2025 New Jersey Tipped Minimum Wage
The 2025 New Jersey Tipped Minimum Wage is $5.62.
Effective 2025-01-01Source: New Jersey’s Minimum Wage to Increase to $15.49/Hour for Most Employees on Jan. 1 (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development)Verified 2026-09-01
Compared with 2024
| Item | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum cash wage | $5.26 | $5.62 | +$0.36 (+6.8%) |
Who it applies to
Tipped workers in New Jersey whose employer claims a tip credit against the state minimum wage.
What changed this year, and why
New Jersey's minimum cash wage for tipped workers rose to $5.62 an hour on January 1, 2025.
Common questions
- What was the tipped minimum cash wage in New Jersey in 2025?
- New Jersey's minimum cash wage for tipped workers was $5.62 per hour, effective January 1, 2025.
- What if tips do not reach the minimum wage?
- If the cash wage plus the worker's tips do not equal at least the state minimum wage, the employer must pay the difference.
Every amount on this page is a published figure rather than yours. The Tips needed per hour takes the number you enter and works it out against them, showing which published figure it used.
Who counts as a tipped employee
In New Jersey, you count as a tipped employee if you work in an occupation where you customarily and regularly receive more than $30 in tips during a month. Even if you occasionally miss that amount because you were out sick, on vacation, or business was slow for a week, you are still considered a tipped employee. Only the tips you actually keep count toward the $30 threshold. If some of your tips are redistributed to someone else through a tip pool, that redistributed portion does not count. This definition matters because it determines whether your employer is allowed to pay you the lower cash wage and apply a tip credit toward the full minimum wage. If you do not meet this definition, your employer must pay you the full New Jersey minimum wage in cash with no tip credit.
A tipped employee is any worker (full-time, part-time, or temporary) engaged in an occupation in which they customarily and regularly receive more than $30 per month in tips.
My Work Rights: Tipped Workers (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development)
What a tip credit is, and the cash wage underneath it
In New Jersey, employers can use a tip credit to count a portion of your tips toward meeting their minimum wage obligation. The tip credit equals the difference between the direct cash wage the employer pays you and the full minimum wage. For 2025, the minimum cash wage employers must pay tipped employees is $5.62 per hour. This means your employer pays you at least $5.62 in cash, and can credit your tips toward the remaining amount needed to reach New Jersey's full minimum wage. However, your total earnings—cash wage plus tips—must equal at least the full minimum wage. The employer must also show that you actually received at least the maximum tip credit amount in actual tips before they can apply the full credit.
Under New Jersey law, an employer can apply up to a set maximum amount of an employee’s tips towards their minimum wage obligation.
My Work Rights: Tipped Workers (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development)
When the tips do not get you to the minimum wage
In New Jersey, employers who take a tip credit must ensure that each tipped employee's combined earnings— the cash wage paid by the employer plus the tips actually received— reach at least the full state minimum hourly wage. If the total of the hourly cash wage and the tips falls short of that minimum, the employer is required to make up the difference. This guarantee applies every pay period. For 2025, the minimum cash wage employers must pay tipped employees is $5.62 per hour; tips are added on top of that amount, and if the sum does not equal the state minimum wage, the employer pays the shortfall so the worker's hourly earnings are not below the legal floor.
Where the employer is taking a tip credit, once tips retrieved from the pool and cash wages from the employer are computed, an employee must receive the full state minimum hourly wage. If the hourly sum is less, the employer must make up the difference.
My Work Rights: Tipped Workers (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development)
The notice an employer owes you before it takes the credit
In New Jersey, before your employer can take a tip credit, they must inform you in advance about several key details. The employer must tell you the amount of the cash wage that will be paid to you, the amount of the tip credit they will claim (which cannot exceed the value of tips you actually received), that all tips you receive must be kept by you except for valid tip pool arrangements limited to tipped employees, and that the tip credit will not apply if you have not been informed of these requirements. This notice requirement ensures you understand how your wages are calculated and protects your right to receive proper compensation before your employer reduces their cash wage obligation.
Under New Jersey Wage and Hour Law, an employer is eligible to apply a tip credit against the full state minimum hourly wage only if the employer has informed its tipped employees in advance of the following:
My Work Rights: Tipped Workers (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development)
Your employer, your manager and your supervisor may not keep your tips
In New Jersey, your employer, your manager, and your supervisor may not keep any portion of your tips. The law prohibits employers from keeping any portion of employees' tips for any purpose. Tips belong to you as the employee who earned them, regardless of whether your employer has taken a tip credit. This protection ensures that the money customers give you in recognition of your service stays with you, and your employer cannot use your tips for business expenses, to subsidize other workers, or for any other reason.
Tips are the sole property of the employee, and an employer may not take any portion of a worker's earned tips for any purpose.
My Work Rights: Tipped Workers (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development)
Which tip pools you can be made to join
In New Jersey, tip pools are limited to employees in occupations in which they customarily and regularly receive tips. Your employer can require you to participate in a tip pool, but the pool can only include workers who normally receive tips as part of their job. The employer must notify you of any required tip pool contribution amount. When tips are pooled, all participating tipped employees share the collected tips according to the pool's distribution method. This ensures that tip pooling benefits only those workers who are genuinely tipped employees under the law.
An employer must notify its employees of any required tip pool contribution amount, may only take a tip credit for the amount of tips each employee ultimately receives, may not keep any of the employees’ tips for any other purpose, and may not distribute them to non-tipped employees.
My Work Rights: Tipped Workers (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development)
Doing two jobs for one employer
In New Jersey, if you perform two different jobs for the same employer—one as a tipped employee and one as a non-tipped employee—you are considered a tipped employee only with respect to your tipped job. For example, if you work as a server (where you receive tips) and also work as a cook (where you do not receive tips), the tip credit and tipped employee rules apply only to your time spent working as a server. Your employer cannot apply the tip credit to your non-tipped work, even if you perform both jobs for the same employer. This ensures that the lower cash wage for tipped employees applies only when you are actually performing tipped work.
For the job for which the employee customarily and regularly receives at least $30 per month in tips (and, therefore, is considered a tipped employee), the employer may take a tip credit for hours worked in that job.
My Work Rights: Tipped Workers (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development)
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.
New Jersey’s Minimum Wage to Increase to $15.49/Hour for Most Employees on Jan. 1 (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development)
- Minimum cash wage
The minimum cash wage rate for tipped workers will rise to $5.62/hour from $5.26, with the maximum tip credit employers are able to claim remaining at $9.87.
Other years
Every New Jersey Tipped Minimum Wage year · Tipped Minimum Wage in every state