Busser salary in New York City
What a busser earns in New York City is mostly tips, and tips move with the room: the venue, the section, the night of the week. Job ads quote a base wage that barely describes the job.
In New York City an employer can pay a food service worker a cash wage of $11.35 an hour and count up to $5.65 an hour of tips toward the $17.00 minimum, under rules effective through 31 December 2026. That base is close to fixed, so almost all the difference between a good busser job and a bad one shows up in tips.
Still collecting. Tippd's busser figures are still being collected, shift by shift. We publish a number once enough bussers have reported for it to mean something.
How busser pay works
Busser pay usually has two parts. A base hourly wage, often the tipped minimum, and take-home tips after tip-out to the bar, barbacks, bussers, and runners. A shift total is the honest unit: wage for the hours worked plus what actually went home.
- Night of the week, because a Friday and a Tuesday are different jobs at the same venue
- Tip-out structure, meaning how much of the pool leaves your pocket before you do
- Volume and section, because the same title pays differently across a room
- Neighborhood and check average, because where the room spends decides the ceiling
- Shift length, because a long shift can pay more in total and less per hour
How Tippd calculates this
Every figure here comes from bussers reporting their own shifts in New York City: hours worked, tips taken home after tip-out, and hourly wage where they know it.
We publish medians, not averages, because one exceptional night should not move a number. We show the sample size next to every figure. We do not show a total shift earning when the report did not include an hourly wage, because we would be guessing at half the number.
Busser pay by area
- Busser salary in ManhattanBorough-wide busser pay
- Busser salary in Midtown EastNeighborhood pay in Manhattan
- Busser salary in Greenwich VillageNeighborhood pay in Manhattan
- Busser salary in ChelseaNeighborhood pay in Manhattan
- Busser salary in West VillageNeighborhood pay in Manhattan
- Busser salary in BrooklynBorough-wide busser pay
- Busser salary in Financial DistrictNeighborhood pay in Manhattan
- Busser salary in East VillageNeighborhood pay in Manhattan
Other roles in New York City
Frequently asked
- How much does a busser make in New York City?
- Look at the typical shift total rather than an annual figure. It is the median of real reported shifts, and the range underneath shows how far a good night and a slow night sit apart.
- Is that number tips or wages?
- Both, kept separate. Base hourly wage and tips per shift are reported individually, and the effective hourly figure combines them across the hours actually worked.
- How current is the data?
- Each page shows its sample size and the reporting period behind it. Dates are only moved when new reports arrive.
- Who reports this?
- Hospitality workers, anonymously. No names, no emails, no exact shift dates are stored with a report.
Every figure here comes from anonymous shift reports filed by workers, scoped to one role and one venue at a time. Typical figures are medians, shown with a leading ~. Nothing is modelled, scraped or estimated from job ads. Read the methodology.