2022 Maryland Tipped Minimum Wage
The 2022 Maryland Tipped Minimum Wage is $3.63.
Effective 2022-01-01Source: Tipped Employees: Payment of Less than Minimum Wage - The Maryland Guide to Wage Payment and Employment Standards (Maryland Department of Labor, Division of Labor and Industry)Verified 2026-09-03
Compared with 2021
Every figure on this page is unchanged from 2021.
| Item | 2021 | 2022 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum cash wage | $3.63 | $3.63 | +$0 (+0.0%) |
Who it applies to
Employers in Maryland who pay tipped employees and claim a tip credit toward the state minimum wage.
What changed this year, and why
Maryland's minimum cash wage for tipped employees was $3.63 per hour for 2022.
Common questions
- Must the cash wage plus tips reach the full state minimum wage?
- Yes. The employer must pay at least $3.63 per hour in cash, and that amount plus the employee's tips must equal at least the full state minimum wage rate.
- What if a tipped employee is assigned non-tip work?
- The employer must pay at least the full state minimum wage rate for any time spent on non-tip-related tasks.
When the tips do not get you to the minimum wage
In Maryland the minimum wage is a floor on what you take home, not on what your employer writes on the cheque. When it pays the $3.63 tipped cash wage instead of the full rate, it is relying on your tips to close the gap - and if the tips do not arrive, the gap is still owed and the employer fills it. The test runs week by week over the hours the credit was claimed: cash wages plus the tips that actually reached you, measured against the full rate that applies for those hours. Come up short and your Maryland employer owes you the difference as wages. What this means in practice is that a slow week is the employer's problem, not yours. You cannot be asked to absorb it, and the makeup pay comes out of the employer's own funds rather than out of a later week's tips.
Under federal, state and local wage laws, if tipped employees do not make enough in hourly cash wages plus tips (for tip credit hours) to earn at least the full applicable minimum wage per hour for the workweek, the employer must make up the difference.
Tip Credit Wage Statement Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) (Maryland Department of Labor, Division of Labor and Industry)
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.
Tipped Employees: Payment of Less than Minimum Wage - The Maryland Guide to Wage Payment and Employment Standards (Maryland Department of Labor, Division of Labor and Industry)
- Minimum cash wage
Employers must pay at least $3.63 per hour.
Other years
Every Maryland Tipped Minimum Wage year · Tipped Minimum Wage in every state