Guides

Pennsylvania restaurant pay rules (2026): what to pay tipped and non-tipped staff

Mays TeamSeptember 9, 2026
The Tip Payouts report in Mays for a pay period: pooled tips split by hours worked between a server and a bartender

Pennsylvania's minimum wage is the federal floor, $7.25 an hour, and no increase is scheduled: a bill to raise it passed the state House in March 2026 but hadn't passed the Senate when we checked (PA House Bill 2189). Where Pennsylvania goes past federal law is tipped pay: a $2.83 cash wage instead of the federal $2.13, a higher bar to count as tipped, a cap on side work, and a written notice before a tip pool starts.

This page puts Pennsylvania's figures in one place. It covers what you owe tipped staff like servers and bartenders, what you owe everyone else, and two example weeks with the math shown. Every figure links to the official page it comes from.

Updated September 24, 2026: these figures are still current. Pennsylvania's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour ($2.83 cash wage for tipped employees). No increase is scheduled.

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.

Pennsylvania pay rules at a glance

As of September 9, 2026:

Rule

Pennsylvania

Minimum wage

$7.25 an hour

Tipped employees: minimum cash wage

$2.83 an hour, if you take the tip credit

Maximum tip credit

$4.42 an hour

Who counts as tipped

Customarily and regularly receives more than $135 a month in tips

Overtime

1.5× the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek; no daily overtime

Meal and rest breaks for adults

Not required by Pennsylvania or federal law

Next change

None scheduled

Sources: PA L&I, wage FAQs; PA L&I, tipped worker rules; US DOL, state minimum wage laws; US DOL, state meal periods; US DOL, state rest periods; PA House Bill 2189.

Who counts as a tipped employee in Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, a tipped employee is someone who customarily and regularly receives more than $135 a month in tips (PA L&I, tipped worker rules).

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. Only tips the employee actually receives count. 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).

What you must pay tipped staff in Pennsylvania

Servers, bartenders, bussers and baristas who get tips can be paid a lower cash wage, with part of their tips counted toward the minimum wage. That's the tip credit, and it comes with conditions:

  • Pay at least $2.83 an hour in cash wages. That's the $7.25 minimum wage minus the most you can credit from tips, $4.42 (PA L&I, tipped worker rules).
  • Cash wages plus tips must reach $7.25 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 × $7.25 = $10.875. After the $4.42 tip credit, you pay at least $6.455 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 $7.25 an hour, their tips are all on top, there's nothing to make up at the end of the week, and you can put kitchen staff in the tip pool (see below).

The side-work cap

You can take the tip credit for work that supports tipped work, like rolling silverware or restocking a station, only up to 20% of the employee's hours in the workweek. Time past that is paid at the full $7.25, and work that neither brings in tips nor supports tipped work gets no tip credit at all (PA L&I, tipped worker rules).

What you must pay non-tipped staff in Pennsylvania

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

  • At least $7.25 an hour for every hour worked (PA L&I, wage FAQs). 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 $7.25 an hour, that's $10.875 (US DOL, state minimum wage laws).
  • Can they share in the tip pool? Only if you take no tip credit and pay everyone in the pool at least the full minimum wage. If you take a tip credit, a pool you require can include only staff who customarily and regularly receive tips (34 Pa. Code § 231.112). Managers and supervisors can never take from the pool.

Worked examples (made-up numbers)

The names, hours and tips below are made up. The rates are Pennsylvania's as of September 9, 2026.

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

Sam is a server paid the $2.83 cash wage. He works 30 hours in each of two weeks: a busy one with $450.00 in tips and a slow one with $80.00.


Busy week

Slow week

Hours worked

30

30

Cash wages (30 × $2.83)

$84.90

$84.90

Tips received

$450.00

$80.00

Cash wages + tips

$534.90

$164.90

Minimum for the week (30 × $7.25)

$217.50

$217.50

You pay on top

$0.00

$52.60

In the slow week, $80.00 in tips covers only part of the $132.60 tip credit (30 × $4.42), so you pay the difference by the regular payday: $217.50 − $164.90 = $52.60. In the busy week you owe nothing extra, and every dollar of tips is still Sam's.

Side work past the 20% cap

Sam works 30 hours in a week, and 8 of them go to side work that doesn't bring in tips, like rolling silverware and restocking. Pennsylvania lets you take the tip credit for that kind of work only up to 20% of the week: 6 hours (PA L&I, tipped worker rules). The other 2 hours must be paid at the full $7.25, so you owe 2 × ($7.25 − $2.83) = $8.84 more than his cash wage alone would come to.

A cook's week with overtime

Ana is a line cook paid the Pennsylvania minimum wage, $7.25 an hour. She works five 9-hour days: 45 hours.


Hours

Rate

Pay

Regular hours

40

$7.25

$290.00

Overtime hours (over 40)

5

$10.875 (1.5 × $7.25)

$54.38

Total

45


$344.38

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.

Tip pooling rules in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has its own tip-pool rules (34 Pa. Code § 231.112): PA adopts the federal tip-pool standards in 29 CFR 531.54 as of May 7, 2022. It also requires written notice to employees before a pool takes effect. Employers may not deduct card-processing fees from tips, either individually or before pooling.

Federal rules apply too, and where the two differ, follow the stricter one (US DOL, tips):

  • The business, its managers and supervisors never keep employees' tips. A manager can't take anything from a pool; they may keep only tips for service they directly and solely provide. An owner with a real stake who helps run the business counts as a manager too.
  • With a tip credit, a pool you require can include only staff who customarily and regularly receive tips: servers, bartenders, bussers, counter staff who serve customers.
  • Without a tip credit, when everyone in the pool gets at least the full minimum wage, you can include cooks and dishwashers.
  • Card fees: federal law lets you reduce a card tip by the card company's actual fee percentage, but Pennsylvania doesn't allow it.
  • 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). Pennsylvania adds its own rule: An employer that charges for administering a banquet, special function or package deal must say on the contract and any menu that the charge is not a tip, and bills must show service charges and tips on separate lines. Service charges passed on to employees count as pay but not as tips (34 Pa. Code § 231.114).
  • Pay pooled tips out by the regular payday for the week or pay period (DOL Fact Sheet #15).

Put the pool in writing first. Give affected employees written notice of the tip pool at or before the job offer, or at least one pay period before the pool takes effect (34 Pa. Code § 231.112).

How to split a pool fairly, with a worked example: Tip pooling for new restaurant owners.

Overtime in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania's overtime law draws the same line as the federal one (US DOL, state minimum wage laws): non-exempt employees get at least 1.5 times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek (US DOL, overtime).

A workweek is any fixed, recurring stretch of seven days that you choose, and hours can't be averaged across two weeks. There's no daily overtime, no double time and no seventh-day premium under Pennsylvania or federal law, and weekend or holiday hours don't earn a premium by law.

For tipped staff, overtime is figured on the full minimum wage, not the cash wage (see the tipped section above).

Breaks in Pennsylvania

  • Meal breaks: No specific Pennsylvania rule found — federal rules apply (US DOL, state meal periods). The FLSA does not require meal periods. A bona fide meal period (typically 30+ minutes) is not work time (US DOL, breaks).
  • Rest breaks: No specific Pennsylvania rule found — federal rules apply (US DOL, state rest periods). The FLSA does not require breaks. Short breaks an employer offers (about 5 to 20 minutes) are paid work time (US DOL, breaks).
  • Minors: All minors under 18: 30-minute meal period on or before 5 consecutive hours of work (PA L&I, child labor).

Other Pennsylvania rules that affect pay

  • Paid sick leave: No specific Pennsylvania rule found — federal rules apply (A Better Balance). No federal paid sick leave requirement. The FMLA provides unpaid, job-protected leave (up to 12 weeks) where it applies (US DOL, sick leave).
  • Food handler training: A certified food protection manager is required, not a card for every employee. Who: at least one certified employee per retail food facility, present or immediately accessible at all hours (3 Pa.C.S. ch. 65).

Local rates in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania law bars cities and counties from requiring private employers to pay a minimum wage other than the state or federal one (PA Minimum Wage Act § 14.1). The statute keeps only local rules adopted before January 1, 2006 that were still in effect on that date. So the state's $7.25 minimum wage applies everywhere in Pennsylvania, and there's no local rate table for Pennsylvania.

Local ordinances on other rules (sick leave, scheduling): Philadelphia.

Philadelphia

Philadelphia can't set its own minimum wage, but it has its own paid sick leave and Fair Workweek laws. Employers with 10 or more employees give paid sick time, and pay tipped workers $17.88 an hour for it from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 (City of Philadelphia). The Fair Workweek law covers food service chains with 250 or more employees and 30 or more locations worldwide (Philadelphia Fair Workweek FAQ).

How Mays helps

Mays runs the schedule, time clock, tip pool and payroll export for each location. For Pennsylvania pay rules, that means:

  • Positions and wages. Give each position a default hourly wage, for example the tipped cash wage for servers and at least the minimum wage for cooks. Mays doesn't check wages against the minimum wage, so update them yourself when the rate changes.
  • A tip pool per location. Split pooled tips by hours worked, equally or by FTAR score, per pay period or day by day, and choose which positions receive. Until you choose, everyone who worked gets a share, cooks included, so if you take a tip credit, pick only tipped positions, and make sure every punch carries a position: once positions are picked, a punch without one gets no share. When you set it up, turn on Leave managers and admins out of the pool: it's off by default. The tips come from your connected POS at that location (Square) or from tips synced with 7shifts time punches, and 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.
  • Time clock and timesheets. Staff clock in on their phone, a shared kiosk or an NFC tag. Timesheets run by pay period, and overtime is counted by the workweek, with an optional daily threshold for states that have one.
  • Payroll export. A standard CSV or a Gusto-format CSV with regular and overtime hours and pooled tips for each employee.
  • Minors. Mays doesn't track minors' hours or breaks, so build a minor's meal break into their shifts when you schedule them.
  • The side-work cap is yours to check. Mays doesn't split a tipped employee's hours into tipped and side-work duties, so check the 20% cap each week.
  • Fair Workweek scheduling isn't tracked. If your restaurant group is big enough for Philadelphia's Fair Workweek law, Mays won't track advance notice, predictability pay or rest between shifts for you.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from these pages, as they read on the date shown. All are official government pages except A Better Balance's list of state paid sick leave laws, used here to confirm that Pennsylvania has no such law.

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 Pennsylvania payroll on the right numbers

Set each position's wage, turn on the tip pool with managers left out, and let the time clock count overtime by the workweek. Then payroll is an export, not an evening.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Setting up a tip pool? Read Tip pooling for new restaurant owners.