Restaurant Overtime Calculator: Tips, Service Charges and the Regular Rate (2026)

Two Different Weeks in One Restaurant

Front-of-house and back-of-house run on different overtime math, and mixing them is the most common payroll error in the industry. The restaurant overtime calculator separates them.

Servers: the Tip Credit Sets the Rate

A server paid the federal tip-credit cash wage of $2.13 whose tips bring them to at least the full minimum wage still earns overtime on the full minimum wage, not the cash wage: 1.5 × $7.25 = $10.88 per hour (state minimums raise this — several states allow no tip credit at all, so check your state overtime page).

| Line | 46-hour server week (federal) |

| --- | --- |

| Cash wage $2.13 × 46 | $98.00 |

| Overtime premium (6 × $10.88, less the straight time already paid) | $52.22 |

| Minimum gross before tips | $150.22 |

Tips themselves are not wages and stay out of the regular rate — but only genuine tips. A mandatory 18% service charge the house distributes, or tips routed through a manager-controlled pool, can be wages that must join the regular rate. That distinction is where class actions start; the tipped overtime rules cover it line by line.

Kitchen: Straight Hours, Real Overtime

Line cooks earn plain hourly wages, so a 52-hour kitchen week at $19.00 is $19.00 × 40 + $28.50 × 12 = $1,102.00. The errors appear elsewhere:

• Side work and roll-ups. Making servers spend substantial time on non-tipping side work at the $2.13 cash wage can break the tip credit retroactively, forcing back pay at the full minimum plus overtime.
• Opening and closing off the clock. Fifteen minutes of unclocked prep per shift is 65 unpaid hours a quarter.
• A bonus earned that week. A kitchen productivity bonus joins the regular rate before the premium is computed — the same blending rule as in the regular rate guide.

Check the Stub Against the Clock

Compare three things: hours on the stub against the schedule you actually worked, the overtime rate against the correct base (full minimum for tip-credit servers), and any mandatory service charge. Two years of records are recoverable, three if the shortfall was willful.