Can a tattoo shop take a cut of your tips?

Tips should be 100% yours, with the shop's cut coming off the tattoo price only. Get that in writing before your first client sits down. Whether a cut is legal may depend on your state and on whether you count as an employee or a contractor, so check yours.

A client tips you after a long session. The next morning the shop boss says the house takes 40% of it. You've been working there six months. Nobody ever said a word about tips.

You should. My rule: tips are 100% yours, on rent or on a split. Say so when you agree the deal, and have the owner confirm it in writing.

The shop's percentage comes off the price of the tattoo. The tip is between you and the client. In the two threads we read on this, most commenters said the same, though several of them aren't artists, so read it as the norm and not a ruling. The tattoo booth rental agreement checklist has the other lines to get in writing.

Several commenters call it illegal, and one adds that it's hard to get the law to do anything about it. They're commenters, not lawyers, and we couldn't confirm it for a 1099 artist. Check your state, or ask a lawyer or an accountant.

Don't wait for that answer to ask for the rule in writing.

Four lines, in the agreement or in an email the owner has answered:

Wording you can send:

Send the same message anyway. For a softer opener, one 6-vote reply suggested this: "I just noticed you guys have been mistakenly taking a percentage of my tips on cc transactions." Calling it a mistake gives the owner a way out.

If the answer is that the cut stays, count it against the shop. Take it off what you keep before you run the break-even in tattoo booth rent vs commission.

Keep a log of your tips either way and photograph the card receipts, which is what one 16-vote reply advised. If there's no contract and the shop won't move, a 34-vote reply said to cut your losses and find another shop. Leaving a tattoo shop covers how.

One artist with 23 years in said that at every shop they've worked at, artists take payments as cash or on their own Square into their own bank account and pay the shop daily, so the shop never pays them. That's a 2-vote reply. Keeping card tips out of the shop's hands is our reading of it, and it only works if the shop agrees.

It shouldn't. Most commenters in the two tip threads we read said the tip is the artist's and the shop's cut comes off the tattoo price. Get that in writing.

Several commenters call it illegal, but we couldn't confirm that for a 1099 artist. It may depend on your state and on whether you count as an employee or a contractor, so ask a lawyer or an accountant.

Yes. Write that tips are 100% yours, the shop's cut comes off the tattoo price only, and say when and how card tips get paid out.

We found no clear norm. If tips go through the shop's card machine, ask who covers the fee before you agree.

Checked October 2026. This is our method for the tip rule; the replies named come from two r/TattooArtists threads, "Shop cut on tips?" (2025) and "Shop boss took 40% of my tip last night" (2025), and none of it is a survey. A few other shop-deal threads touch tips. This is not legal advice.

Gal, founder of Collabo.ink, the booking app for tattoo artists. For 15 years I booked sessions for dozens of artists, some of them among the best known in the world. Collabo.ink takes your bookings and deposits, so you can focus on what matters: tattooing.