How to Tip Properly on Vacation in Almost Every Country in the World
We have a complete guide for tipping in restaurants, hotels, and taxis across 162 countries.
Until the world is a better place and all bosses compensate all workers fairly for their labor, you should be tipping where tipping is expected. Skipping the tip is simply unacceptable unless you are in a country where not tipping is the norm. Sussing out the tipping expectations in different countries can be difficult, particularly if you are visiting for the first time. Fortunately, the vacation planning website Hawaiian Islands compiled and analyzed a slew of data so you can know exactly how much to tip, no matter where you are. The study produced the suggested tipping amounts for 162 countries, sorted by the three popular categories for vacation tipping: hotels, restaurants, and taxis.
The report has some interesting top-line findings as well. One-third of countries expect you to give exactly 10% of the bill as a restaurant tip. There are also countries where tipping is frowned upon, including Japan and South Korea. Unsurprisingly, the United States has some of the highest tipping standards and is the only country where tips for taxi drivers are expected to be exactly 15%.
Here is what you can expect at restaurants around the world:
In some countries, like Brazil and Iceland, service is included in the bill, and a tip is not expected. In most European countries, service is often included in the bill, and any additional tip (10% is the standard) is to express gratitude for excellent service. The United States is the only country where the tipping standard is at minimum 20%.
One place where you may not be tipping regularly but should definitely factor in for your next vacation is your hotel. Hotel employees, from bellhops to cleaning staff, tend to be more universally reliant on tips than other service industry workers you may encounter while on vacation. The people who come to clean and maintain your hotel are service workers who are often underpaid––tipping is a way to ensure that the work they do to make you comfortable is more equitable.
In the US and Canada, a standard tip is between $2 and $5 in cash for each day of your stay. Some locations, like Colombia and Cambodia, only have a standard tip of $1 or $2. That's a low-impact cost for you, but consistently leaving that cash each day can make a difference for the workers. No tip for hotel service is expected in countries like Australia and South Korea.
The final category in the big three vacation tipping sector is taxis. Tipping taxi drivers is actually the least common of all three categories. Hawaiian Islands found that at least 88 countries do not have customary tipping for taxi drivers. In many other countries, the tipping standard is that you simply round up.
How do you prepare for tipping on vacation?
Don't have tipping come as an unexpected expense. Budget for tipping on vacation just like you would account for dining out and going on excursions. Look into the tipping customs of where you are traveling before you go, then prepare accordingly. If you know you'll be tipping a lot, make sure to get some small bills and change that you can easily access. Each day, make sure to leave a small tip for the housekeeping staff and tip bellhops and valets as you interact with them. If you are taking taxis and dining out, keep some of those small bills on you every day so you can easily add that to your payment.
It might not seem ideal to add this expense to a travel budget, especially when trying to save money on vacation, but this is an essential part of being a responsible traveler (and not an asshole).
Tipping is important, and if you're invested in seeming like a traveler who knows what they're doing, engaging in the tipping practices of your destination can make trips more seamless and maybe even a bit more enjoyable. To look through all 162 countries, check out the full report here.
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