Can Your Employer Make You Pay for Uniforms or Tools? The Federal “Free and Clear” Rule
- Wages must be paid “free and clear.”
- If you must buy tools or gear for the job and that cost drops your pay below minimum wage or the overtime due, that violates federal law.
- Workers paid well above minimum wage have less protection under this rule; state law may add more.
Requiring workers to buy uniforms, tools or safety gear is common. Federal law doesn’t ban it outright, but it limits how far it can cut into your pay.
The rule
According to 29 CFR 531.35, wages can’t be considered paid “unless they are paid finally and unconditionally or ‘free and clear.’” If an employee “kicks back” part of their wage to the employer, directly or indirectly, the wage requirements aren’t met.
The regulation gives this example: if the employer requires the employee to provide “tools of the trade which will be used in or are specifically required for the performance of the employer’s particular work,” there is a violation in any workweek when the cost of the tools “cuts into the minimum or overtime wages required.”
Uniforms are on the employer’s side of the ledger
A related regulation, 29 CFR 531.3, lists items the Labor Department considers “primarily for the benefit or convenience of the employer,” whose cost can’t be counted as part of your wages. The list includes tools of the trade and other materials incidental to the employer’s business, and “the cost of uniforms and of their laundering, where the nature of the business requires the employee to wear a uniform.” So an employer can’t treat a required uniform as if it were pay to you.
A simple way to check
- Take your gross pay for the workweek you bought the item.
- Subtract the cost of the required item.
- Divide by the hours you worked.
- If that is below the minimum wage that applies to you ($7.25 federal or your state’s higher rate), the charge broke the rule for that week.
Things to keep
- Receipts or payroll deduction records for anything you were required to buy.
- The written policy requiring the item.
- Pay stubs for the same week.
Many states have stricter rules on deductions and reimbursement, so check your state labor department too.
Published October 27, 2026. Sources are linked in the text.
Header image: original graphic by JobPayRaise.com.
Comments (1)
A related point from DOL guidance: required travel between job sites counts as hours worked, so a required stop to pick up tools at the shop starts the paid day. Counting those minutes can also be what keeps a week above the minimum wage after a tool deduction. Source: 29 CFR 785.38.