The honest answer: it depends on headcount, wages and tip volume. Here's what it looks like in real dollars at three different business sizes, plus why most operators are sitting on more than one year of it.
The FICA Tip Credit, under IRC Section 45B, refunds the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare tax (7.65%) on tip income your staff earned above the federal minimum wage threshold. There's no cap on the credit and no minimum business size — a five-person café and a forty-person restaurant group both qualify, they just land at very different dollar amounts.
The two biggest levers are how many tipped employees you have, and how many tax years you file for. Most operators have never filed at all, which means the current year is only part of the number — up to three prior years are usually still open to amend.
Even a small counter-service shop with modest tip volume clears a few thousand dollars once the look-back years are included — money that's sitting in payroll tax already paid, not a new expense or a loan.
This is the profile of a typical full-service restaurant — in the same range as the average recovery figures we cite elsewhere on this site. The subminimum direct wage matters here — the lower it is, the more of each tip dollar clears the minimum-wage threshold and becomes creditable.
At this scale the credit stops being a nice-to-have and starts being a real line item — often large enough on its own to fund a piece of equipment, a buildout, or a quarter of payroll during a slow season.
Every restaurant's mix of wages, hours and tip volume is different. Plug in your actual numbers and get an estimate specific to your business — using the same calculation method the IRS requires on Form 8846.