North Carolina tipped minimum wage 2026
The North Carolina tipped cash wage is $2.13 per hour. Employers may take a tip credit of up to $5.12 per hour, provided the worker's cash wage plus tips reaches the state minimum of $7.25 per hour for every workweek. [DOL Tipped][NC 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 North Carolina minimum of $7.25 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
No scheduled increase is recorded. This row was taken from the DOL tables only and the state's own site was not checked in this pass, so a scheduled increase may exist and simply not be captured here.