Tip Calculator

What a tip calculator settles

A tip is a percentage of a bill, and the multiplication is the easy part: $60.00 at 20% is $12.00, which makes $72.00, or $36.00 each for two. What people actually argue about at the table are three smaller decisions wrapped around that sum, and each one moves the answer.

The first is what the percentage is taken of. Tip on the whole check and the sales tax is inside the base; tip on the pre-tax amount and it is not. On a $60.00 bill that includes $4.70 of tax, 20% comes to $12.00 one way and $11.06 the other. The second is rounding: nobody wants to write $8.61 on a receipt, but rounding the tip and rounding the total land on different numbers. The third is the split, where two decimal places rarely divide evenly between three or seven people and the leftover cents have to go somewhere.

This page makes each of those a switch and prints the working under the answer, so whoever is paying can check it. It also runs the sum backwards: give it the bill and what was actually charged, and it tells you what percent that was.

What it does not do is say what you ought to leave. Tipping in the United States is a custom, not a fixed rule, and it shifts with the region, the kind of place and the year. The percentages on the buttons are common choices, and the box next to them takes any number.

Which options to use

• Tip on the pre-tax amount: tick it to leave the sales tax out of the tip base, which is how etiquette guides such as the Emily Post Institute quote their ranges. Enter the tax line from the receipt in dollars, or switch to % and enter your combined state and local rate.
• No rounding: the exact tip to the cent. Fine for a card payment where the terminal does the adding.
• Round the tip up: lifts the tip to the next whole dollar. The total keeps its cents.
• Round the total up: lifts the total to the next whole dollar and lets the tip absorb the difference. With more than one person it rounds each share instead, so everyone pays an even amount.
• Number of people: an even split. Leave it at 1 and the per person figure simply repeats the total.
• What percent was that?: the reverse question. Use it to check a suggested tip printed on a receipt, a preset amount on a card reader, or what you left last time.

How to split a bill and round each share

1. Type the check total into Bill amount: the figure before any tip, tax included. A dollar sign and commas are ignored, so a pasted $1,234.50 works.
2. Set Number of people. The answer updates as you type, so there is nothing to submit.
3. Pick a tip percent with a preset button, or type your own, such as 17.5, into the box.
4. If you tip on the pre-tax amount, tick the box and enter the sales tax. The hint under the tip then shows the smaller base it used.
5. Choose a rounding option. To have everyone pay a whole dollar, choose Round the total up.
6. Read the three figures: Tip, Total and Per person. If the shares had to be rounded up to the cent, the last one says how many cents over the total they add up to.
7. Open The working to see each step, or the comparison table to see the same bill at 15%, 18%, 20% and 25%.

How to check what percent a tip was

1. Open the What percent was that? tab. The bill you already typed carries over.
2. Enter the Total you paid: the bill plus the tip, as it was charged.
3. Read Tip percent and Tip amount. Paying $67.35 on a $57.35 bill is a $10.00 tip, which is 17.4%.
4. To measure against the pre-tax amount, tick the box and enter the sales tax. $72.00 paid on a $60.00 bill is 20% of the bill, but 21.7% of the $55.30 that was there before $4.70 of tax.
5. Use the third figure as a yardstick. It shows what 15% and 20% come to on the same base, the range the Emily Post Institute gives for sit-down service.

Common US tipping ranges

The table is the restaurant part of the Emily Post Institute’s General Tipping Guide, a long-running American etiquette reference. It is one source’s guidance, quoted as published, and not a requirement.

Habits on the ground are less tidy. When Pew Research Center asked 11,945 US adults in August 2023 what they would tip for an average sit-down meal, 57% said 15% or less and 25% said 20% or more, and 77% called the quality of service a major factor in what they leave. A standard tip is better thought of as a range that depends on the place, the service and who you ask.

Getting the numbers to the table

• Copy the breakdown puts one line on the clipboard: the bill, the tip and its percent, the total, and each share. Paste it into the group chat so everyone is looking at the same sum.
• On a paper receipt, write the Tip figure on the tip line and the Total figure underneath. The two lines have to add up, so if you rounded, copy the rounded pair from here and not one of each.
• In a payment app, request the Per person amount. If the shares were rounded up to the cent, the hint says how many cents over the total they come to, and one person can pay that much less.
• For a record, open The working before taking a screenshot. A total without the bill and the percent behind it cannot be checked a week later.

Nothing you type is written into the address bar, so a copied link shares the calculator and not your bill.

Where the tip is already worked out for you

• Suggested tips on a receipt: some checks print ready-made amounts for a few percentages. They do not always say whether the percentage was taken of the pre-tax subtotal or of the total with tax. To find out, put the bill and the bill plus the suggested amount into the reverse tab, once with the tax entered and once without.
• Card readers and tablets: preset buttons at a counter are a prompt, not a bill. In the Pew survey, 72% of adults said tipping is expected in more places than five years earlier, and the Emily Post guide lists no obligation for tip jars. A flat dollar preset can be turned into a percent with the reverse tab.
• Automatic gratuity and service charges: an amount the restaurant adds itself, for example for a large party, is what the IRS calls a service charge, not a tip, because the customer did not set it. Look for a line such as gratuity included before adding a percentage of your own, and enter the bill without that line if you want to tip on the food and drink alone.
• Outside the United States: this page is written for American checks, with dollars, sales tax added on top of menu prices and American tipping customs. Service is handled differently in many other countries, so check local practice before applying these percentages abroad.

What this page will not do

• It does not tell you what to leave. No tip on this page is required or recommended. The ranges are one etiquette guide and one survey, each with a date, and both will drift.
• It splits evenly, not by item. Everyone pays the same share. If one person had the lobster, work out their part separately and split the rest.
• A tax rate is an estimate, the tax line is exact. Entered as a percent, the sales tax is worked back from the bill on the assumption that one rate applied to all of it. If the receipt shows the tax in dollars, use that.
• Rounded shares collect a little more. Rounding each share up to the cent, or to the dollar, means the table pays slightly over the total. The page shows the overage instead of hiding it.
• Half cents round up. A tip that lands exactly on half a cent goes up to the next cent, so a hand calculation that drops the fraction can be a cent lower.