Tip-Out Split
Tip pools are run on vibes, and the vibes usually favor whoever is loudest at the meeting. This is the arithmetic for the three systems that actually work: hours, points, and role weights.
Card-processing charges are commonly taken out of the pool before the split, which is legal federally when the charge is a percentage of the tips. If your house deducts them first, enter the pool after the deduction.
How the math works
- Support first: the tip-out to bar, food runners and expo comes off the top (15% of the pool is the common house number), and the staff split runs on what is left.
- Hours method: pool left ÷ total hours = the hourly unit. Everyone's share is their hours × that unit. Cleanest system when shifts and roles are similar.
- Points method: each role carries points (servers 1.0, bussers 0.5, runners 0.3 is a typical grid) and the pool divides across total points. It rewards the role, not just the clock.
- Role weight: the same math with seniority weights, which is how houses that tip-out by shift role keep senior servers whole.
- Equal-split check compares your share against the flat split across everyone in the pool, the number the quiet ones in the meeting use as their argument.
Is a manager taking a share of the tip pool legal?
No. Tips belong to the employees who customarily and regularly receive them, and managers, supervisors and owners are not those employees under federal law. A manager who takes part of a pool creates a wage liability for the employer. Tip-out to cooks, barbacks and food runners is legal in tip-credit states when the employer takes a tip credit.
Hours, points, or role weights — which is fairest?
Hours is fairest when everyone does the same work, points is fairest when side work and seat load differ, and role weights fit houses with a seniority ladder. The honest test is the equal-split check on this page: if one method consistently moves money to the same two people, the house will read it that way.
Can the house take credit card fees out of the pool?
Federally, yes, when the charge is a percentage of the tip: the employer may reduce the pool by the card's service charge. What is not allowed is the employer pocketing tips, and the fee deduction must be a real charge from the processor, not a round number.