District of Columbia tipped minimum wage 2026
The District of Columbia tipped cash wage is $12.00 per hour. Employers may take a tip credit of up to $5.95 per hour, provided the worker's cash wage plus tips reaches the state minimum of $17.95 per hour for every workweek. [DOL Tipped][DC labor dept.]
Cash wage and tip credit
When tips fall short
If a worker's cash wage plus reported tips do not average to the District of Columbia minimum of $17.95 per hour over a workweek, the employer must pay the shortfall. The Tip Credit Checker tool runs the math at /tools/tip-credit. Under the 2021 DOL final rule, time spent on non-tip-producing work above 20 percent of the shift (or 30 continuous minutes) must be paid at the full minimum, not the tip-credited rate. [DOL FS-15]
Background
D.C. Code section 32-1003 indexes annually each July to the CPI-U for the Washington metro area. Initiative 82 (2022) phases out the tip credit by 2027-07-01, raising the tipped cash wage in steps. The current $17.95 is the highest standard rate of any US jurisdiction.