Which occupations are explicitly listed as included or excluded in the OBBBA statute or guidance?

1. What the statute requires on occupations — a narrow trigger, not a free‑for‑all

The statute conditions the tips deduction on whether an individual works in an occupation that “customarily and regularly received tips” before the 2025 cutoff date; Treasury and the IRS were charged with publishing a list of such occupations and issued proposed regulations identifying those jobs on Sept. 22, 2025 ^{[2] [1]}. Multiple payroll and tax firms report that the proposed regs define “qualified tips” by tying them to occupations on that list rather than to any cash tip a worker receives ^{[4] [2]}.

2. What’s been released so far — proposed regs and occupation codes, not a statutory annex

The reporting shows the IRS released proposed regulations and a preliminary occupations list in September 2025; payroll guidance indicates the IRS will use tipped occupation codes (to be reported on future W‑2s and related forms) to identify eligible workers ^{[2] [1] [3]}. Industry summaries emphasize these are proposed regulations and that final rules and additional documentation standards were expected later in 2025 ^{[5] [4]}.

3. Which occupations are described in the reporting — summaries, not verbatim lists

Available articles note the IRS “identified the occupations that customarily and regularly received tips” but the pieces in this search set (BDO, Jackson Lewis, Alloy Silverstein, Kahn Litwin) paraphrase that development rather than printing a full statutory or regulatory roster of included or excluded job titles ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}. In short: the sources confirm the existence of a published occupations list in proposed regs but do not quote the list line‑by‑line ^[2].

4. What industries and stakeholders say — concern about reclassification and reporting burden

Employer and payroll advisories uniformly flag the risk that employers or agencies might try to reclassify regular pay as tips to expand the deduction; Jackson Lewis and other firms underscore the Treasury’s directive to publish an occupations list “to deter abuse” and to limit the deduction to those historically in tipped roles ^[3]. Industry guidance also stresses practical steps — tipped occupation codes, Box 14 use in drafts of future W‑2s, and transition‑year estimates for 2025 — reflecting an implicit agenda of preventing over‑broad application while easing employer reporting burdens ^{[1] [6] [7]}.

5. What’s explicitly excluded or limited in reporting guidance

Sources note limitations: the proposed regulations and guidance focus on cash tips in occupations that customarily received tips and do not treat the “no tax on overtime” provision identically — the September proposed regs addressed tips but “do not address” the overtime deduction in detail ^[2]. The reporting also explains the deduction is subject to income phaseouts and other technical limits, which functionally exclude higher‑income filers or tip amounts above statutory caps ^{[1] [6]}.

6. Gaps and what reporting does not show — the key limitation

The current set of articles and firm alerts confirm the IRS released proposed regulations with a preliminary occupations list, but none of these summaries reproduce the explicit catalog of which job titles are in or out; therefore, the precise included/excluded occupations are not printed in the available reporting provided here ^{[2] [4]}. If you need the verbatim occupations list or text of the proposed regulations, those primary IRS documents are not included among the search snippets supplied and so are “not found in current reporting.”

7. Practical takeaway for employers and workers

Until final regs and forms are issued, payroll professionals are advised to track and reasonably estimate cash tips for 2025, tag employees with the IRS’s tipped‑occupation codes where possible, and prepare to report occupation codes on future W‑2/1099 filings; the IRS granted penalty relief for 2025 as a transition year but encouraged voluntary reporting to let workers claim deductions ^{[7] [8] [9]}. This guidance signals the government’s dual aims: limit the deduction to historically tipped occupations (to deter abuse) while giving firms breathing room to adapt reporting systems ^{[3] [6]}.