Can my boss make me tip out the kitchen in Ontario?
The short answer
In Ontario
| Who’s in the pool | Your employer decides whether there’s a pool, who takes part and how it’s distributed. The ESA guide’s example is a server tipping out a busser or kitchen staff 1% of tips, or putting 2% of sales into a pool. |
|---|---|
| Owners, directors and shareholders | Can share in the pool only if they’re a sole proprietor, partner, director or shareholder who regularly performs, to a substantial degree, the same work as employees in the pool (or tipped employees elsewhere in the industry). |
| Managers | May keep tips they receive themselves, and generally may take part in a tip pool if the employer’s policy permits it. |
| What can’t come off your tips | No withholding, deductions or making you give tips back unless the ESA allows it. Nothing for spillage, breakage, losses or damage. |
| Card fees | On a credit card tip, the employer may keep the greater of the card company’s processing percentage or 1.5% of the tip. Debit fees and any other processing fee can’t be taken. |
| Posted policy (since June 21, 2024) | If the owner, a director or a shareholder shares in the pool, the tip-sharing policy must be posted in at least one clearly visible place at work. |
| How tips are paid (since June 21, 2024) | By cash, cheque or direct deposit, which includes Interac e-Transfer. |
| Tips and wages | Tips and other gratuities aren’t wages under the ESA. |
“Employers can decide if there will be tip pooling terms in the workplace, including who will participate, and how it will be distributed.” (Ontario: Your guide to the Employment Standards Act, tips or other gratuities)
What’s different in Ontario
Ontario gives the house wide control over a pool and draws its hard lines around who takes money out. A tip-out to the line or the dish pit is fine; a slice for an owner who never carries a plate isn’t. Managers are a separate case: they keep tips handed to them and can join the pool if the house policy says so.
Two rules here are unusual. On credit card tips, your employer may hold back the card fee, at least 1.5% of the tip even if the processor charges less, but never a debit fee. And since June 21, 2024, a pool the owner shares in has to be posted on the wall, and tips must reach you by cash, cheque or direct deposit. The guide sets no ceiling on how much of your tips or sales a pool can take, so the percentage is a house policy, not a legal number.
Official sources
Last verified
. Checked the government pages linked above.
Still open: The guide sets no maximum tip-out percentage and doesn’t say whether you’re entitled to see how the pool was split. A written or posted policy is only required when the owner, a director or a shareholder shares in the pool.