshold and who qualifies

Massachusetts keeps the federal tip threshold of $20 per month per the DOL table — a deliberately low bar. Anyone who customarily and regularly receives more than $20 a month in tips can lawfully be paid the $6.75 service rate, which in practice means servers, bartenders and other front-of-house roles that guests actually tip. The threshold is a qualification test, not a pay target: clearing $20 a month does not mean your tips are adequate, only that the credit can apply to you. Two consequences follow. First, back-of-house and other non-tipped staff must always receive the full $15.00 minimum, and kitchen inclusion in a tip pool is permitted only under the stricter federal conditions. Second, an employee whose tips are erratic — a host who occasionally finds cash on the table — still may not be dropped to the service rate unless tips are a regular feature of the job. For how neighboring states draw these lines, the tipped minimum wage by state table has every rule in one place.

What Massachusetts servers should watch

The weekly $15.00 floor. With an $8.25 credit, tips must average $8.25 an hour before your pay clears the minimum. Check every workweek: hours × $15.00 is your legal floor, and any gap between that and wages plus tips is make-up pay owed automatically.

Overtime at about $14.25. The overtime cash rate is $6.75 + $7.50 plus tips — one of the strongest tipped overtime rates in the country. Anything computed on the service rate alone is a serious underpayment.

Service charges versus tips. An automatic service charge on the receipt belongs to the house under federal rules unless the menu or receipt says otherwise; a tip the guest chooses is yours. Read the line before assuming an 18 percent party charge is a tip.

Tip pools without managers. Pools are for employees only. A manager or supervisor keeping any share voids the tip credit, lifting the service rate to the full $15.00 for every affected hour.