No. In Massachusetts, managers cannot take tips — not a dollar, not a percentage, not a “house cut.” The state’s Tips Act, M.G.L. c. 149, § 152A, prohibits any employer, owner, officer, or person with managerial or supervisory responsibility over service staff from demanding, accepting, or keeping any portion of a tip or service charge left for employees. Federal law says the same thing. And if a manager does take tips, the employee is entitled to three times the amount taken, plus attorney’s fees.
Who Counts as a Manager Under the Tips Act
The statute doesn’t give “manager” a single definition. Instead, it defines the employees who are allowed to receive tips, and anyone with managerial responsibility is written out of those categories. A wait staff employee must have “no managerial responsibility during a day in which the person serves beverages or prepared food or clears patrons’ tables.” A service employee must likewise have “no managerial responsibility” to share in tips or a tip pool.
The Act’s definition of “employer” sweeps in any person whose primary job is managing or supervising wait staff, service employees, or service bartenders. An owner working the floor, a general manager, and a shift supervisor whose main role is directing servers are all employers for tip purposes, and all are locked out of receiving gratuities.
The statute doesn’t itemize which duties cross into “managerial responsibility.” The Attorney General’s Office has filled that in by looking to federal executive-employee regulations. Duties that mark someone as a manager include directing other employees, influencing hiring or firing, setting the schedule, and assigning servers to sections.
This is where real-world titles get complicated. A “shift lead” or “assistant manager” who spends a shift actually waiting tables might qualify as a wait staff employee for that shift, but only if they genuinely exercise no managerial authority that day. The moment they start scheduling, directing other servers, or sectioning the floor, they are out. Job titles don’t control; what the person actually does does.
What Tips and Charges Are Protected
The protection reaches every form the money takes. Cash on the table, a credit card gratuity, a pooled tip, and a mandatory service charge all receive the same treatment. An arrangement where a manager skims a percentage before distribution violates the law regardless of how routine or small it is.
The statute defines “service charge” broadly. It covers any fee designated as a service charge, tip, or gratuity, and any fee a customer would reasonably expect to go to the service staff. That breadth matters: an employer cannot rename a service charge as an “administrative fee” and keep it. The full proceeds of a service charge must go to the wait staff, service bartenders, and service employees who performed the work, in proportion to the service each provided.
An employer can impose a fee it keeps for itself, but only if the fee falls outside the service-charge definition and the bill or menu tells the customer in writing that the charge is not a gratuity and will not be paid to service staff. Vague labels do not qualify.
Who Can Share in a Tip Pool
Massachusetts allows tip pooling, but it limits participation to three categories of workers:
- Wait staff employees — servers, bussers, counter staff, and anyone who serves food or drinks or clears tables, with no managerial responsibility that day.
- Service bartenders — bartenders who prepare drinks for servers to deliver.
- Service employees — other tipped workers who provide direct service to customers, such as bellhops or hairdressers, with no managerial responsibility.
No one else can receive distributions from the pool. Kitchen staff, dishwashers, hosts without tipped duties, and anyone with managerial authority are all excluded. An employer may administer the pool for payroll and tax purposes, but administering is not the same as participating. An employer also cannot require eligible employees to share tips with ineligible people, and routing pool money to back-of-house staff or managers violates the statute no matter how the arrangement is described.
Credit Card Processing Fees
When a customer tips on a card, the employer pays a processing fee on the transaction. Some states let employers deduct a proportional share from the employee’s tip. Massachusetts does not. The Tips Act prohibits any “deduction from a tip,” and card processing costs are a business expense the employer absorbs. A $20 tip on a card means the employee receives $20.
The Tip Credit Is Not the Same as Taking Tips
Massachusetts requires a cash wage of $6.75 per hour for tipped employees, with the regular minimum wage at $15.00. The employer can take a tip credit of up to $8.25 — the gap between the two — but only if the employee’s tips bring total hourly pay to at least $15.00. If tips fall short in a pay period, the employer makes up the difference.
Using the tip credit is not the same as taking tips. The credit lets the employer count a portion of the employee’s tips toward its minimum wage obligation; the employee still keeps every tipped dollar. An employer who fails to pay the $6.75 cash wage, or who fails to top up when tips come in light, faces the same penalties as one who pockets tips outright.
What You Can Recover If a Manager Took Your Tips
Massachusetts treats tip theft as wage theft, and the remedy is unusually strong. Under M.G.L. c. 149, § 150, a successful claim yields treble damages — three times the amount withheld — as liquidated damages, plus reasonable attorney’s fees and litigation costs.
Treble damages are mandatory. A court cannot find the employer acted in good faith and cut the award down to single damages. That makes Massachusetts one of the most employee-protective states in the country for tip claims, and it is why even relatively small skims can turn into substantial judgments.
Federal law adds its own layer. Under the FLSA, employers who unlawfully keep tips owe the full amount taken plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, and willful violators can face criminal fines of up to $10,000. The 2018 FLSA amendments made the ban on managers and supervisors keeping tips explicit, with one narrow exception: a manager can keep a tip a customer gave directly and solely for service the manager personally provided with no help from other staff.
How to File a Complaint
An employee whose tips were taken can file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Fair Labor Division through the AG’s website. Tip violations are reported under the “Non-Payment of Wage” category on the complaint form.
The deadline matters. The statute of limitations is three years from the date of the violation. That clock pauses from the date the AG complaint is filed until the AG either authorizes a private lawsuit or finishes its own enforcement. After filing with the AG’s office, an employee can bring a private civil lawsuit 90 days later, or sooner with the AG’s written consent.
A federal complaint can run in parallel. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division takes complaints at 1-866-487-9243, keeps them confidential, and the law prohibits employers from retaliating against anyone who files. Filing on both tracks is often sensible, because state and federal law offer different remedies and the stronger result applies.