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Racial biases affect many important personnel decisions such as performance appraisal and promotion. Yet, little is known about how these biases might influence evaluations of employee lateness behaviour. Integrating attribution theory and research on racial stereotypes and meta‐stereotypes, we investigated whether tardy Black and Hispanic employees are penalized harsher than their White counterparts in terms of unfavourable personnel outcomes. Findings from a national US survey (N = 2,789) showed that Black employees perceive fewer advancement opportunities the more often they are late – an effect that did not hold true for Hispanic or White incumbents. A follow‐up experimental study with full‐time working adults (N = 204) further illustrated that the tardiness of Black, but not White, employees negatively impacts their performance appraisal ratings and subsequent chances of advancement. This …