Tip Calculator
The check, the tip and the split
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Planning indicator only. It does not assess every part of a household's finances or replace individualized professional advice.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter the bill before tax — the food and drink subtotal, the line printed directly above the sales tax. That one box produces a complete answer on its own, which is the point of a page you open with a server standing next to you.
- 02
Put the sales tax printed on the check into the second box. It deliberately stays out of the tip base; entering it is what lets the page price the OTHER base at the same time — the post-tax total the card terminal is quietly using.
- 03
Set the tip percentage you have in mind. Leave it at zero and the page works at 20% and says so in the label, and either way the table underneath prices the whole 15% to 25% ladder at once, so you can pick a number rather than type one.
- 04
Enter how many people are splitting it, then anything the restaurant has already added as a service charge or auto-gratuity. A party of six or more usually carries one, and the page counts it as gratuity rather than letting you tip on top of it twice.
- 05
Open Advanced options for the two fields that change the split: your own food and drink, if the table is not splitting evenly, and a round-up that lifts the total to the next clean multiple. The page then reports what the round-up added and the effective percentage it produced.
Formula
Tip on the food = bill before tax × tip %. Tip on the post-tax total = (bill + sales tax) × tip %. The difference between them is exactly tip % × the sales tax, and that is the entire pre-tax-versus-post-tax argument in one line. Total = bill + sales tax + any service charge already on the check + your tip. If you set a round-up, the total is raised to the next multiple of it and the increase is added to the gratuity. Gratuity you are leaving = service charge + your tip + whatever the round-up added. Effective tip = gratuity ÷ the bill before tax — what the server actually sees, whatever percentage the terminal displayed. Each person pays = total ÷ the number splitting it. Your share by what you ordered = (your food ÷ the bill) × the whole total, so you carry that same fraction of the tax and the tip.
Example
A $68.00 food and drink subtotal, $5.95 of sales tax printed on the check, 20% in mind, two people splitting it. Twenty per cent of the food is $13.60; twenty per cent of the $73.95 post-tax total would be $14.79, so tipping on the tax costs $1.19 — the whole argument, priced. The total leaving the card is $87.55: $68.00 of food, $5.95 of tax and $13.60 of gratuity, which is 20.0% of the food. Split two ways that is $43.78 each. The ladder underneath prices the same check at every rung — 15% leaves $84.15, 18% leaves $86.19, 22% leaves $88.91 and 25% leaves $90.95 — so nobody has to type a percentage to find one. Add a round-up to the next $5 and the total becomes $90.00: the round-up adds $2.45, the gratuity becomes $16.05, and the effective tip is 23.6% of the food. With that round-up still in place, entering $24.00 as your own food and drink makes your share 35% of the check — $31.76, rather than the $45.00 an even two-way split would charge you.
Definitions
- Pre-tax base
- The food and drink subtotal, before sales tax and before any service charge. It is the base etiquette guides use, and the one this page leads with.
- Auto-gratuity / service charge
- A gratuity the restaurant adds itself, common on parties of six or more at 18% to 20%. A mandatory one is not legally a tip: it is the employer's revenue, and what reaches staff from it counts as wages.
- Tip credit
- The amount of an employee's tips an employer may count toward the minimum wage — up to $5.12 federally, against a $2.13 cash wage and a $7.25 minimum. Eight jurisdictions ban it outright.
- Effective tip rate
- The gratuity you actually leave, including any service charge and any round-up, measured against the food and drink before tax. It is what the server sees, and it is often not the number on the terminal.
- Tip pool
- An arrangement that shares tips among front-of-house staff — bartenders, bussers, runners, hosts. Managers and supervisors may never receive from one.
Good to know
What the norm actually is, and where it stops being one
At a sit-down restaurant in the US the range is 15% to 20% of the food and drink before tax, and 20% has become the default rather than the generous end of it. Below 15% reads as a comment on the service rather than as a number, which is worth knowing because it is not how the arithmetic feels from the other side of the table. Everything outside that one setting is far less settled. Counter service — a screen swivelled round to face you after you carried your own coffee to your own table — has no agreed norm at all, and the terminal's default suggestion is not evidence that one exists. The suggestion is a configuration choice made by whoever set up the point-of-sale software — a merchant setting, not a convention — and the three boxes on a screen carry no more authority than the person who typed the numbers into them. Two structural facts sit underneath the whole thing. Tipping on a percentage means the tip rises automatically with menu prices, so a decade of restaurant inflation has already raised the dollar tip without anyone changing the percentage. And a percentage of a bigger base is a bigger number, which is why the base question below is worth about a dollar and the preset question is worth several.
Pre-tax or post-tax, and why the argument is worth about a dollar
This is the most-asked question about tipping and it has a clean answer in both directions. Etiquette guides put the tip on the food and drink before tax, on the straightforward logic that the state is not part of the service. Card terminals overwhelmingly compute their suggested percentages on the total INCLUDING tax, because that is the number the transaction already holds. So the box marked 20% on the screen is genuinely more than 20% of what you ate, and it is not a mistake — it is a different base. The size of the gap is the useful part, and it is exactly your tip percentage multiplied by the sales tax. On the $68.00 check the page opens with, $5.95 of tax at 20% is $1.19: the entire argument, priced. Even at the high end — a combined state-and-local rate over 10%, on a large check — it is a couple of dollars. Two things follow. First, if you care about the difference, the fastest way to settle it permanently is to tip on the food and never think about it again, because the effort of computing it every time exceeds the money. Second, in Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon there is no statewide sales tax at all, so the question does not arise: the two bases are the same number and the terminal is telling the truth.
Why the tip is the wage, and why it is not the wage everywhere
In most of the country a restaurant tip is not a bonus on top of a wage; it is a substantial part of the wage itself. Federal law lets an employer pay a tipped employee a cash wage of $2.13 an hour and credit up to $5.12 of that worker's tips against the $7.25 federal minimum, which has not moved since 24 July 2009. If the cash wage plus the tips falls short of $7.25 for the hours worked, the employer must make up the difference — but the practical effect on a slow shift is that your tip is not adding to the server's pay, it is filling a hole the employer would otherwise have to fill. Anyone customarily receiving more than $30 a month in tips counts as tipped for this purpose. None of it is uniform. Eight jurisdictions ban the tip credit outright and require the full state minimum wage to be paid before a cent of tips is counted; roughly 27 states set a tipped cash wage above the federal $2.13. So the same $13.60 lands very differently depending on which state the table is in. One more piece of arithmetic that surprises people: tipped overtime is not 1.5 times $2.13. The overtime rate is 1.5 times the full minimum — $10.875 — and the tip credit comes off after that, leaving $5.755 of cash per overtime hour.
The service charge, the pooled tip and the split
Read the bottom of the check before you touch the tip line. A party of six or more commonly carries an automatic service charge of 18% to 20%, and it is printed ABOVE the tip line rather than in it — which is how a receipt invites a second gratuity on top of the first. Worse, the suggested-tip boxes are frequently computed on a total that already contains the charge, so a 20% box on a check with an 18% auto-gratuity is asking for roughly 38%. It is also worth knowing what that line legally is: a MANDATORY service charge is not a tip. It is the employer's revenue, and money paid out of it to staff is wages rather than tips, so it does not count toward the tip credit and it is not protected the way a tip is. A voluntary tip, by contrast, belongs to the employee, subject to a valid tip pool — and the firm rule there is that managers and supervisors may never receive from one, whatever the house arrangement says. On the split: dividing everything evenly is fast and it is a transfer rather than a split when one person had the steak and another had soup. Entering your own food and drink charges you that same fraction of the tax and the tip, which is the honest version and takes about four seconds.
Frequently asked questions
Do I tip on the bill before tax or on the total after tax?
Etiquette guides put the tip on the food and drink before tax, and that is the base this page leads with. Card terminals overwhelmingly compute their suggested percentages on the total INCLUDING tax, which is why the box marked 20% on the screen is quietly more than 20% of what you ate. The useful thing is not the rule but the size of the argument: on a $68 check with $5.95 of tax, 20% is $13.60 on the food and $14.79 on the total — a difference of $1.19. It is worth knowing and it is not worth having an argument about.
Is 20% the standard now, or is 15% still acceptable?
The US sit-down restaurant norm runs 15% to 20% on the food and drink before tax, and 20% has become the default at a table. Below that reads as a comment on the service rather than as a number. Counter service, where a screen swivels round and asks for a tip on a coffee you carried to your own table, is a genuinely different question with no settled answer — the norm there is contested, and a terminal's default suggestion is not evidence of one.
There is already a service charge on the check. Do I still tip?
Put it in the service-charge box and the page counts it as gratuity you have already paid. A party of six or more commonly carries an automatic charge of 18% to 20%, printed above the tip line rather than in it, and the suggested-tip boxes underneath are frequently computed on a total that already contains it — which is how a receipt invites you to pay twice. One thing worth knowing about that line: a MANDATORY service charge is not legally a tip. It is the employer's revenue, and money paid out of it to staff is wages rather than tips, so it does not count toward the tip credit.
How do I split a check when one person had the steak and another had soup?
That is a transfer, not a split. Put your own food and drink into the Advanced options box and the page charges you that share of the tax and the tip in the same proportion. On a $68 check with $5.95 of tax and a $13.60 tip, an even two-way split is $43.78 each; if your own order was $24 — 35% of the check — your honest share is $30.90. The even split is faster and the proportional one is fairer, and the difference is usually large enough to be worth the four seconds.
Why does the tip matter so much to the server?
Because in most of the country it is not a bonus, it is the wage. Federal law lets an employer pay a tipped employee a cash wage of $2.13 an hour and credit up to $5.12 of that worker's tips against the $7.25 federal minimum, which has not moved since 24 July 2009. On a slow shift the tips are not on top of the wage — they ARE the wage, and the employer only has to make up the difference if the total falls short. Anyone who customarily takes more than $30 a month in tips counts as tipped. It is not uniform: eight jurisdictions ban the tip credit outright and pay the full state minimum before tips, and roughly 27 states set a tipped cash wage above $2.13.
Does the tip actually reach my server?
Usually not all of it. Most restaurants run a tip-out or a tip pool that shares a percentage with bartenders, bussers, runners and hosts, so the server keeps a fraction of what you leave. The firm rule is at the top: managers and supervisors may never receive from a tip pool, whatever the house policy says. A mandatory service charge is a different animal again — it is the employer's revenue, so what reaches staff from it is a wage decision rather than your tip.
How do I work the tip out in my head?
Move the decimal one place left to get 10% — on a $68 bill that is $6.80 — then double it for 20%, or add half of it again for 15%. Twenty per cent of a bill is simply a fifth of it. That is also the fastest way to audit a terminal, because the box marked 20% on a screen is frequently 20% of a bigger number than the one you ate, and a five-second check catches it.
What does the round-up field do?
It lifts the total to the next multiple you name and reports what that cost. On a $87.55 total, rounding to the next $5 adds $2.45, makes the total $90.00 and takes the effective tip from 20.0% to 23.6% of the food. It is the fastest way to tip and the least likely to produce an argument at the table — one clean number on the card — and it always rounds up, so it is never less than you meant to leave.