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

Mays TeamSeptember 14, 2026
The Locations page in Mays with ten locations, each with its own address, from Fishtown in Philadelphia to Capitol Hill in Seattle

Philadelphia can't set its own minimum wage: Pennsylvania's Minimum Wage Act overrides local wage ordinances, so the city pays the state's $7.25, the federal floor, and a tipped server can be paid $2.83 an hour in cash (PA Minimum Wage Act § 14.1). Where the city does set its own rules is time off and scheduling. Its sick leave law covers every employer, with paid leave from 10 employees up, and its Fair Workweek law reaches full-service restaurants that belong to large chains.

This page puts what a restaurant or café in Philadelphia owes in one place: the city's own rules first, then the Pennsylvania and federal rules that apply in Philadelphia 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.

Updated October 5, 2026: these figures are still current. The minimum wage in Philadelphia is Pennsylvania's $7.25 an hour ($2.83 cash wage for tipped employees). No increase is scheduled (PA House Bill 2189).

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.

Philadelphia pay rules at a glance

As of September 14, 2026:

Rule

Philadelphia

Minimum wage

$7.25 an hour (Pennsylvania's rate; Philadelphia sets none of its own)

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

Next change

None scheduled, as of September 24, 2026

Overtime

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

Fair workweek scheduling

Philadelphia's law covers restaurants, if they are big enough; see Scheduling below

Paid sick leave

Philadelphia's own ordinance; see Paid sick leave below

Sources: PA L&I, wage FAQs; PA L&I, tipped worker rules; PA House Bill 2189; US DOL, state minimum wage laws; Philadelphia Fair Workweek FAQ; Philadelphia notice poster (2025).

Philadelphia vs. Pennsylvania: what the city changes

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

Rule

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

Minimum wage

$7.25 (PA L&I, wage FAQs)

The same: Philadelphia sets no minimum wage of its own (PA Minimum Wage Act § 14.1)

Tipped employees

$2.83 cash wage (PA L&I, tipped worker rules)

The same

Next change (as of October 5, 2026)

None scheduled (PA House Bill 2189)

The same

Paid sick leave

No state law (A Better Balance)

1 hour per 40 hours worked (Philadelphia notice poster (2025))

Fair workweek scheduling

No state law in our data

Its own law, which covers restaurants, if they are big enough (Philadelphia Fair Workweek FAQ)

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

What you must pay tipped staff in Philadelphia

Under Pennsylvania law, 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. 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 $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 and there's nothing to make up at the end of the week.

What you must pay non-tipped staff in Philadelphia

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).

Worked examples (made-up numbers)

The names, hours and tips below are made up. The rates are the ones that apply in Philadelphia as of September 14, 2026.

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

Sam is a server in Philadelphia 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.

A cook's week with overtime

Ana is a line cook in Philadelphia paid the 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.

Scheduling rules in Philadelphia

Philadelphia has a fair workweek law of its own, and it covers restaurants, if they are big enough (Philadelphia Fair Workweek FAQ):

  • Who it covers: Restaurants: covered, including full-service. Retail, hospitality and food-services establishments (NAICS 722: full-service and limited-service restaurants, drinking places, caterers, cafeterias and more) with 250+ employees worldwide and 30+ locations worldwide, including chains and franchises.
  • What it requires: Philadelphia Code Ch. 9-4600, enforced by the Office of Worker Protections, Department of Labor. Written good-faith estimate at hire, revised on significant change. Schedules posted 14 days before the first day of each new schedule (10 days in 2020). Workers may decline hours less than 9 hours after the previous day's shift, or in the 9 hours after a shift that spanned two days. Working such a shift needs written consent and a $40 premium per shift. Access to hours: available shifts are posted to existing staff for 72 hours before outside hiring.
  • Advance notice: post schedules at least 14 days ahead.
  • Pay for changes: For employer-initiated changes after posting: 1 hour at the employee's rate when time is added or the date, time or location of a shift changes. At least half the rate for each scheduled hour not worked when hours are cut, a regular or on-call shift is cancelled, or an on-call worker is not called in. Changes of a few minutes, voluntary shift trades, and mass-communication pickups are exempt.
  • Rest between shifts: the law protects the worker who closes and then opens less than 9 hours later (a "clopening"); what it takes, consent or extra pay, is in "What it requires" above.

If your restaurant group is smaller than that, the law doesn't reach you. If it's covered, keep a record of every schedule you post and every change after it: the pay for changes is owed shift by shift.

In plain terms, a restaurant is covered when its chain or franchise system has 250 or more employees and 30 or more locations worldwide (Philadelphia Fair Workweek FAQ). An independent restaurant isn't.

Philadelphia has a paid sick leave ordinance of its own (Philadelphia notice poster (2025)):

  • How it's earned: 1 hour per 40 hours worked.
  • Who it covers: Employers with 10 or more employees must provide paid sick leave, at the regular rate of pay; employers with 9 or fewer must provide unpaid sick leave. Not covered: employees hired for 6 months or less, seasonal workers hired for 16 weeks, independent contractors, employees under a collective bargaining agreement, adjunct professors, pool or per diem workers and student interns.
  • What else it requires: Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces (Phila. Code ch. 9-4100). Unused leave carries over year to year (or front-load); a note cannot be required for absences of two days or less; employees cannot be required to find coverage or make up hours; covers sexual assault and domestic abuse; records kept 3 years.

Pennsylvania has no paid sick leave law of its own (A Better Balance), so Philadelphia's ordinance is the one to follow.

Tipped workers' sick time

An employer with 10 or more employees pays tipped workers $17.88 for each hour of paid sick time, from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027; the city sets that rate from wage data for tipped workers in Philadelphia County (City of Philadelphia). That's well above the cash wage, so a server's sick day costs more than a shift on the floor.

Tip pools, overtime and breaks in Philadelphia

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

  • Tip pools: 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 (34 Pa. Code § 231.112). 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: 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 § 231.112).
  • Overtime: Pennsylvania'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: 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' breaks: All minors under 18: 30-minute meal period on or before 5 consecutive hours of work (PA L&I, child labor).

Other rules that affect pay in Philadelphia

  • 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).

How Mays handles this

Mays runs the schedule, time clock, tip pool and payroll export for each location. For a restaurant in Philadelphia, 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 location whose city is Philadelphia gets Pennsylvania's $7.25, since Philadelphia sets no rate of its own, and tipped positions are compared with the $2.83 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.
  • 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 (Philadelphia notice poster (2025)). If the location's address doesn't name Philadelphia, pick Philadelphia 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.
  • Philadelphia's scheduling law is yours to track. Mays doesn't check how far ahead a schedule is posted, doesn't compute pay for changes after it's posted, and doesn't warn about a closing shift followed too soon by an opening one. If your restaurant is covered, keep those records yourself.
  • 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 Pennsylvania 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. Pennsylvania doesn't allow taking card processing fees out of tips, so leave Deduct the card processing fee from card tips off: with Labor law compliance on, the card warns you if it's on. 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 protection manager certificate. Turn on Labor law compliance and keep your certified manager's certificate in Mays with its expiry date. Each location shows whether someone there holds a valid one, and Mays reminds them and their managers before it expires.
  • Tipped staff's sick time is paid at a set rate. Mays doesn't set the rate a sick hour is paid at, so pay tipped staff's sick hours at the city's rate yourself.

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.

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 Philadelphia payroll on the right numbers

Give each location its Philadelphia 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.

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