USA Tipping FAQ

Pre-tax. The tip is for the service you received - the food, drinks, or labor - not the government's sales tax. Most etiquette guides and the technically-correct method calculate the tip on the pre-tax subtotal. That said, the difference is small (an 18% tip on a $100 bill with 8% tax is $16.55 pre-tax vs $18.00 post-tax), and many card terminals and tip calculators default to post-tax. Either is acceptable; pre-tax is the precise choice.

No - not as a rule. If you order at a counter, pay before eating, and pick up your own food (Chipotle, Panera, Sweetgreen, a coffee shop, a bakery), a tip is not expected. The payment screen may suggest 20–30%, but that is a prompt, not an obligation. A $1 tip or rounding up is a perfectly fine gesture if you want to, and is appreciated - but it is genuinely optional. The exception is a diner with sit-down counter service, where a server takes your order and brings your food: tip that like a regular restaurant.

These have spread everywhere - coffee shops, retail, self-checkout kiosks - and it is one of the most confusing things for visitors. Use this rule: table service = tip normally (15–20%); counter service = optional; self-service = no tip needed; retail = no tip needed. A screen suggesting 25–30% is pressure, not expectation. Do not feel obligated to tip just because a screen asks.

Check the bill first. Restaurants almost always add an automatic gratuity (auto-grat) of 18–20% for parties of 6 or more. If it is already on the bill, the server is taken care of and you do not need to add another full tip; a small extra ($2–5 per person) is a kind gesture for exceptional service. The catch: an automatic gratuity and a service charge are different things, and menus are not always careful about the words. An auto-grat is a tip that reaches the server; a service charge is house revenue and may not reach them. If the bill says "service charge" rather than "gratuity," ask the server whether it reaches them before deciding to add more.

No. The card networks - Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express - prohibit merchants from adding a credit-card surcharge to a debit or prepaid card transaction in the acceptance agreements businesses sign. It's not a criminal law, but it is a binding contract the merchant agreed to, and the simplest way to avoid a card surcharge is to pay with cash, a debit card, or a prepaid card instead of a credit card. The honest catch: some businesses don't know the rule or run terminals that can't always tell debit from credit, and the fee may get added anyway - in which case cash is the guaranteed fallback. The practical recourse after the fact is to report it to your card issuer or your state's Attorney General. See our cash vs. card pricing guide for the full explanation.

A tip below 15% (down to about 10%) signals that something was wrong. Leaving nothing at all is a strong statement reserved for genuinely bad experiences - and in the US, it is a real statement, because servers rely on tips for their income. The kindest path for a fixable problem is to mention it to the manager rather than silently under-tipping. Never stiff a server for things outside their control (a kitchen delay, a sold-out item).

There is genuine disagreement here. The strict rule says tip 18–20% on the whole bill, wine included. The more relaxed practice tips the standard percentage on the food, but a smaller amount (or a flat $10–20) on a very expensive bottle - the argument being that opening a $300 bottle is not 20× more work than opening a $15 bottle. At high-end restaurants, expect to tip on the full amount. In casual settings, use your judgment; nobody will object to a full tip.

Tip on the original, pre-discount amount. If a $50 meal is discounted to $35 with a coupon, the server did the same work as for a full-price meal, so the tip should reflect the $50 value, not the $35 you paid. This is the single most common tipping mistake. The same applies to gift cards: tip on what the meal would have cost in cash, not on the remaining balance. The calculator can handle this for you - enter the coupon amount in the "Coupon or discount" field and it recovers the pre-discount menu price automatically.

It depends on where you're picking up. For fast-casual counter service (Chipotle, a coffee shop, a bakery where you grab a pre-packed bag), no tip is expected - $1 or rounding up is a fine gesture. But for takeout from a sit-down restaurant, a server or takeout staffer - often paid the tipped wage of $2.13/hr - did real work packing your order, bagging utensils and sauces, and coordinating timing with the kitchen on top of their dine-in tables. For that, 5–15% (10% is a common baseline) is appreciated; scale up to 15–20% for large, complex, or curbside-pickup orders. Delivery is always tipped: 15–20% or at least $5, whichever is more, with extra for bad weather, heavy orders, or long distances - the driver relies on tips as a major part of their income.

No. These are licensed professionals who set their own rates and earn a living wage - tipping is not expected, and many company policies actually prohibit employees from accepting tips. The same logic applies to other independent professionals (lawyers, accountants, doctors). If someone went genuinely above and beyond (an emergency callout, working late), a flat $20–50 per worker, cold drinks, or a positive review are all kind thank-yous - but they are gestures, never expectations.

Rounding up is completely normal and often preferred - it is easier for everyone (no coins, clean numbers). The calculator's round-up control lets you pick the step: to the nearest $1 or to the nearest $5. The tip then becomes the difference between the rounded total and the bill. Default is $1, which is finer-grained and avoids the compounding that happens when a $5 step is applied per-person across a split group - each diner rounds up by $2–4, those premiums stack, and a 15% tip can quietly inflate to 20%+. Switch to $5 when you want coarser rounding on a large single-payer bill. See the methodology page for a worked example.