Leaving Tips at Restaurants in the United States
How to Quickly Calculate the Tip in the United States
Written by Andrew B. Bartels, October 2011
Introduction:
Tipping at restaurants isn't always done in all countries, and in the countries that do require a tip, the rules are often different.
If you're not from the United States, the tipping rules can be quite confusing! This article attempts to provide a simple explanation of the tipping process in the United States.
How Tipping Works in the USA:
Each US state government defines a minimum wage for workers within their state. By law, employers are required to pay workers a minimum amount per hour, for even the most menial tasks. The rate varies from state to state, but at the time of this writing, the minimum wage ranges from as low as $6.15 in Minnesota to $8.67 in Washington. Periodically state governments adjust their minimum wage to account for the Fair Labor Standards Act. Often this reflects the CPI (Consumer Price Index), the Federal wage increase, or cost-of-living accommodation.
There is a general exemption to the minimum wage for service workers (i.e. waiters, waitresses, etc.) who are expected to receive tips. For these types of jobs, employers can legally offer their employees a much lower hourly wage. For example, at the time of this writing, the State of Arizona legislates $7.25 per hour minimum wage, but allows for only $4.35 per hour for tipped workers. Obviously then, tips become an important part of a service worker's salary!
Tipping Rules at Meals:
There are no strict guidelines for tipping in the US. However, a general rule of thumb for tipping at meals is:
- 0% for no service at all (generally reserved for fast food restaurants where no server is present, or for very extreme cases where the service as SO BAD that it did not deserve a tip)
- 10% for poor or lacking service
- 15% for good service
- up to 20% for great service
How to Quickly Estimate the Tip:
Unless you're a computer nerd or an engineer, very likely won't have a calculator with you at dinner. Therefore many people find it difficult to calculate the proper tip. Below are some simple rules to help quickly estimate the tip in your head.
How to Quickly Estimate the Tip at 10% (for poor or lacking service):
Divide the total of the bill by 10. This is easy to do by simply moving the decimal point one place to the left.
Example:
The bill is $53.25.
Therefore the tip is $5.32 (moving the decimal point to the left by 1 digit)
To make things easy, it's completely acceptable to round off the tip to $5.50.
Therefore the total bill would be ($53.25 + $5.50) = $58.75
How to Quickly Estimate the Tip at 15% (for good service):
Divide the total of the bill by 10 to get 10%. This is easy to do by simply moving the decimal point one place to the left.
Then add 1/2 of the 10% value to get to 15%.
Example:
The bill is $53.25.
The 10% value is $5.32 (moving the decimal point to the left by 1 digit).
Then add half again as much, $2.66 to arrive at 15%. It's also quite acceptable to estimate this - for example you might arrive at $2.65 mentally by simply determining that half of $5.00 is $2.50, and that half of $0.30 is $0.15.
Again, to make things easy, it's completely acceptable to round off the numbers. Estimated $5.30 + $2.75 = $8.05.
Therefore the total bill would be ($53.25 + $8.05) = $61.30.
How to Quickly Estimate the Tip at 20% (for great service):
Divide the total of the bill by 10 to get 10%. This is easy to do by simply moving the decimal point one place to the left.
Then double it to get to 20%.
Example:
The bill is $53.25.
The 10% value is $5.32 (moving the decimal point to the left by 1 digit).
To make it easy, you might simply estimate $5.30 for the 10% value. The double of $5.30 that is $10.60.
Therefore the total bill would be ($53.25 + $10.60) = $63.85.
A Note about Tips for Large Parties:
If you are dining with a large number of quests, look carefully at the bill. Restaurants often have a policy of automatically adding an 15% or 18% tip to the bill if you have a large table. This is to ensure the waiter or waitress receives a proper tip.
Often times, a restaurant will post a note on their menu, such as "18% gratuity is automatically added for tables of 6 or more guests". The policy varies somewhat from restaurant to restaurant, and is not regulated by the government.
If you don't pay close attention to the restaurant's policy, it's easy to accidentally add a tip on top of the automatic tip!
You can tell quickly if the tip has already been added by looking at the bill carefully. It a tip has been added, you will see the bill total, and then a separate line for "gratuity" at the bottom, which means that the tip has been added for you.
Unless you're travelling to a very exclusive hotel or expensive location (such as Las Vegas), restaurants in the US will typically NOT automatically add a tip for small tables. However, if you are dining with 6 or more, you should always check the receipt to see if a tip has already been added, regardless of where you are dining.
What To Do When the Restaurant Has a Tipping Jar:
In recent times, some fast food and quick dine restaurants simplify the tipping process by placing a can or jar near the register, with a sign asking for tips.
Keep in mind that tipping is optional. You are not under any obligation to tip.
Before tipping, I generally try to determine if any table service is involved in the meal, aside from the basic operation of the cashier taking my money.
If there is some reasonable amount of table service involved, I will often leave a tip. Generally $1.00 for small meals, or only 10% for large meals is sufficient here if the restaurant does not offer a full service dining experience.
Also, I will sometimes tip larger if the cashier is especially nice or goes out of their way to brighten my day.
How to Tip for a Drink at a Bar:
When ordering a drink at a bar, you often are paying the bartender directly for each drink, and the tipping convention works somewhat differently.
If you're buying a single alcoholic drink, generally it's sufficient to tip just the change, or a possibly a dollar or so. For example, if the drink costs $5.50, you can get by with leaving $0.50 from your change. Or you are in a more expensive establishment, you may decide to tip $1.00 or $1.50 for good service.
If you "open a tab" in a bar (meaning that you leave your credit card with the bar tender), you should plan to tip 10% when you close the tab. Of course, you may always tip more than 10% if the bartender has given you especially good service.
One Last Note About Shared Tips:
Some restaurants and bars have a policy that waiters and servicers divide up the total tips for the evening. You can often detect that this is the case, if the person who takes your order is a different person from the person who delivers your food.
In that case, you need to realize that the tip you leave goes to ALL of the service staff in the entire restaurant. You are not tipping a specific server who happened to give you especially great service. If you are considering leaving a large tip in this situation, you need to understand that your server is very likely NOT going to receive the full benefit of the large tip. They will likely have to share it with the other wait staff.
