Are eyebrow and eyelash technicians tips tax deductible in 2026?
Yes — eyebrow and eyelash technicians are on the IRS tipped occupation list (code 606). 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 606 · Personal appearance and wellness · official title: Eyebrow and Eyelash Technicians
How tipping works in this job
Lash extension work builds a strong client relationship over repeat fills every few weeks, and regulars tend to tip consistently on each visit. Brow work in a mall kiosk or threading bar is quicker and tipped in smaller cash amounts. Booth renters in this trade are common, so the tip often arrives straight into your own card reader.
The regulations say: Enhance and maintain clients’ eyebrows using techniques such as threading, waxing, or tweezing. Enhance clients’ eyelashes using techniques such as tinting or applying extensions. Examples given: Eyebrow waxer.
The thing most likely to disqualify your tips
A deposit taken to hold a lash appointment is not a tip — it is prepayment against the service price, and it is usually non-refundable. Late-cancellation fees are the same. Only what the client adds at the end of the appointment counts.
Check your own numbers
Pre-filled for eyebrow and eyelash technicians. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
Step 1 — your occupation
Checking for Eyebrow and eyelash technicians (Treasury code 606). 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: A deposit taken to hold a lash appointment is not a tip — it is prepayment against the service price, and it is usually non-refundable. Late-cancellation fees are the same. Only what the client adds at the end of the appointment counts.
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 eyebrow and eyelash technicians
Lash extension work produces one of the steadiest tipping relationships in the whole personal appearance category, and the reason is the fill cycle. A client on a two- or three-week rotation sits with the same technician for an hour or more, repeatedly, for years. That builds the kind of familiarity that produces consistent tipping at consistent rates, and it makes an annual figure genuinely predictable — unusual on this list, where most occupations swing wildly with season or footfall.
Brow work runs on the opposite rhythm. Threading and waxing at a mall kiosk or a walk-in bar takes ten minutes, involves no relationship, and is tipped in small cash amounts by roughly whoever feels like it. A technician who does both will find their lash column carries the year.
Booth rental is common in this trade, and it changes the treatment. Renting a room or a chair makes you self-employed: the client pays you directly, often through your own card reader, and the tip arrives with the payment rather than through anyone’s payroll. Qualified tips in a trade or business are taken into account only to the extent the business is profitable, so rent, adhesive, lashes, tweezers and sanitation supplies come off before the deduction has anything to work with.
The specific thing that is not a tip here is the deposit. Lash appointments are long and no-shows are expensive, so most technicians take a booking deposit and enforce a late-cancellation fee. Both are prepayments or charges against the price of the service, set by you, and neither is a voluntary gift from a client. The same goes for removal fees, foreign-fill surcharges when a client comes from another salon, and any premium for a longer or denser set.
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 eyebrow and eyelash technicians on the IRS tipped occupation list?
- Yes. Eyebrow and Eyelash Technicians is Treasury Tipped Occupation Code 606, in the personal appearance and wellness category. The regulations describe it as: Enhance and maintain clients’ eyebrows using techniques such as threading, waxing, or tweezing. Enhance clients’ eyelashes using techniques such as tinting or applying extensions.
- What is the most common reason eyebrow and eyelash technicians lose the deduction?
- A deposit taken to hold a lash appointment is not a tip — it is prepayment against the service price, and it is usually non-refundable. Late-cancellation fees are the same. Only what the client adds at the end of the appointment counts.
- 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.
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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.