The card reader swings toward you and shows a row of buttons that start at 18%. You ordered a coffee. The person who made it stands two feet away, and the line behind you is watching your thumb.
Pew Research found in 2023 that 72% of US adults say businesses expect a tip in more places than they did five years ago. Omni Calculator surveyed 500 adults in February 2026, and 62% said more businesses ask them to tip than two years ago. Card payments at restaurants look calmer. Toast publishes tip data each quarter, and its full-service average has moved by 0.3 points in two years. That gives you a number to anchor on.
The average tip in 2026
Toast serves about 180,000 restaurant locations and posts its tip averages each quarter. The latest update, dated September 15, 2026, covers the second quarter. Full-service restaurants averaged 19.1%, quick-service restaurants 15.8%, and all restaurants together 18.7%. Takeout averaged 13.8% among diners who left a tip. The full tables live on Toast's tipping trends page.
Full-service averages have stayed between 19.1% and 19.4% since the second quarter of 2024, and quick-service averages have sat at 15.8% for seven quarters in a row.
Two limits apply. Toast counts card and digital tips and leaves out cash. It also divides each tip by the full payment total, taxes and fees included. At an 8% sales tax rate, a tip of 19.1% of the total equals about 20.6% of the pre-tax subtotal.
By state, Delaware leads at 21.4% overall and California trails at 17.1%.
Self-reported tips by service
Respondents tell surveyors what they tip, and Toast records what diners swipe. Omni Calculator's survey covers 500 US adults in February 2026, with a 4% margin of error.
- At sit-down restaurants, 93% say they leave a tip as a rule or most of the time, and 45% say their usual tip is 20% to 22%.
- For food delivery, 77% tip as a rule or most of the time. The most common range is 10% to 14%, at 23% of respondents, followed by 15% to 17% at 20%.
- At salons, barbershops and spas, 66% tip as a rule or most of the time, and 20% to 22% leads at 29%.
- In coffee shops, 36% tip as a rule or most of the time, and 28% say they skip the tip most of the time.
Bankrate's 2025 survey asked a similar question, and 35% of respondents said their usual tip at sit-down restaurants is at least 20%, down from 37% a year earlier. Pew's 2023 survey landed lower: 57% said they would tip 15% or less for an average sit-down meal, and a quarter said 20% or more. The three surveys differ on sample, year and wording, so I treat Toast's card data as the best read on the average and the surveys as a read on mood.
The gap between the averages and the mood
Pew surveyed 11,945 adults in 2023. More of them opposed than favored businesses suggesting tip amounts on a bill or checkout screen, 40% to 24%. And 72% opposed automatic service charges.
Omni's 2026 survey asks about the screen itself. Two-thirds of respondents (66%) feel pressure to tip when a payment screen with suggested amounts faces an employee. Half call pre-entered tip options negative, and 40% say they steer clear of some businesses at least some of the time to dodge the prompt. The most common complaint in Omni's open-ended answers was businesses asking for a tip where they did not ask before, such as fast-food counters and carryout orders.
I read those numbers as a complaint about the prompt. Full-service averages held steady for two years while diners grew more irritated, so I blame counter screens and the businesses that started asking in the past few years.
Before or after tax
The Emily Post Institute says to figure a sit-down tip on the pre-tax total, at 15% to 20% for table service and 10% for a buffet, as Toast quotes in its guide to tipping on tax. Toast adds that most diners tip on the post-tax total. Square told Nexstar that sellers decide whether suggested tips use the pre-tax or post-tax amount, so the screen at one restaurant can differ from the screen at the next.
Take an $80 meal with 8% sales tax. The bill reads $86.40. A 20% tip on the $80 subtotal is $16.00, and 20% of the $86.40 total is $17.28. The gap is $1.28.
Either number is fine. A dollar and change does not decide whether a server feels respected. I tip on the subtotal when I do the math myself and on the total when the screen does it for me.
Quick math at the table
Ten percent takes one move: shift the decimal point one place left. Twenty percent is that number doubled. Fifteen percent is the ten percent figure plus half of it. On a $46 bill, 10% is $4.60 and 20% is $9.20, so 15% lands at $6.90.
A sales tax trick works where the rate is near 8%: double the tax line on the receipt and you have a tip of about 16% of the subtotal.
Splitting is where the mental math breaks. A table of four splits a $162 bill at 20%. The tip is $32.40, the total is $194.40, and each person owes $48.60, with $8.10 of that going to the tip. The Tip Calculator takes the bill and a tip percentage, splits the total between up to 50 people, and shows each person's share. It offers presets from 10% to 25%, with a custom percentage field for anything else. A round-up switch rounds the total to the next dollar. To work backward from a receipt and find what percent a tip was, the Percentage Calculator has an X is what percent of Y mode.
Tipping on a discounted bill
A coupon or a happy hour price lowers what you pay, but the server still carried the full order to your table. I tip on the pre-discount total. I could not find an etiquette rule for this, so treat it as my habit. A $60 meal with a 25% coupon costs $45. A 20% tip on the original $60 is $12, and on the discounted $45 it is $9. The Discount Calculator confirms the $45 in a few seconds, and then you pick which number to tip on. The free tools roundup covers the other money calculators on the site.
Takeout and counter service
The Emily Post Institute's etiquette experts say you owe no tip on a to-go order, though 10% fits a difficult order or curbside delivery, according to a Nexstar report. Toast measured lower tips to match. Quick-service diners averaged 15.8% in the second quarter, and takeout diners who tipped averaged 13.8%. Diners tip less at the counter than at the table, and the gap has held near 3.5 points.
The 2026 rules for the person getting the tip
Federal law requires employers to pay tipped workers at least $2.13 an hour in direct wages. The Department of Labor's Fact Sheet 15 says an employer can claim a tip credit of up to $5.12 an hour, which is the $7.25 federal minimum wage minus $2.13. Cash wages plus tips have to reach the full minimum wage, and the employer owes the difference when they do not. Some states require a higher cash wage than $2.13.
Workers also have a new federal deduction. The IRS says employees and self-employed people may deduct qualified tips from their 2025 federal tax return, up to $25,000 a year. Qualified tips are voluntary cash or charged tips from customers. The deduction phases out when modified adjusted gross income passes $150,000, or $300,000 for joint filers, and it covers certain occupations that the IRS lists. You get it whether you itemize or take the standard deduction.
The IRS limits its definition to voluntary tips, and the Department of Labor says a compulsory service charge is not a tip under the FLSA. Diners draw the same line. Pew found that 72% oppose service charges that a business adds to the bill without asking.
Common questions
It is common, and the average sits close to it. Toast measured 19.1% at full-service restaurants in the second quarter of 2026, and the Emily Post Institute gives 15% to 20% as its range. In Omni Calculator's 2026 survey, 45% of respondents said their usual tip is 20% to 22%.
No. Toast notes that unless the bill includes an automatic gratuity, tipping in the United States is optional. Pew found Americans split on the question: 21% call tipping more of a choice, 29% call it more of an obligation, and 49% say it depends on the situation.
Yes. In Toast's second quarter 2026 data, Delaware has the highest overall average at 21.4% and California has the lowest at 17.1%. Toast leaves out cash tips, so those do not show up in the figures.
No. A tip is voluntary, and a service charge is something the business adds to the bill. The Department of Labor says a compulsory charge for service is not a tip under the FLSA, and the IRS describes qualified tips for its new deduction as voluntary cash or charged tips from customers. Pew found that 72% of adults oppose automatic service charges.
Etiquette experts at the Emily Post Institute say you owe nothing on a to-go order, though 10% fits a difficult order or curbside delivery. Among diners who did tip on takeout, Toast measured an average of 13.8% in the second quarter of 2026.
No. The Tip Calculator does its math in your browser. It uploads nothing and saves nothing.