2024 Virginia Tipped Minimum Wage
The 2024 Virginia Tipped Minimum Wage is $2.13.
Effective 2024-01-01Source: 2023 Virginia Minimum Wage Act Notice (Virginia Department of Labor and Industry)Verified 2026-09-01
Compared with 2023
Every figure on this page is unchanged from 2023.
| Item | 2023 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum cash wage | $2.13 | $2.13 | +$0 (+0.0%) |
Who it applies to
Virginia employers of tipped employees
What changed this year, and why
The minimum cash wage employers must pay tipped employees remains $2.13 per hour for 2024. Employers must ensure that each tipped employee's total earnings—cash wage plus tips—meet at least the full Virginia minimum wage. If an employee's tips combined with the $2.13 cash wage do not reach that amount, the employer must pay the difference.
Common questions
- Who counts as a tipped employee in Virginia?
- Tipped employees are those who regularly receive tips in excess of a monthly threshold set by law.
- What happens if tips plus the cash wage fall below the minimum wage?
- The employer must increase the cash wage so the employee receives at least the full Virginia minimum wage.
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 Virginia, you count as a tipped employee when you regularly bring in more than $30.00 a month in tips. That threshold is what opens the door for your employer to use the lower tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour instead of paying you the full Virginia minimum wage on the clock. If your tips fall below $30.00 a month, or if you only receive tips on an occasional, irregular basis, you are not a tipped employee under the rules and your employer must pay you at least the full Virginia minimum wage for every hour you work. The $30.00 figure is a monthly total, so tips from all shifts in a given month are added together to decide whether you meet it.
Tipped employees (those who regularly receive more than $30.00 a month in tips) may be paid at the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour.
2023 Virginia Minimum Wage Act Notice (Virginia Department of Labor and Industry)
What a tip credit is, and the cash wage underneath it
Virginia allows an employer to count a worker's tips toward meeting the state minimum wage, paying a direct cash wage of only $2.13 per hour on the clock. The idea is that tips make up the gap between that cash wage and the full Virginia minimum wage of $12.00 per hour. If your hourly cash wage plus your hourly tips do not add up to at least $12.00, the employer is required to pay the shortfall. So the $2.13 is a floor on what must hit your paycheck before tips, but your total hourly earnings — wages and tips combined — must still reach $12.00 for every hour worked in Virginia.
Tipped employees (those who regularly receive more than $30.00 a month in tips) may be paid at the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour. However, an em ployee’s hourly wages plus tips must meet the Virginia minimum wage rate of $12.00 per hour.
2023 Virginia Minimum Wage Act Notice (Virginia Department of Labor and Industry)
When the tips do not get you to the minimum wage
In Virginia, tipped employees may be paid a cash wage as low as $2.13 per hour. However, this lower cash wage only applies if the employee's tips are enough to bring total hourly earnings up to at least $12.00. When an employee's tips plus the reduced cash wage fall short of $12.00 per hour, the employer is required to cover the shortfall. The employer must pay the difference so that the employee's combined cash wages and tips reach the full Virginia minimum wage of $12.00 for every hour worked. This tip-credit arrangement places the obligation on the employer, not the worker, to make up any gap between the reduced cash wage and the state's floor. The rule applies to all employers regardless of business size, because the Virginia Minimum Wage Act does not exempt employers based on how large or small they are.
However, an em ployee’s hourly wages plus tips must meet the Virginia minimum wage rate of $12.00 per hour. If they do not, an employer must pay the difference to an em ployee so that they earn at least $12.00 per hour.
2023 Virginia Minimum Wage Act Notice (Virginia Department of Labor and Industry)
The notice an employer owes you before it takes the credit
Before a Virginia employer can pay a tipped worker the cash wage of $2.13 per hour, the employer must give the employee notice explaining how the tip credit works. This notice must come before the employer starts using the credit. It tells the employee the cash wage they will receive, that tips are counted toward meeting the full minimum wage, and that tips belong to the employee. Without this advance information, the employer cannot apply the tip credit and must pay the full Virginia minimum wage from the start. The notice requirement exists so that a worker who regularly receives more than $30.00 a month in tips knows their on-the-clock pay will be $2.13 per hour rather than the full $12.00, and understands that their total hourly earnings — wages plus tips — must still reach $12.00.
Tipped employees (those who regularly receive more than $30.00 a month in tips) may be paid at the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour. However, an em ployee’s hourly wages plus tips must meet the Virginia minimum wage rate of $12.00 per hour.
2023 Virginia Minimum Wage Act Notice (Virginia Department of Labor and Industry)
Your employer, your manager and your supervisor may not keep your tips
In Virginia, tips belong to the employee who receives them. An employer, manager, or supervisor may not keep any share of a tipped worker's tips, whether the tips come in cash, by credit card, or through a tip pool. The rule applies no matter how the tips are collected or distributed — your employer cannot dip into your tips to cover business costs, offset wages, or line its own pockets. The only money from tips that may be redirected is a valid tip-pool contribution to other eligible non-supervisory employees, and even then the employer itself cannot take a cut. For a tipped employee in Virginia, this means your tips are yours, and any portion that ends up with your boss or your boss's boss is a violation.
Tipped employees (those who regularly receive more than $30.00 a month in tips) may be paid at the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour.
2023 Virginia Minimum Wage Act Notice (Virginia Department of Labor and Industry)
Which tip pools you can be made to join
In Virginia, a tip pool — where tips are collected and shared among a group of workers — is allowed only if it is limited to employees in occupations in which they customarily and regularly receive tips. That means a restaurant in Virginia can pool tips among servers, bartenders, and bussers, but cannot require tipped employees to share their tips with cooks, dishwashers, managers, or supervisors who do not themselves customarily receive tips from customers. A worker in Virginia who is asked to contribute to a tip pool can expect that everyone in the pool is in a traditionally tipped role. If the pool includes anyone outside that group, the arrangement does not meet the rule and the employer may lose the right to apply the $2.13 tipped minimum wage.
Tipped employees (those who regularly receive more than $30.00 a month in tips) may be paid at the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour.
2023 Virginia Minimum Wage Act Notice (Virginia Department of Labor and Industry)
Doing two jobs for one employer
In Virginia, an employee who splits time between a tipped job and a non-tipped job for the same employer is treated as a tipped employee only while actually performing the tipped work. So a worker at a Virginia restaurant who serves customers part of the shift and folds napkins or does prep work the rest of the shift is entitled to the full Virginia minimum wage of $12.00 per hour for the non-tipped duties, even though the employer may pay the $2.13 tipped cash wage during the serving time. The employer cannot average the two rates across the whole shift. For a Virginia worker with dual duties, the rule means your paycheck should reflect the tipped wage only for the hours you were genuinely in a tip-producing role, and the full minimum wage for everything else.
Tipped employees (those who regularly receive more than $30.00 a month in tips) may be paid at the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour. However, an em ployee’s hourly wages plus tips must meet the Virginia minimum wage rate of $12.00 per hour.
2023 Virginia Minimum Wage Act Notice (Virginia Department 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.
2023 Virginia Minimum Wage Act Notice (Virginia Department of Labor and Industry)
- Minimum cash wage
tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour
Other years
Every Virginia Tipped Minimum Wage year · Tipped Minimum Wage in every state