Q: Can an employer keep my tip?

A: The basic rule of tips, under federal law and state law, is that they belong to the employee, not the employer. Employers may not require employees to hand over their tips unless one of these exceptions applies:

1) State law allows the employer to take a tip credit. Some states allow the employer to count all or part of an employee's tips towards its minimum wage obligations. Although the employer doesn't technically "take" the employee's tips, the employer gets to count some tips as if the employer had paid them directly to the employee. Florida allows a tip credit, as explained below.

2) The employee is part of a valid tip pool. Under federal law and in most states, employees can be required to pay part of their tips into a tip pool to be shared with other employees. Under federal law and in most states, employers may pay tipped employees less than the minimum wage, as long as employees earn enough in tips to make up the difference. This is called a "tip credit." The credit is the amount the employer doesn't have to pay, so the applicable minimum wage (federal or state) less the tip credit is the least the employer can pay tipped employees per hour. If an employee doesn't make enough in tips during a given workweek to earn at least the applicable minimum wage for each hour worked, the employer has to pay the difference.

Florida law allows employers to claim a tip credit of $3.02 an hour. This means Florida employers may pay tipped employees as little as $5.54 an hour in 2020. However, if this lower minimum wage plus the tips the employee actually earns don't add up to at least the full state minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference.