The Missouri server minimum wage is $7.50 per hour in 2026, half the state’s regular $15.00 minimum. An employer can only pay that lower cash rate if your tips push your total pay to at least $15.00 per hour for the workweek. When they don’t, the employer has to cover the difference.1Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Revised Statutes 290-512 – Gratuities, Goods or Services as Part of Wages, Effect on Minimum Wage Requirements2Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. Minimum Wage
That is the whole guarantee in one sentence. The rest is the fine print that decides whether it actually reaches your paycheck.
How the Tip Credit Works
The gap between the cash wage and the full minimum is called the tip credit. In Missouri that credit is $7.50 per hour. The employer isn’t taking that money; the law assumes your tips will make up the difference. When they don’t, the shortfall is on the employer, not you.1Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Revised Statutes 290-512 – Gratuities, Goods or Services as Part of Wages, Effect on Minimum Wage Requirements
The math is straightforward. Add your cash wages and reported tips for the workweek, then divide by hours worked. If the result is under $15.00, the employer owes you the difference. A server working 30 hours at $7.50 who earns $180 in tips has $405 total, which is $13.50 per hour. The employer owes another $1.50 per hour, or $45 for that week.
Slow shifts don’t shift the risk to you. Every workweek stands on its own, and a bad week is the employer’s problem to solve.
Notice Before Your Employer Can Pay $7.50
Federal rules require an employer to tell you about the tip credit before using it. The notice has to cover the cash wage amount, how much tip credit the employer is claiming, your right to keep your own tips (except in a valid pool), and the fact that the credit disappears entirely if the notice isn’t given.3eCFR. 29 CFR 531.59 – The Tip Wage Credit
Skip the notice and the employer owes the full $15.00 per hour for every hour worked while the credit was improperly claimed. Retroactively.
Tips Versus Service Charges
Only voluntary tips count toward filling the gap between $7.50 and $15.00. Under federal guidelines, a tipped employee is someone who regularly receives more than $30 per month in tips, and those tips have to be voluntary payments the customer controls.4U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 15 Tipped Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
Automatic gratuities on large parties and other mandatory add-ons the restaurant sets are not tips. The IRS treats a payment as a tip only when it is voluntary, the customer sets the amount, and the customer decides who gets it. Anything else is a service charge that belongs to the business.5Internal Revenue Service. Tips Versus Service Charges: How to Report A restaurant can pass service-charge money to staff, but when it does, that money is regular wages for tax withholding, not tips that support the tip credit.6Internal Revenue Service. Tip Recordkeeping and Reporting
Tip Pooling
Tip pools collect tips from servers and redistribute them among a group. Managers, supervisors, and owners can never take any share of an employee’s tips, whether through a pool, a house fee, or any other arrangement.4U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 15 Tipped Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
Who else can be in the pool depends on what the employer pays:
- If the employer pays the $7.50 tipped rate, the pool is limited to workers who regularly receive tips, like servers, bartenders, and bussers.
- If the employer pays the full $15.00 or more, cooks, dishwashers, and other back-of-house staff can be included, because no tip credit is being taken.
Pooled tips have to be distributed by the regular payday for the workweek, or as soon as practicable after that if the amounts can’t be worked out in time.4U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 15 Tipped Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act A pool that includes a manager, or a tipped-rate pool that includes kitchen staff, can force the business to repay every dollar that was misdirected.
Side Work and Dual Jobs
Servers don’t spend every minute waiting tables. Rolling silverware, wiping down tables, brewing coffee, restocking, and the occasional round of dishes all count as part of the tipped occupation under the rule the Department of Labor restored in December 2024.7Federal Register. Tip Regulations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) – Restoration of Regulatory Language Employers don’t have to track percentages of tipped versus untipped time during a normal shift.
The line is drawn at genuinely separate jobs. If a server also spends whole shifts on maintenance work or cooking, those are dual jobs, and the employer can only apply the tip credit to the hours actually spent serving. The other hours have to be paid at the full $15.00 minimum.
Credit Card Fees and Other Deductions
When a tip comes in on a credit card, the restaurant pays a processing fee on that transaction. Federal guidance lets employers deduct only the fee attributable to the tip, not the fee on the whole check. On a $100 tab with a $20 tip and a 3 percent processing fee, the employer can withhold 60 cents from the tip, not $3.60. The deduction can’t drop your effective pay below the minimum wage for the workweek, and tips have to be paid out by the next regular payday whether or not the credit card company has reimbursed the restaurant yet.
The same limit applies to deductions for uniforms, broken glassware, cash register shortages, and other business costs. None of them can push a tipped worker’s pay below $15.00 per hour for the workweek. On a slow shift where your tips barely get you to the floor, even a small uniform charge can create a violation.
Overtime
Tipped servers get time-and-a-half for hours over 40 in a workweek, and the overtime rate is based on the full minimum wage, not the tipped rate. In Missouri that means overtime is calculated at $22.50 per hour. The employer can still apply the $7.50 tip credit to those hours, so the cash wage during overtime has to be at least $11.25 per hour.8eCFR. 29 CFR 531.60 – Overtime Payments Your tips during those hours still count toward what’s owed, and any shortfall is again the employer’s to make up.
Reporting Your Tips
Wage rules are one thing; taxes are another. If you earn $20 or more in tips in a calendar month from a single employer, you have to report those tips to that employer in writing by the 10th of the following month.6Internal Revenue Service. Tip Recordkeeping and Reporting The report needs your name, Social Security number, the employer’s name, the period covered, and the total. Your employer may have its own form, or you can use IRS Form 4070.
Cash tips under $20 in a month from one employer don’t have to be reported to that employer, but they’re still taxable income on your annual return. Keep a daily log; any written record works. Service charges the restaurant hands out to you are already treated as regular wages on your pay stub with withholding taken out, so they don’t go on your tip report.6Internal Revenue Service. Tip Recordkeeping and Reporting
If You’re Being Underpaid
Missing make-up pay, an illegal tip pool, or deductions that drop you below the minimum wage are all grounds for a wage complaint with Missouri’s Division of Labor Standards.2Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. Minimum Wage The DLS will investigate and try to collect on your behalf, but it can’t force an employer to pay through the courts. If the agency can’t resolve things, it will notify you of your right to file a private lawsuit.9Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. Wages, Hours and Dismissal Rights
Missouri law lets you recover the full unpaid wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, effectively doubling what you’re owed, along with court costs and reasonable attorney fees. The statute of limitations is two years from the date of the violation, so older underpayments drop off if you wait.