I'm finding that different countries have different ideas on tipping waiters, hairdressers, paperboys, etc. Actually, this can even vary within countries - I know that tipping in parts of the US differ in amounts as well.

What is your location's policy?

Do you tip at all? Some countries don't.

Who do you tip? Are tips given to many people, or is it limited to just a few?

How much (percentage-wise or whatever) is customary where you are?

Do you support the notion of tipping? Do you agree with it? Would you like to see it abolished?

Where I live it's usual to tip waiters. They get about 7% on average (read that in a newspaper article the other day).

The paper boy gets a tip once a year, when he rings at the door to wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year. Usually about 50 cents or 1 euro. Lots of kids who want to quit delivering newspapers wait with their resignation until January.

Taxi drivers don't get tipped, nor do hairdressers. I'm very surprised to hear that hairdressers do get tipped in other countries. Here they'd probably be offended if you'd try.

All in all, I guess the only people to get tips on a regular basis are waiters. (And perhaps bell-boys do, but I don't go to hotels expensive enough to employ them )

I don't usually tip anyone and it's not expected either, really, although i did my stint as a waitress years ago and it is appreciated when you do get one The only exception would be not picking up the change for a waitress or taxi driver - if the bill is $23, I might leave the couple dollars behind.

I TIP if I've had good service - I refuse to pay standard service charges (on the grounds that if the service is standard then I've not had anything above what I'm paying for).
I begrudge having paid for the meal and overpriced wines to then supplement the waiter/waitress pay (if that's where it goes!) when they are doing their best to do the job( if they don't it's -no job!) for a paltry amount of money.
Please take this post as an attack on Restuarant Owners and not the Staff (most of whom I admire greatly for putting up with the General Public)!

How can you not tip? Do tou know what people in food service make?
At a bar, the tipiing guidelines are: about 50-75 cents per drink, and if you stay the evening, another five dollars when you leave.
At a restaurant, 16.5 percent (double the tax) for adequate service, 20 percent for good service, and for superlative service, all bets are off. My mother has left 20 dollars for a 35 dollar meal. At Peter Luger's we tipped the doorman 10 dollars for opening two doors and walking us 15 feet. Parking valets get five dollars. Good taxi drivers get 30 percent. Baggage handlers get five dollars a bag. Hairdressers and haircutters get 20-25 percent, unless they own the shop. This is all normal in NYC.

Is tipping customary where you live, though? I understand your personal feelings about it, but what about the location as a whole, Fosse? What is "customary"? In other words, there are some places that have never even heard of a tip. Some countries wouldn't even know what we were talking about. But, is it that way where you are? Or, is tipping something that people do?

What is a typical percentage given?

Unless it's customary to pay service providers a good wage, how can it be customary to stiff them? Seeing as I don't know where "Munchkinland " is, I don't know the customs there.

I was with some friends not long ago who travel quite a bit who said that there was one country in which tipping was not heard of. In fact, when the concept was explained to them, they were highly offended because it was a custom that wasn't done in their country. To offer a tip to a waiter would insult them. (We spoke of several places they'd been, so I'm not sure which one was the topic at the time, or I'd tell you. It's one of the reasons I started this thread. Because it intrigued me that this was the case in some places.)

Not everyone does things like we Americans do. Believe it or not, other countries have their own ways of doing things.

Plus, like I said, tipping even ranges within a country. For instance, the rates that you've mentioned, roots, are extremely high for other parts of the country. They may be NYC rates, but those kinds of tips are way out of line for other places - even in the US.

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How can you not tip? Do tou know what people in food service make?

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I don't know what it is now but when I was a waitress about twelve years ago I was getting $12 an hour normal wage, more for later nights, weekends and public holidays. Was more than enough at the time for a living and it would be the same now in comparison. I understand that wages in the US are much lower and tips are expected to make a living wage but it's not the same everywhere.

I don't like tipping but I do it as it is expected, I would much prefer to have the prices higher to make it unecessary.

At Christmas I give the paperboy £5, he would get £10 but he keeps leaving it half hanging out of the door in the rain so I halved the tip. Postman gets £10, the four regulars pool the tips and give a joint thank you card with their photos on it (nice touch to get a card from the postman). Binmen get £10 between them or when I had a really good one he got £20 (he was great, even used a dustpan and brush for anything that got spilt on the road!)

I give my hairdresser £5 for a cut which costs £28, I don't tip the shampooist, never have.

Taxis, I am quite generous (or am given to understand by their attitudes, even had one try to give some back), if the fare was £8.50 I would give £10, for a fare of £5 I would give £6.

I don't tend to go pubbing often but if I do then I might tell the barmaid/man to take one for her/himself, they would normally take 20p.

Restaurants, if there is no service charge I would add 10%, if there is service included I would leave small change, perhaps the change from the note.

In NY the waitress minimum wage is $3.30 per hour, as set by the Labor Law. Federal law, as I understand it, also allows waitresses to be paid well below the minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. Most waitresses that I know make the minimum and rely on tips for the great bulk of their income.

Roots' numbers, set forth above, are pretty much standard stuff in the more settled parts of NY state, not just NYC. I've been out with friends who still try to tip at 15% and it causes me no small embarrassment. At a place where one is a regular and knows the help, anything less than 25% is just... well, not cricket. At a borgasmord, even given the fact that there's at best limited waitress service, we usually leave about 10%. When you park in a paid parking lot (in Manhattan and the closer parts of Brooklyn there generally IS no place else to park), you toss the attendant a buck for fetching your car. Guys who come to the house to make simple repairs usually get four or five bucks on top of their fee.

Legal note: at a real estate closing, it is de rigueur , at least in NY, for the purchaser to tip the title "closer" 25 bucks.

In Australia I don`t believe that tipping is expected anywhere. On the rare occasions that I take a taxi if the fare is $16 then I will give them a twenty and tell the driver to keep the change, but he doesn`t expect me to tip him automatically. If I have had great service during a meal I will tip but I wont for average service and am not expected to,or if I am well that`s too bad, they earn an average wage . I was tipped by a lady from the USA once and must have looked shocked, she looked shocked at my shocked look as she couldn`t understand why the tip was such a surprise for me.

I tip. I don’t really work out percentages, but go by what “sounds right.”

Going to restaurants, if I did work out the math, I think 15% is pretty much standard. That is unless the bill is low, but the service great. Then it may be higher.

In my neighborhood, people who pack bags in several of the supermarkets are accustomed to tips. From what I see, most people just give a dollar or two from their change, sometimes less.

For bringing the bags to your place, I've heard people say they give as little as a dollar and some give five.

I don't use that service. I guess it would be according to how many bags, but a dollar is too little, even if it's just a handful of stuff, in my opinion.

Hairdressers probably get the highest tips from me percentage-wise.

I am one of those punks who has the audacity not to leave any tip at all if I don’t like the service. Granted I feel confident enough that I will never enter that business again.

France, you tip almost everywhere.
Legend has it that the cinema person who shows you to your seat, the usherette, makes no salary and only makes tips.
I'm not sure, but most of us tip her if it's the traditional sort of place.
The gas pump in small towns, they expect a tip.
The tour guides usually get tips from well brought up older folks and it's probably dying out.
Hairdressers don't get as much tip in France as in some places, but generally a few dollars worth.
Waiters and waitresses: sticky subject depending on who you ask. As there is an automatic fifteen percent service charge, many people esteem that that's enough. This is why American waiters find them stingy. They're not, but it's taken off already over there.
However, 'chump change' or a few dollars over the amount is common if the service is good. We tip well in the places we like, we don't bother elsewhere.
The best tips are in the cafes where the price margin is very high already. Most people will tip to a round sum on a cup of coffee, yet, proportionally it is well above what they'd do in a restaurant.

California: we tip here. Some of my family works in food service so my news is relatively fresh.
Waiting staff is paid a ridiculously low salary and basically they live on tips. Their hourly wages are extremely low.
My expert says that ten percent is a slap in the face for waiting staff.
If they get stiffed a tip, they are pretty upset too. And this is a very posh restaurant where no one dares slack off.

Funny thing is that returning to live here, we tried to tip the grocery boxboy (there are box girls but I'm not at all sure what folks call them anymore) a dollar and he said, 'oh no thanks, just doing my job'.

One more thing is the buffet style meals that Americans so love.
We'd invited about ten people and we generally leave a tip to the poor person bussing our table constantly for an hour with a large family, at least two dollars. Someone who'd come was shocked that we'd bother.
I just said, 'you know, I made my living that way, and I always loved it.'

It's almost shameful in the US the number of people that are tipped for services. I made mention in an earlier thread that I had overtipped my hairdresser accidently and this sparked a large conversation about tipping.

Hairdressers, nail technicians, masseuse, waiters/waitresses, taxi-drivers, bagboy/girl, auto mechanic, doorman, car washer, newspaper boy......the list goes on and on. I wish this practice was non-existent because I always feel awful if I forget to tip or don't tip enough. Instead, these people need to be paid a decent wage so they're not relying on the tips.

I was a waitress through college so I have a tendency to overtip now. The tipping practices for wait staff is usually 15-18% for average service, 20% for good service and the sky's the limit for excellent service.

I asked the people I was talking about. It was someone from Australia that they were mentioning.

This is really interesting, everyone. I'm intrigued by the different customs out there.

UK does tip but the amount of money probably depends on what type of service you're tipping for. There are no percentages involved. It's just whatever you feel like. A bit of loose change is OK for a Pub restaurant meal (but not too stingy). I'd have to be pretty upset with the quality of service not to leave something. Taxi driver tips are rounded up to the nearest Pound for short trips.

The possible employer/employee financial arrangements of the person providing me with a service doesn't influence the amount I give. I would never feel obliged to leave more of a tip than I think is reasonable for the amount of income that we have.

Reading this has given me cause for thought, ask British people who visit the US for a holiday and you will find that they find it mostly less expensive there, perhaps this is a reason why, we are not used to tipping all and sundry as the prices we pay at home probably reflect slightly higher wages for certain staff who we wouldn't normally tip.

So what about the staff who take the orders at fast food establishments like KFC, would you tip them?

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In NY the waitress minimum wage is $3.30 per hour, as set by the Labor Law.

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I think this explains the difference in tipping between NY and the Netherlands. Over here the minimum wage is € 7.68 (more or less 9.76 USD), no matter what job you're doing. So why tip the waiter and not the guy on the assembly line, if it weren't for the excellent service?

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In my neighborhood, people who pack bags in several of the supermarkets are accustomed to tips.

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We don't have people to pack our groceries in this country, so no need to tip.

As mentioned already, it is not the custom to tip in Australia. It is usually only American tourists who don't know any better who tip here ( ).

Having lived in California for five years, however, I am familiar with tipping. I always hated it because I was never sure who to tip and how much, not being used to such a system.

Personally, I think it is disgraceful that some people are paid so poorly that they have to rely on tips to make a decent living. Everybody ought to be paid a decent wage!

As has already been mentioned, our service staff tend to be paid much more highly than those in America, so in a way, comparing countries like America and Australia is like comparing apples and oranges.

My mother-in-law was a waitress in America for many years. She told me that if you get bad service, you should not refuse to leave a tip. What you should do is leave one cent. Apparently, this means "the reason I did not tip was because of bad service, not because I am cheap". My mother-in-law said she instructed all the staff who worked under her that they must inform her if they ever got a one-cent tip.

My family own a restaurant in which I have worked in for the last 15 years. It is not customary in Australia to tip as Mothergoose has just said but in our restaurant the waitresses pick up around $20 a night. The tips are pulled between everyone so they all get the same when they go home. Waitresses here get around $18 per hour and on weekends around $28 per hour. But in this country the government ask you to declare all tips in the year and pay tax on them but I would guess that nobody would own up to getting any, unless they are stupid!!

I find tipping to be a degrading and dehumanising practice. There are all sorts of subtexts involved. For example, as has already been pointed out it allows Service Providers to pay their staff an inadequate wage so that they have to rely on the charity of customers to make a living, inducing an intense feeling of inferiority. It also says “I am better than you Service Person because I have enough disposable income so that I can pay a surcharge on the price of the Service just to assuage my conscience over your inadequate salary”

In the UK I might, if the service was excellent at a restaurant tip up to 10%, I never tip if there is a service charge.

Occasionally I tip a cab driver and if the Barber is an employee I usually round the price up to the nearest pound. I have always tipped Removals the price of a few drinks if nothing is broken. Then there are the Dustmen … it is not so much a tip as extortion and stand over, £20 at Xmas or your life could be hell in January, fortunately I have missed them the last two years.

It would be a ‘Cold Day in Hell’ before I tipped a Mechanic and the idea of tipping supermarket staff has me roaring with laughter.

However, when travelling in less civilised countries where the distinction between a tip and a bribe can become very blurred one tries to emulate what the locals do up to a point. I am in the States this summer and there is absolutely no way I will tip 25% or anything close to it.

I'm with you Tiel. I wish tipping didn't exist at all. From the posts above the practice in the UK seems fairly consistent. Bar staff, waitresses, and cab drivers often get modest tips, but not as a matter of course, and not many others get anything at all. The removal gang who moved us recently flatly turned town a tip, even though I was motivated to offer it by the fact that they had been absolutely terrific.

It's a problem trying to work out the practice when you're abroad – guide books don't always give you much of an idea of the local practice and rarely give you the right sort of tariff, so you just have to risk being embarrassed. I'm sure the different local customs must have a lot to do with how well or badly people are paid for doing the job in the first place.

Cool, is the person who closes a real estate deal in NY usually a lawyer or a poorly paid clerk? I can't imagine anyone in England tipping their lawyer (unless it was off a tall building) – it's hard enough to get them to pay the actual fee! The nearest equivalent here is if someone from another firm sends a client over to swear an affidavit in front of an independent lawyer. There's a modest statutory fee for doing that of 5 pounds (a little more if it has documents attached), and it's common but not obligatory to split that discreetly with the clerk or assistant from the other firm who accompanies their client.