Is it legal for my employer to take a till shortage out of my pay?
Published September 10, 2026
The short answer
A deduction for a till shortage is not banned outright by federal law — it is capped. The Department of Labor states that “no deduction may be made from an employee’s wages which would reduce the employee’s earnings below the required minimum wage or overtime compensation”, and that this holds “even if an economic loss suffered by the employer is due to the employee’s negligence”. Many states set a stricter rule of their own on top of that floor.
Two answers circulate for this one and both are wrong. The first says a deduction like this is simply illegal; the second says it becomes legal the moment a worker signs something. The federal rule is neither. It is a floor, and the floor is drawn in a place most people do not expect.
The Department of Labor sets it out in Fact Sheet #16, which is about uniforms but states the general principle in terms that reach a cash drawer, a broken plate and a damaged vehicle alike.
What is the federal limit on a deduction like this?
The fact sheet frames the question around who the item benefits. Where something is primarily for the employer’s benefit or convenience, its cost may not be passed on far enough to cut into the wage floor or into overtime.
The categories it lists as being for the employer’s benefit are broader than the word “uniform” suggests, and they cover the two situations most people arrive at this page with.
“Some examples of items which would be considered to be for the benefit or convenience of the employer are tools used in the employee’s work, damages to the employer’s property by the employee or any other individuals, financial losses due to clients/customers not paying bills, and theft of the employer’s property by the employee or other individuals. Employees may not be required to pay for any of the cost of such items if, by so doing, their wages would be reduced below the required minimum wage or overtime compensation. This is true even if an economic loss suffered by the employer is due to the employee’s negligence.”
Does it change anything if I pay it back in cash instead?
The fact sheet answers that in one sentence, and it is there precisely because the workaround is common: the money is not taken off the check, it is handed over separately, and the paperwork looks clean.
“Employers may not avoid FLSA minimum wage and overtime requirements by having the employee reimburse the employer in cash for the cost of such items in lieu of deducting the cost from the employee’s wages.”
What about a uniform I had to buy myself?
The same fact sheet treats the uniform itself as the employer’s expense where the employer requires it, and applies the same cap where the cost is pushed onto the worker. It also addresses spreading the cost over several paydays, which is the usual way a large one arrives.
“The employer may prorate deductions for the cost of the uniform over a period of paydays provided the prorated deductions do not reduce the employee’s wages below the required minimum wage or overtime compensation in any workweek.”
Where do state rules come in?
The federal floor is a floor. A number of states regulate deductions far more tightly — some require written authorization for each one, some bar deductions for shortages and breakage regardless of what the wage works out to afterwards, and some do both.
Which of those applies depends on where the work was performed, not on where the company has its head office. A state labor department is the only place that can say, and asking costs nothing.
What is worth writing down while it is happening?
The amount, the date, the words used for it on the pay stub, and what was said about it at the time. A single deduction is easy to wave away; the same charge appearing month after month is a different kind of record, and it only becomes visible if each one was dated when it happened.
Keep the stub itself, too. The line as the employer described it is their own account of the charge, which is a more useful thing to hold than a memory of the conversation.
Where this is decided
The state labor department where the work is performed
Ask the state labor agency what its own rule is. State rules sit on top of the federal ones and are frequently stricter, and the state agency is the only place that can say which applies to work performed there.
Contact detailsSources read for this answer
- Fact Sheet #16: Deductions From Wages for Uniforms and Other Facilities Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · Revised July 2009 · read September 10, 2026
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/16-flsa-wage-deductions
What can be done about it
About this answer
What is written above is general information about a rule that exists. It is not written about anybody's particular job.
It does not say what any particular employer owes anyone. That turns on facts this page has never seen — the hours, the agreement, the state the work was done in — and on how somebody with the authority to decide reads them.
Rules differ from one state to the next, and they change. Every quotation above says what that document said on the date printed beside it, which is not the same as saying what it says today.
Where anything on this page and the official source disagree, the official source is the one that counts. The office named further up decides; this page only points at it.
Whichever way that goes, the thing an agency, a union or an attorney asks for first is a dated record of what actually happened, written down while it was happening.
Keep your own record of it
A dated record of the charge itself — what was taken, when, and the words the pay stub used for it. One deduction is easy to wave away. The same charge month after month is a different kind of record, and it only exists if each one was written down when it happened.
Start a record of the deductionsFree to start, and no account until you choose to keep it. Private to you — nobody is contacted or notified.