Are concierges tips tax deductible in 2026?
Yes — concierges are on the IRS tipped occupation list (code 302). Tips in this job are deductible for 2026, up to $25,000, if the customer chose the amount and could have declined.
Treasury Tipped Occupation Code 302 · Hospitality and guest services · official title: Concierges
How tipping works in this job
Concierge tipping is transactional and back-loaded: the guest who got the impossible restaurant table tips on the way out, sometimes substantially, and the guest who asked for directions does not. In residential buildings the pattern is annual rather than per-service, with holiday envelopes from residents making up much of the year’s total.
The regulations say: Assist patrons at hotels or apartment buildings with personal services. May take messages; arrange or give advice on transportation, business services, or entertainment; or monitor guest requests for housekeeping and maintenance. Examples given: Hotel guest service agent, activities concierge.
The thing most likely to disqualify your tips
Commission from the businesses you refer to is not a tip. Restaurants, tour operators and car services sometimes pay concierges for referrals, and that money comes from a business in exchange for something — it is referral income, not a voluntary gift from a guest.
Check your own numbers
Pre-filled for concierges. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
Step 1 — your occupation
Checking for Concierges (Treasury code 302). This occupation is on the list.
Step 2 — is it actually a tip?
Answer for the money you are asking about. If some of your income is tips and some is service charges, run them separately.
Step 3 — your tips and income
The phase-out runs on modified AGI, which for most people is the same as AGI.
3 questions left to answer.
OBBBA Deductions · obbbadeductions.com
Tips deduction worksheet — tax year 2026
The three tests, as answered
- Does the customer decide the amount? not answered
- Can the customer decline to pay it? not answered
- Is it a mandatory service charge or auto-gratuity? not answered
Answer the 3 remaining questions above for a result.
Watch out for this in your job: Commission from the businesses you refer to is not a tip. Restaurants, tour operators and car services sometimes pay concierges for referrals, and that money comes from a business in exchange for something — it is referral income, not a voluntary gift from a guest.
Educational estimate only, not tax advice. It runs entirely in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere. The deduction is scheduled to expire after tax year 2028.
How this applies to concierges
The defining tax question for a concierge is not about tips at all — it is about commissions. Restaurants, tour operators, car services, ticket brokers and spas have long paid concierges for sending business their way, sometimes as a standing arrangement and sometimes per booking. That money arrives from a business in exchange for a referral. It is referral income, it is taxable, and it is not a gratuity from a guest, so none of it belongs in this deduction however routinely it appears alongside the money that does.
Guest tipping in a hotel is back-loaded and proportionate to difficulty. Directions and a map produce nothing. A table at a restaurant that was fully committed, a replacement for a lost passport, a car at four in the morning, tickets to something sold out — those produce cash at checkout, sometimes substantial cash, from a guest who understands what was involved. The distribution across a year is lumpy: a handful of interactions can outweigh hundreds of routine ones.
Residential buildings run on an annual rhythm instead of a per-service one. A concierge in an apartment building is tipped mainly at the holidays, when residents hand over envelopes, and the total from a single December can represent most of the year’s gratuity income. Because those arrive as discrete, memorable events rather than as a trickle, they are unusually easy to record accurately — and they are unambiguously voluntary, since no resident is billed for them.
Professional bodies in this trade maintain their own standards about what may be accepted from vendors, and some employers prohibit commissions outright while permitting guest gratuities. Those are workplace rules rather than tax rules, but they map neatly onto the distinction the deduction cares about: money from a guest who chose to give it counts, money from a business that expected something in return does not.
The three tests, whatever your job
Paid voluntarily
The customer sets the amount and can decline to pay it.
Paid in cash or a cash equivalent
Card payments and mobile payments count.
Received directly or through a tip pool
Both routes qualify.
Questions
- Are concierges on the IRS tipped occupation list?
- Yes. Concierges is Treasury Tipped Occupation Code 302, in the hospitality and guest services category. The regulations describe it as: Assist patrons at hotels or apartment buildings with personal services. May take messages; arrange or give advice on transportation, business services, or entertainment; or monitor guest requests for housekeeping and maintenance.
- What is the most common reason concierges lose the deduction?
- Commission from the businesses you refer to is not a tip. Restaurants, tour operators and car services sometimes pay concierges for referrals, and that money comes from a business in exchange for something — it is referral income, not a voluntary gift from a guest.
- How much of my tips can I deduct?
- Up to $25,000 per return, whatever your filing status. The cap applies first, then the amount is reduced by $100 for every $1,000 of modified adjusted gross income above the threshold for your filing status.
- Does a mandatory service charge count as a tip?
- No. A mandatory service charge or automatic gratuity is not a qualifying tip, and the final regulations confirmed this explicitly. It does not qualify even when the customer cannot decline it — a qualifying tip has to be an amount the customer chose to give.
Related occupations in hospitality and guest services
- 303
Hotel desk clerks
You check guests in and out, assign rooms, handle reservations and settle accounts.
- 304
Hotel housekeepers
You clean and service guest rooms and public areas in a hotel or similar establishment.
- 301
Bellhops and baggage porters
You handle guests’ luggage at a hotel or a transport terminal, or work the door.
Occupation data transcribed from T.D. 10044 — final regulations on occupations that customarily and regularly received tips, Treas. Reg. § 1.224-1(h) table 1, last verified 2026-09-08. Read the regulations.