Guides

Cook County restaurant pay rules (2026): wages, tips, scheduling and sick leave

Mays TeamOctober 12, 2026
The Manage staff window of the Mays schedule for a Skokie location: a manager and five employees ticked to appear on the schedule, and the admin left off

Cook County's minimum wage is $15.40 an hour since July 1, 2026, with $9.25 for tipped staff (Cook County), but the first question is whether it applies to you. It covers employers with 4 or more employees in unincorporated Cook County and in the suburbs that didn't opt out of it; Chicago has its own rate, and the county's list names only 18 suburbs that follow the county's (Cook County, municipalities). Everywhere else, Illinois's $15.00 applies. The county's paid leave law reaches much further: almost every suburb, whatever it did about the wage.

This page puts what a restaurant or café in Cook County owes in one place: the county's own rules first, then the Illinois and federal rules that apply in Cook County as everywhere else in the state, two example weeks with the math shown, and what Mays does with each. Every figure links to the official page it comes from.

Checked October 5, 2026: we read every Cook County figure on this page on its official source that day. Cook County's minimum wage changes on July 1, 2027; the new rate had not been published when we checked (Cook County).

This is general information, not legal advice. Whether a rule applies can depend on your business's size and your own facts; the note at the end says more.

Cook County pay rules at a glance

As of October 12, 2026:

Rule

Cook County

Minimum wage

$15.40 an hour, since July 1, 2026

Tipped employees: minimum cash wage

$9.25 an hour, if you take the tip credit

Maximum tip credit

$6.15 an hour

Who counts as tipped

Receives $20 or more a month in tips

Next change

Changes on July 1, 2027 (new rate not published yet)

Overtime

1.5× the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek; no daily overtime (Illinois and federal law)

Fair workweek scheduling

No Cook County or Illinois law in our data

Paid sick leave

Cook County's own ordinance; see Paid sick leave below

Sources: Cook County; 56 Ill. Adm. Code 210; US DOL, state minimum wage laws; Cook County, paid leave.

Who Cook County's rate covers: employers with 4 or more employees that keep a business facility in Cook County or hold a county business license, for employees 18 or older who work at least 2 hours in any 2-week period in the county; not in Chicago, which has its own rate, or in the suburbs that opted out.

Other Cook County rates:

  • an optional training wage for a new employee's first 90 days, up to 50 cents below the county rate (not for day laborers, temporary or seasonal workers): $14.90 an hour

An address can't say whether a suburb follows the county's wage, and the county says its list of municipalities "changes frequently": check the list, or ask your village or city hall (Cook County, municipalities).

Cook County vs. Illinois: what the county changes

Where Cook County sets a rule of its own, it applies on top of Illinois's, and an employer follows whichever gives the employee more. Here are the two side by side:

Rule

Illinois

Cook County

Minimum wage

$15.00 (IDOL, minimum wage FAQ)

$15.40 (Cook County)

Tipped employees

$9.00 cash wage (IDOL, Minimum Wage Law)

$9.25 cash wage (Cook County)

Next change (as of October 5, 2026)

None scheduled (820 ILCS 105/4)

Changes on July 1, 2027 (new rate not published yet) (Cook County)

Paid sick leave

1 hour per 40 hours worked (IDOL, paid leave FAQ)

1 hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked, usable for any reason (Cook County, paid leave); Illinois's law doesn't apply in Cook County (IDOL, paid leave FAQ)

Fair workweek scheduling

No state law in our data

No county law in our data

Our data has no Cook County rule of its own on overtime, breaks, tip pools or food handler training, so the Illinois and federal rules below apply in Cook County as they do across the state. For Illinois's rules in full, with their own worked examples, see Illinois restaurant pay rules (2026).

What you must pay tipped staff in Cook County

Under Illinois law, a tipped employee is someone in a job where tips are customarily part of the pay who receives $20 or more a month in tips (56 Ill. Adm. Code 210).

In a restaurant that usually means servers, bartenders, bussers and counter staff who serve customers, including baristas who get tips. Cooks and dishwashers usually aren't tipped employees. If someone works two jobs, say a server who also works prep shifts, the tip credit applies only to the hours in the tipped job (DOL Fact Sheet #15).

You can pay tipped staff a lower cash wage and count part of their tips toward the minimum wage. That is the tip credit, and it comes with conditions:

  • Pay at least $9.25 an hour in cash wages. That's the $15.40 minimum wage minus the most you can credit from tips, $6.15 (Cook County).
  • Cash wages plus tips must reach $15.40 for every hour worked, week by week. If tips fall short in a workweek, you pay the difference by the regular payday for that week (DOL Fact Sheet #15).
  • Tell them first. Before you take the tip credit, tell each tipped employee, in writing or out loud: the cash wage you pay, the tip credit you claim, that the credit can't be more than the tips they actually get, that they keep all their tips except through a valid tip pool, and that the credit doesn't apply unless you've told them all this (DOL Fact Sheet #15).
  • Overtime is figured on the full minimum wage. An overtime hour is worth 1.5 × $15.40 = $23.10. After the $6.15 tip credit, you pay at least $16.95 of it in cash wages (DOL Fact Sheet #15).

You don't have to take the tip credit. If you pay tipped staff the full $15.40 an hour, their tips are all on top and there's nothing to make up at the end of the week.

What you must pay non-tipped staff in Cook County

Cooks, dishwashers, prep cooks, and cashiers or counter staff who don't get tips are paid like any other hourly employee:

  • At least $15.40 an hour for every hour worked (Cook County). No tip credit applies.
  • The same goes for a tipped employee's hours in a non-tipped job, like a server's prep shift (DOL Fact Sheet #15).
  • Overtime is at least 1.5 times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. At $15.40 an hour, that's $23.10 (US DOL, state minimum wage laws).

Workers under 18

The county ordinance covers employees 18 and older. For younger workers, the Illinois Minimum Wage Law's teen rate applies, $13.00 an hour (Cook County, minimum wage FAQ).

Worked examples (made-up numbers)

The names, hours and tips below are made up. The rates are the ones that apply in Cook County as of October 12, 2026.

A server's week: when you have to top up

Sam is a server in Cook County paid the $9.25 cash wage. He works 30 hours in each of two weeks: a busy one with $450.00 in tips and a slow one with $120.00.


Busy week

Slow week

Hours worked

30

30

Cash wages (30 × $9.25)

$277.50

$277.50

Tips received

$450.00

$120.00

Cash wages + tips

$727.50

$397.50

Minimum for the week (30 × $15.40)

$462.00

$462.00

You pay on top

$0.00

$64.50

In the slow week, $120.00 in tips covers only part of the $184.50 tip credit (30 × $6.15), so you pay the difference by the regular payday: $462.00 − $397.50 = $64.50. In the busy week you owe nothing extra, and every dollar of tips is still Sam's.

A cook's week with overtime

Ana is a line cook in Cook County paid the minimum wage, $15.40 an hour. She works five 9-hour days: 45 hours.


Hours

Rate

Pay

Regular hours

40

$15.40

$616.00

Overtime hours (over 40)

5

$23.10 (1.5 × $15.40)

$115.50

Total

45


$731.50

Overtime is counted by the workweek, and hours can't be averaged across two weeks: a long week earns overtime even if the next one is short (US DOL, overtime). Bonuses can change the rate too; see Time clock, breaks and overtime: first-month payroll mistakes to avoid.

Scheduling rules in Cook County

We found no Cook County or Illinois fair workweek law in our data: nothing here makes you post schedules a set number of days ahead or pay a premium for changing them. Breaks and overtime still shape the schedule (see below).

Cook County has a paid sick leave ordinance of its own (Cook County, paid leave):

  • How it's earned: 1 hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked, usable for any reason.
  • Who it covers: every employer with employees in Cook County, except in Chicago and in a municipality that opted into Illinois's Paid Leave for All Workers Act or has its own equivalent ordinance; an employer working in several municipalities covers the employees who spend at least half their time in the county.
  • What else it requires: The Paid Leave Ordinance, which replaced the county's earned sick leave ordinance on December 31, 2023: leave for any reason, usable 90 days after hire, a carryover cap of no less than 40 hours, and front-loading allowed. Unused leave is paid out at separation only if it sits in a vacation or paid time off bank. A tipped employee on leave is paid the full county minimum wage, not the tipped wage. A municipality that opted out of the old sick leave ordinance is still covered.

Illinois's own paid leave law doesn't apply in Cook County, because the county's ordinance came first (IDOL, paid leave FAQ).

The paid leave ordinance doesn't follow the wage's map: a suburb that opted out of the county's minimum wage, or of its old sick leave ordinance, is still covered. Only Chicago and a municipality that opted into Illinois's law or passed its own are outside it (Cook County, paid leave).

Tip pools, overtime and breaks in Cook County

These are Illinois's rules, with the federal ones where Illinois sets none, and they apply in Cook County as they do across the state:

  • Tip pools: In Illinois, gratuities belong to employees, employers may not keep them, and they must be paid within 13 days after the end of the pay period. Tip pooling "as permitted by law" is allowed. From card tips an employer may withhold a proportionate share of the processing fee, capped at the tip’s share of the bill. Illinois sets no rule of its own on who may be in a pool, so the federal rules on that apply (820 ILCS 115/4.1). Under federal law, the business, its managers and supervisors never keep employees' tips, and with a tip credit a pool you require can include only staff who customarily and regularly receive tips (US DOL, tips).
  • Service charges: under federal law a mandatory service charge isn't a tip: money you share from one is wages, and it counts in the regular rate for overtime (DOL Fact Sheet #15).
  • Overtime: Illinois's law draws the same line as the federal one (US DOL, state minimum wage laws): at least 1.5 times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek, with no daily overtime, double time or seventh-day premium (US DOL, overtime).
  • Meal breaks: At least 20 minutes for employees working 7.5 continuous hours, beginning no later than 5 hours after the start of the work period, plus an additional 20-minute meal period for every additional 4.5 continuous hours worked (IDOL: e.g. a second 20-minute break on a 12-hour shift). Restroom time does not count toward the meal period. Employer may not force an employee to work through the meal break; if the employee works through it, it must be paid. Excludes employees whose meal periods are set by collective bargaining. Penalties: <25 employees up to $250 per offense to employee + $250 per employee to IDOL; 25+ employees up to $500 each; each day a meal period is missed is a separate offense (820 ILCS 140/3).
  • Rest breaks: No specific Illinois rule found — federal rules apply (820 ILCS 140/3.1). The FLSA does not require breaks. Short breaks an employer offers (about 5 to 20 minutes) are paid work time (US DOL, breaks).
  • Minors' breaks: Minors (under 16 under the new Act): no more than 5 hours continuously without at least a 30-minute meal period; periods under 30 minutes do not interrupt continuous work. 16- and 17-year-olds follow the adult One Day Rest in Seven Act rule (20 minutes for 7.5 hours) (Child Labor Law of 2024).

Other rules that affect pay in Cook County

  • Food handler training: Every food employee needs approved food-safety training. Who: all food handlers employed by a restaurant (other than food service sanitation manager certificate holders), within 30 days after employment and every 3 years thereafter (410 ILCS 625/3.06).

How Mays handles this

Mays runs the schedule, time clock, tip pool and payroll export for each location. For a restaurant in Cook County, that means:

  • The minimum wage for the address. Turn on Labor law compliance and Mays reads each location's minimum wage from its address. A county can't be told from a city name, so for a location in Cook County, pick Cook County under Rate area on the location's Labor & compliance card; it then gets Cook County's $15.40, and tipped positions are compared with the $9.25 cash wage. It warns you when a position's default wage, someone's hourly wage or a punch is below it, and never blocks the save. The rate for July 1, 2027 isn't published yet; once Mays has it, admins get a reminder 30 and 7 days before.
  • Paid sick leave per location. With Labor law compliance on, the Sick category under Scheduling → Settings → Time off & PTO accrual shows the paid sick leave law at each location's address, and Apply these rules fills in its figures, starting with at least one hour for every 40 worked (Cook County, paid leave). Illinois's law is left out, because Cook County's replaces it. Mays doesn't guess a county from the address, so pick Cook County under Where this location is. Everyone who works hours earns it from approved punches, managers included, and a figure Mays doesn't have is left open for you to fill in from the official page.
  • Overtime by the address. Staff clock in on their phone, a shared kiosk or an NFC tag, and timesheets run by pay period. Overtime is counted by the workweek, and with Labor law compliance on, by any daily, double-time and seventh-day rule Illinois sets too, which Mays reads from the location's address; the schedule's labor cost, the reports and the pay summary all include it.
  • A tip pool per location. Split pooled tips by hours worked, equally or by FTAR score, and choose which positions receive. Leave managers and admins out of the pool is on by default, so leave it on. If you take your card processor's fee out of card tips, turn on Deduct the card processing fee from card tips: Mays deducts only your processor's percentage, split in proportion to each person's card tips. Each person's share appears in the Tip Payouts report and the payroll export.
  • The tip-credit make-up is yours to check. Mays doesn't compare a tipped employee's cash wages plus tips with the minimum wage, so check each workweek the way the server example above does.
  • Food handler cards. Turn on Labor law compliance and keep each person's card in Mays with its expiry date and a photo. Each location shows who has no card by the 30-day deadline after their hire date and whose card is about to expire, and Mays reminds the employee and their managers before a card expires.
  • Tipped staff's leave is paid at the full rate. Mays doesn't set the rate a leave hour is paid at, so pay tipped staff's paid leave at the county's $15.40 yourself, not the $9.25 cash wage.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from these official pages, as they read on the date shown.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Laws change, and coverage rules (your business's size, whether federal law covers you) decide which of them apply. Check the pages above, and ask an employment lawyer or accountant about your situation.

Run Cook County payroll on the right numbers

Give each location its Cook County address, turn on Labor law compliance so the minimum wage, overtime and sick leave rules follow it, and let the time clock do the counting. Then payroll is an export, not an evening.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Running more than one city? Each location reads its own rules.