Tipped Minimum Wage in Alaska

How the Tip Credit Works

Under federal law, employers can pay tipped employees a cash wage as low as $2.13 per hour and claim a 'tip credit' for the difference, but only if tips bring the worker up to at least the full minimum wage. If tips fall short, the employer must make up the gap.

Tipped Wages in Alaska

Alaska does not allow a tip credit. Tipped employees must be paid the full state minimum wage in cash, with tips on top.

Staying Compliant

Track tipped hours and tips so you can show that cash wages plus tips met the full minimum for every shift, the most common tipped-wage claim is exactly that they didn't.

Tipped Pay in Alaska, Worked Through

Alaska does not allow a tip credit, so tipped staff are paid the full $14.00 minimum in cash before any tips. Tips are on top, and they belong to the employee.

Overtime for tipped staff is calculated on the full minimum wage, not on the reduced cash wage. Working the premium from the cash wage is a common and expensive error, because it understates every overtime hour.

A valid tip pool can include employees who customarily receive tips. Managers and supervisors cannot take from it, and neither can the business, regardless of how the arrangement is described to staff.

Alaska Labor-Law Snapshot

Alaska does not allow a tip credit, so tipped staff earn the full $14.00 before tips. The Alaska minimum wage is $14.00/hour (about $6.75 above the federal $7.25), so a tipped worker's effective floor tracks that figure.

For Alaska employers these rules interact with timekeeping: accurate, audit-logged hours drive overtime, sick-leave accrual, final pay, and break records. Alaska sets no statewide meal-break requirement and does not mandate paid rest breaks; a final paycheck is due by the next regular payday at least 3 days after the employee gives notice when an employee resigns. Confirm current Alaska figures with the state labor office before relying on any single number.

What Alaska Employers Should Keep on File

Federal law requires employers to keep payroll records for at least three years, and the records used to calculate pay, such as time cards and work schedules, for at least two. Several states require longer. The practical standard is simple: if a former employee filed a claim tomorrow, could you evidence every hour you paid and every hour you did not?

The records that matter are the daily start and end times, the total hours for each workweek, the regular rate and any premium, all additions and deductions, and the pay period the payment covers. Keeping the underlying punches matters more than keeping the summary, because a total nobody can trace back is not evidence.

Where the record is missing or unreliable, the employee's reasonable recollection is generally accepted, and the employer carries the burden of disproving it. That is the single strongest argument for an automatic time clock over a paper sheet reconstructed at the end of the week.

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Official Sources

• U.S. DOL, Minimum wage by state
• U.S. DOL, State overtime
• U.S. DOL, State labor offices

More Alaska Guides

Tipped Minimum Wage in Other States

Alaska Tipped Minimum Wage: Frequently Asked Questions