Labor Dept. Withdraws Decades-Old Tipped Worker Opinion Letters
A new Labor Department bulletin scraps three opinion letters from 1979–1985 and drops the 80/20 rule for tipped employees' non-tipped duties.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2026-1, withdrawing three opinion letters dating to 1979, 1980, and 1985 that had governed how employers treat tipped workers who perform non-tipped tasks. Officials said the old letters no longer reflect agency policy or its interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The bulletin clarifies that current dual-jobs regulations hinge on whether an employee's duties are related to their tipped occupation — not on any fixed cap governing how much time they spend doing non-tipped work. That distinction effectively retires the long-contested 80/20 rule, a percentage-based threshold the division had already removed from its Field Operations Handbook in January 2025.
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The policy shift traces back to a 2024 federal court ruling that vacated a 2021 dual-jobs final rule. Following that decision, the department removed regulatory text added under the 2021 rule and reinstated the original 1967 dual-jobs framework. The new bulletin brings all Wage and Hour Division guidance into alignment with those reinstated regulations.
Looking ahead, the department said it is developing a notice of proposed rulemaking to further amend tipped-employee regulations under the FLSA and will invite public comment once that proposal is published.
Continue reading at DOL News Releases and Briefs.
