Tips

72 guides on tipping, one situation each. Restaurants, delivery apps, rideshares, salons, spas, movers, plumbers, hotels, weddings and the holidays, plus the mechanics of tip pooling and how tips are taxed. Start with the group that matches where you are standing rather than with a general chart. Most of these questions are situational, and several guides conclude that no tip is expected, which is the part a single etiquette table cannot tell you. Below the list you will find what Americans actually tip by service, measured by Pew Research Center rather than recommended by anyone, alongside employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Tipping is voluntary in almost every situation described here.

The evidence

What Americans actually do, measured rather than advised

Every guide below tells you what is customary. None of them tell you what people really leave, because that needs survey data rather than etiquette. Pew Research Center surveyed 11,945 US adults in August 2023 and asked exactly that, service by service.

Situation	Always or often tip	What the number tells you	The guide
Sit-down restaurant, server takes the order	92%	The one near-universal case. 81 percent said they always tip here, not merely often.	How Much to Tip a Waiter or Server at a Restaurant
Haircut	78%	Higher than most people guess, and higher than for a taxi ride.	How Much to Tip for a Haircut
Food delivery	76%	Close behind the barber’s chair, despite the driver never being seen by many customers.	How Much to Tip a Food Delivery Driver
Drinks at a bar	70%	Lower than a restaurant meal, which surprises bartenders more than customers.	How Much to Tip a Bartender (Per Drink and Per Tab)
Taxi or rideshare	61%	Nearly four in ten do not tip regularly, even with a prompt in the app.	How Much to Tip an Uber Driver
Coffee shop	25%	The counter tip screen has not won. Three quarters of adults rarely or never use it.	Do You Tip Baristas? Coffee Shop Tipping Explained
Fast casual restaurant	12%	The lowest of the seven Pew measured, and the clearest signal that a prompt is not a norm.	Do You Tip on Takeout and Carryout Orders?

Source: Pew Research Center, Tipping Culture in America: Public Sees a Changed Landscape, fielded 7 to 27 August 2023 among 11,945 US adults on the American Trends Panel, margin of error 1.4 points. The restaurant figure is among adults who dine at sit-down restaurants rather than among all adults. Pew asked about these seven services only, so buffets, hotels and home services are not in this table.

The finding that contradicts most tipping advice: asked what they leave for average service at a sit-down restaurant, 57 percent of Americans said 15 percent or less, including 2 percent who would leave nothing. Only 25 percent said 20 percent or more. The 20 percent figure that every etiquette guide repeats, this one included, describes a minority of diners rather than the middle of the distribution.

Why 72 guides exist

Two thirds of people cannot tell when a tip is expected

The same Pew study asked how easy it is to navigate. Only 34 percent of US adults said it is extremely or very easy to know whether to tip for different services, and only 33 percent said the same about knowing how much. Among upper-income adults the whether figure drops to 25 percent.

The uncertainty is not evenly spread and it is not really about arithmetic. Asked whether tipping is a choice or an obligation, 21 percent said a choice, 29 percent said an obligation, and 49 percent landed on it depends. Under-30s were the most likely to call it an obligation, at 38 percent.

Where opinion is close to unanimous is on how the ask is made. Pew found 40 percent oppose suggested tip amounts appearing on a screen, against 24 percent in favor, and 72 percent oppose an automatic service charge added to the bill. A separate 72 percent said the fairest arrangement is each server keeping the tips they earn.

Read those numbers together and the shape of the problem appears. People are confident about the restaurant table and lost almost everywhere else, they resent being prompted, and the prompt keeps appearing in new places. Pew found 72 percent believe tipping is expected in more places than five years ago, against 5 percent who think fewer.

That is why this collection is 72 separate guides rather than one chart. The uncertainty is situational, so the answer has to be too. If you already know your situation, skip to the group below that matches it.

Who is on the other side

How many people this is actually about

Tipping decisions feel small at the card reader. Aggregated, they set the income of a few million households, and the official statistics are thinner than you would expect.

Figure	Number	Source and year
Workers in tipped occupations	~4 million	Yale Budget Lab, from Current Population Survey data for 2023. About 2.5 percent of all US employment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes no aggregate count of tipped workers.
Waiters and waitresses	2,270,910	BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025
Bartenders	756,390	BLS OEWS, May 2025
Hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists	305,710	BLS OEWS, May 2025
Median weekly pay, tipped occupations	$538	Yale Budget Lab, 2023, tips included, against $1,000 for non-tipped occupations
Restaurant tips missing from tax data each year	~$8 billion	US Census Bureau working paper on tip reporting at full-service single-location restaurants, covering 2005 to 2018

Sources: Yale Budget Lab analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group data; Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release; US Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies working paper 24-68, Tip of the Iceberg: Tip Reporting at U.S. Restaurants, 2005-2018.

Two of those rows explain a good deal of the friction. A median of $538 a week including tips is why the amount on the screen matters to the person holding it. And the Census estimate of roughly $8 billion a year going unreported is why the rules around tip reporting keep changing, and why an employer’s payroll setup determines how much of your tip survives the journey.

The legal machinery behind all of this sits in one guide rather than being repeated across the others: the federal $2.13 cash wage, the seven states that ban a tip credit outright, tip pooling, and how tips are reported and taxed. Tip Pooling, Tip Credit and Taxes: How Tipping Works Behind the Scenes covers the lot, with the Department of Labor and IRS as sources.

About this collection

How these guides are organized, and what they avoid

Seventy-two guides, one situation each. Most answer a single question about a single job, because that is how the question arrives: you are standing at a counter, or a van has just pulled away, and you want to know about that one case rather than about tipping in general.

The guides give ranges rather than rules, and they say when the honest answer is that no tip is expected. Several conclude exactly that, which is the useful part. A guide that tells everyone to tip everyone is not advice.

What they do not do is tell you what you owe. Tipping norms differ by region, by household and by what the business already charges, and none of these pages can see your bill. Where a legal question is involved, such as whether a service charge reaches the worker, the guides describe published Department of Labor rules and point you at your own state.

The arithmetic sits separately in the tip calculator, which handles percentages and splitting a bill between people. Everything on waldev.com is built the same way: a stated method on the tool page, and the surrounding questions answered in their own guides instead of being buried inside it.

Which guide do you need?

Eleven groups, arranged by where you are standing rather than by how much to leave.

You want the rules before the situation

The general guides. Percentages, the arithmetic, the tax question, and the vocabulary that appears on receipts.

The etiquette guide carries the section people search for least and need most: the situations where declining to tip is normal rather than rude.

You are eating or drinking out

The only setting where Pew found near-universal agreement, and the one where auto-gratuity and service charges muddy the arithmetic.

Check the catering guide before a booked event. A contract that already includes a service charge is the most common place people tip twice without realizing.

Something is being delivered to your door

Seven guides because the apps behave differently, and because the tip you enter before delivery does a different job from the one you add after.

The grocery pickup guide is the one that clears up a genuine grey area, since nobody drives anywhere and the worker is on an hourly wage rather than a tipped one.

Someone is driving you or your car

Pew put regular tipping here at 61 percent, the largest gap between an in-app prompt and actual behavior.

Airport shuttles catch people out. A hotel shuttle driver who loads your bags is doing porter work, and the convention attaches to the bags rather than to the ride.

You are in a chair at a salon

The largest group here, thirteen guides, because the treatments differ, the pricing differs, and the question of who owns the chair changes the answer.

The salon owner guide is worth reading once and remembering. The old convention that owners are never tipped has weakened, and the reason it existed at all was the owner setting their own prices.

Someone is working on your body

Massage, facials, ink and needles. Pricing here often runs through a spa desk rather than the practitioner, which changes where the money lands.

The med spa guide handles the case people find hardest. Once a licensed clinician is performing a medical procedure, the convention shifts away from tipping, and the front desk is often the wrong place to ask.

Someone is working on your house

Ten guides, and the group with the highest proportion of no answers. Trades that set their own prices generally do not expect a tip, which several of these say plainly.

Movers are the exception inside the exception. The work is physical, the crew is usually paid hourly by a company that set the quote, and a per-person amount is the norm rather than a percentage.

You are traveling or staying somewhere

Hotels run on several small tips rather than one large one, cruises pre-charge, and the rules stop applying at the border.

Housekeeping is the most skipped tip in the collection and the one where daily rather than end-of-stay matters, since the person cleaning your room on Tuesday may not be the person there on Friday.

It is an event, or a once-a-year decision

Weddings, the holidays, and the bookings where a contract may already include a gratuity line.

Read the wedding guide with the contract in front of you. Vendors who own their business and vendors who send staff are treated differently, and the same invoice often contains both.

Someone looks after your pets, children or clothes

Regular relationships rather than one-off transactions, which changes both the amount and the timing.

With ongoing arrangements the annual gesture usually matters more than the per-visit one, which is the link between this group and the holiday guide above.

You want to know where the money goes

The mechanics behind the counter, the American picture as a whole, and two jobs whose employers may forbid tips outright.

The mail carrier case is the one with an actual rule behind it rather than a convention. Federal employees face limits on what they may accept, which is why the answer there is a value cap rather than a percentage.

Common questions

Questions readers ask first

Is tipping really expected in more places than it used to be?

By public perception, yes. Pew Research Center found 72 percent of US adults believe tipping is expected in more places than five years ago, against 5 percent who think fewer and 23 percent who see no change. Pew surveyed 11,945 adults in August 2023.

What share of Americans tip at a coffee shop?

Twenty-five percent say they always or often tip at a coffee shop, and 12 percent do at a fast casual restaurant. Both sit far below the 92 percent who always or often tip a server at a sit-down restaurant, so a counter prompt reflects an option rather than a norm.

How much do people actually leave at a restaurant?

Less than the guides suggest. For average service at a sit-down restaurant, Pew found 57 percent of Americans leave 15 percent or less, including 2 percent who leave nothing. Twenty-five percent leave 20 percent or more, and 12 percent leave 18 percent.

How many US workers depend on tips?

Around 4 million, about 2.5 percent of all employment, according to Yale Budget Lab analysis of 2023 Current Population Survey data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 2,270,910 waiters and waitresses and 756,390 bartenders in its May 2025 wage release.

Do most people like being asked on a screen?

No. Pew found 40 percent oppose suggested tip amounts appearing on a payment screen against 24 percent in favor, and 72 percent oppose an automatic service charge added to a bill. Separately, 72 percent said each server keeping their own tips is fairest.

References

Where these figures come from

Every number above comes from a research organization, a government agency or a university program. None of it is from a payments company, a restaurant marketing site or an etiquette listicle.

Tipping behavior and attitudes

Pew Research Center, Tipping Culture in America, fielded August 2023 among 11,945 US adults. The source of every percentage in the first two sections. Read the Pew study

Which services people tip for

Pew, on the services Americans do and do not tip for, and how much they leave. See the service-by-service data

Employment counts

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for the waiter, bartender and hairdresser figures. See the BLS release

Size of the tipped workforce

Yale Budget Lab, background on tipped workers, for the 4 million estimate and the median weekly wage comparison. Read the Yale analysis

Unreported tips

US Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies working paper 24-68 on tip reporting at US restaurants between 2005 and 2018. Read the working paper

Tipped wages and tip credits

US Department of Labor, minimum wages for tipped employees, for the $2.13 federal cash wage, the $5.12 maximum tip credit and the seven states that permit no tip credit. See the DOL table

If you have a bill in front of you and want the arithmetic rather than the norm, the tip calculator works out any percentage and splits the total between people.

A note on scope: these guides describe customs, survey findings and published Department of Labor rules for general information. Tipping is voluntary in almost every situation and none of this is a bill you owe. Norms vary by region and by establishment, employers structure pay differently from state to state, and a service charge already added to your total is not the same thing as a tip. Where money or employment law is involved, check your own state rather than a national average.