By Shelbie Watts

Many restaurant owners implement a tip splitting system between servers and supporting staff. While the servers are the main point of contact for the restaurant patron, good service cannot be delivered without the help of other staff members. 

You may also be looking to start a tip splitting policy for the first time for any new business operations you started during to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Did you hire a new to-go or delivery crew? Is there anyone that performs curbside operations now? With everyone working to increase efficiency in these new practices, it makes sense to split the tips that the customer-facing employee receives. 

Between complying with different legalities around tip splitting and choosing between different options, the process can be a difficult one—that’s why we’re here to help. We’ve laid out everything you need to know to make tip splitting as seamless and simple as possible, from the legal information to a breakdown of the differences between the choices and how to implement them with ease. 

We even included a custom tip splitting template so you can tip split like a champ. But first, let’s go over some of the basics you need to know. 

What is a tip?

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) defines a tip as “discretionary (optional or extra) payments determined by a customer that employees receive from customers.” These payments include: 

• Cash tips directly from customers.
• Credit card, debit card, gift card or any other electronic payment method. 
• Any non-cash tip value such as tickets. 
• Tips received from other employees paid out through tip pools or tip splitting, or other formal or informal tip sharing arrangement. 

What exactly is tip pooling?

Tip pooling is a form of tip splitting that is a little different. Tip pool regulations stipulate that all of the tips collected by servers such as bartenders and waitstaff are “pooled” together at the end of a shift. The total tips are then redistributed among all employees. 

Tip pooling makes sure all of the restaurant staff—including back of the house employees such as cooks and dishwashers—benefit from tips like the serving staff. 

Is tip pooling legal?

According to the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers must pay minimum wage to all employees, but they are allowed to take a “tip credit” of up to $5.12 an hour of employees’ tips against their minimum wage obligation. 

If the house keeps any tips or requires employees to share tips with non-tipped staff members, the employer cannot take this tip credit and must pay the employee full minimum wage. Employers are allowed to require servers to share their tips with non-tipped employees as long as everyone is earning the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, minus the tips. 

What is the difference between tip pooling and tip sharing?

While sometimes used interchangeably (which is incorrect), the main difference between tip pooling and tip sharing is that tip sharing is entirely voluntary and does not carry the same mandatory guidelines as tip pooling does. 

Employers must meet the following requirements to implement tip splitting: 

• They must pay tipped employees at least $2.13 an hour. 
• No employer can claim a tip credit above $5.12. 
• They cannot claim a tip credit that exceeds the amount of tips actually received by the tipped employee. 
• Employees must know that the employer is applying a tip credit. 

When it comes to tip splitting and tip pooling, there are several different options that can be set by the manager as long as the employees agree, including: 

• Split tips based on hours worked 
• Points system 
• Percentage tip-out

Here is a breakdown of each method and how it works. 

Split tips based on hours worked

Some restaurants split tips based on how many hours an employee worked. Since there are both full-time and part-time servers, it wouldn’t necessarily be fair for those who worked a full shift to split tips with those who only worked the dinner rush. 

To split servers’ tips based on hours worked, add up the total amount of tips and then divide that figure by the total hours worked. Then, multiply THAT figure by the hours an individual server worked. 

Here’s an example: 

• Your employees earned a total of $1,000.
• Server #1 worked an 8-hour shift.
• Meanwhile, server #2 worked a 5-hour shift.
• Lastly, server #3 worked a 7-hour shift. 
• The total number of hours worked is 20. 

$1,000 divided by 20 is 50, so multiply that each employees’ hours. 

• Server #1: 50 X 8 = $400 
• Server #2: 50 X 5 = $250
• Sever #3: 50 X 7 = $350 

To check your calculations, make sure the individual employees’ take-home tips equal up to the total amount of tips earned in the shift.  

Points System

A points system is an effective way for a manager to pool 20-100% of the servers’ tips and fairly disperse them amongst all of the employees, including bussers, bartenders, hostesses, runners and other staff members who help keep the restaurant service running smoothly. This method also helps keep the staff content by ensuring that no one has a particularly terrible shift. 

The dispersion is usually done on a percentage basis that is calculated with a point system. Different types of employees are given a certain number of points. These points determine the percentage of the tip pool they receive. 

Let’s say your servers are given 10 points each and your bartenders and bussers were given 5 points each. If $1,500 in tips was earned in a shift, it would look like this: 

• Servers (3): 30 points
• Bussers (1): 5 points
• Bartenders (2): 10 points 

Total points: 45

• Divide the total number of tips ($1,500) by the total number of points (45) and you’ll get the worth of each point, which in this case is $33.30.
• Multiply each staff member’s points by $33.30
• This results in the servers will each receive $330 and the busser and bartenders will each receive $166.50. 

Percentage Tip-Out

Another form of tip splitting involves servers using the honor system. They tip out the support staff based on a percentage of the tips they earned. A typical percentage split would be 10% to the bartender and another 25-30% shared among the remaining employees. 

Here’s an example based on a to-go crew. If a delivery driver’s total sales equaled $1,000 and they earned $200 in tips, here’s how much the rest of the staff could earn:

• The cook would receive $20 (or 10%)
• The hostess (or person taking orders) would receive $12 (or 6%)
• The order preparer would receive $26 (or 13%)
• The busser would receive $12 (or 6%)
• The delivery driver would take home $130, which equals 65% of their total earnings