2019 Kentucky Tipped Minimum Wage
The 2019 Kentucky Tipped Minimum Wage is $2.13.
Effective 2019-01-01Source: Kentucky Wage and Hour Laws (Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet)Verified 2026-08-30
Compared with 2018
Every figure on this page is unchanged from 2018.
| Item | 2018 | 2019 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum cash wage | $2.13 | $2.13 | +$0 (+0.0%) |
Who it applies to
Kentucky employers who pay tipped employees
What changed this year, and why
The minimum cash wage for tipped employees in Kentucky for 2019
Common questions
- What is the minimum cash wage for tipped employees in Kentucky in 2019?
- Employers may pay tipped employees a minimum cash wage of $2.13 per hour, provided that the employee's tips combined with the cash wage equal at least the full minimum wage for each week.
Who counts as a tipped employee
In Kentucky, you count as a tipped employee if you work in an occupation where you customarily and regularly receive more than $30 a month in tips. That threshold is what triggers the special tipped-employee rules under Kentucky wage and hour law. If you meet it, your employer may pay you a lower direct cash wage—as little as $2.13 per hour—rather than the full minimum wage, as long as your tips bring your total hourly earnings up to at least the minimum wage each week. If your tips plus the cash wage fall short of the minimum wage in any workweek, the employer must make up the difference. The $30-per-month figure is what separates employees whose tips are incidental from those whose occupation is built around tips; it is the gateway to the tipped-employee framework in Kentucky.
Any employee engaged in an occupation in which more than $30 dollars per month is customarily and regularly received in tips, the employer may pay a minimum of $2.13 per hour if the employer' records can establish for each week where credit is taken, when adding the tips received to wages paid, not less than the minimum wage is received by the employee.
Kentucky Wage and Hour Laws (Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet)
What a tip credit is, and the cash wage underneath it
In Kentucky, the tip credit is the gap between the cash wage your employer pays you directly and the full minimum wage. Your employer may pay you a direct cash wage of $2.13 per hour and count your tips toward the rest of the minimum wage obligation. The tip credit itself equals the difference between that direct wage and the minimum wage: if the minimum wage is higher than $2.13, the employer is claiming the difference as a credit against what it would otherwise owe you. The employer can only take this credit if it can show, through its records, that your tips plus the $2.13 cash wage add up to at least the full minimum wage for each workweek. If they do not, the credit is not valid for that week and the employer must cover the shortfall. The tip credit is not a separate payment—it is simply the amount the employer is allowed to offset using the tips you receive on the job in Kentucky.
the employer may pay a minimum of $2.13 per hour if the employer' records can establish for each week where credit is taken, when adding the tips received to wages paid, not less than the minimum wage is received by the employee.
Kentucky Wage and Hour Laws (Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet)
When the tips do not get you to the minimum wage
In Kentucky, even when your employer pays you the tipped cash wage of $2.13 per hour and claims a tip credit, it must still ensure that your total earnings reach at least the full minimum wage every workweek. The employer's records must show that, for each week, your tips combined with the cash wage paid equal or exceed the minimum wage. If your tips in a particular week are low—because of slow business, fewer customers, or seasonal variations—and your combined earnings fall below the minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference. The employer cannot average good weeks against bad weeks; the minimum wage floor applies each individual week. This protection means that in Kentucky, a tipped employee's income is never allowed to dip below the minimum wage as a result of the employer taking a tip credit. The employer bears the risk of short tip weeks, not the employee.
if the employer' records can establish for each week where credit is taken, when adding the tips received to wages paid, not less than the minimum wage is received by the employee.
Kentucky Wage and Hour Laws (Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet)
Your employer, your manager and your supervisor may not keep your tips
In Kentucky, your employer, your manager, and your supervisor are prohibited from keeping any portion of the tips you earn. Tips belong to the employee who receives them. The employer may not use your tips to satisfy any part of its minimum wage obligation beyond what the tip credit framework allows, and it may not require you to hand over any gratuity except for lawful withholdings such as taxes required by federal or state law. This rule means that even though an employer in Kentucky may pay a tipped employee a cash wage of $2.13 per hour and count tips toward the minimum wage, the employer itself may never pocket those tips or divert them to itself. Any tips that are collected must go to the employees—either the individual who earned them or, if a valid tip pool exists, the other eligible employees in the pool. The employer's role is limited to facilitating the flow of tips, not retaining any share.
No employer shall: • Use all or part of any tips or gratuities received by employees toward the payment of the minimum wage. • Require an employee to remit to the employer any gratuity, or any portion thereof, except for the purpose of withholding amoun ts required by federal or state law.
Kentucky Wage and Hour Laws (Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet)
Which tip pools you can be made to join
In Kentucky, employees may agree among themselves to divide their tips. If they do, the amounts each person retains are treated as that individual's tips. An employer may also require participation in a tip pool, but when it does, the account holding the pooled tips must be kept separate from the employer's other business records and must be open to inspection by the pool's participants. A lawful tip pool in Kentucky is limited to employees in occupations where they customarily and regularly receive tips—so an employer cannot require servers to share tips with cooks, dishwashers, or other back-of-house staff who are not themselves tipped employees. The segregation requirement ensures transparency: you and the other participants can see how much goes in and how it is distributed. If the employer fails to keep the tip pool account separate or does not make it open to participants, the pool may not comply with Kentucky's rules.
Employees may enter into an agreement to divide tips among themselves. If employees enter into this type of agreement, the amounts retained by the employees shall be considered tips of the individuals who retain them. If an employer requires the use of a tip pool, then the account used to hold the tip pool shall be segregated from the employer’s other business records and the employer shall make the account open to the pool’s participants.
Kentucky Wage and Hour Laws (Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet)
Doing two jobs for one employer
In Kentucky, an employee who works in an occupation where they customarily and regularly receive more than $30 per month in tips is treated as a tipped employee only for that specific occupation. If the same employer also assigns the worker to a different job where tips are not customarily and regularly received, the tipped-employee rules—including the $2.13 cash wage—apply only to the tipped occupation. For the non-tipped job, the employer must pay the full minimum wage and cannot claim any tip credit. This dual-jobs rule prevents employers from blending tipped and non-tipped work together to justify paying the lower cash wage across all hours worked. Each occupation is evaluated separately under Kentucky law. For example, if you serve food part of the week and work as a prep cook another part, your employer can pay you the tipped cash wage for your server hours but must pay at least the full minimum wage for your prep-cook hours.
Any employee engaged in an occupation in which more than $30 dollars per month is customarily and regularly received in tips
Kentucky Wage and Hour Laws (Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet)
How each figure was verified
Each number below was read from a stored copy of the document named beside it, and checked to occur word for word in the quoted sentence. The digest is of that stored text.
Kentucky Wage and Hour Laws (Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet)
- Minimum cash wage
a minimum of $2.13 per hour if the employer' records can establish for each week where credit is taken, when adding the tips received to wages paid, not less than the minimum wage is received by the employee.
Other years
Every Kentucky Tipped Minimum Wage year · Tipped Minimum Wage in every state