A tip is a percentage of a bill, which makes it one of the few everyday social judgements that reduces cleanly to a formula. The reason to compute rather than estimate is that the two failure modes are opposite and both avoidable: guessing low under-rewards service, and rounding up in a hurry at the end of a meal tends to overshoot when the bill is large.
This page takes the bill, the percentage and the number of people sharing it, and returns three figures: the gratuity itself, the total to be paid, and the amount each person owes.
tip amount = bill × tip per cent ÷ 100
total = bill + tip amount
per person = total ÷ people
Three details about how the tool applies these. First, the per cent is charged on the bill only and never compounds, so 20 per cent of 80 is 16 and the total is 96. Second, the tip is divided along with the bill, so increasing the party size reduces both shares proportionally. Third, the currency selector changes only how the numbers are displayed, using the standard format for the chosen code — no exchange rate is applied, so it will not convert a bill in one currency into another.
The tip field accepts anything from 0 to 100 per cent and the party size runs to 100. Quick-pick buttons offer 10, 15, 18, 20 and 25 per cent, which cover the range where nearly every real decision falls.
One person, the defaults. A bill of 80 at 15 per cent: the tip is 80 × 0.15 = 12.00, the total 92.00, and with one diner the per-person figure is also 92.00.
A shared table. A bill of 240 at 18 per cent split four ways: the tip is 240 × 0.18 = 43.20, total 283.20, and 283.20 ÷ 4 = 70.80 each. Three people instead of four gives 283.20 ÷ 3 = 94.40 each, exactly.
Where the cents go. A bill of 100 at 15 per cent across three people gives a total of 115.00 and 38.3333… per head, displayed as 38.33. Multiply that back by three and you have 114.99, a cent short of the bill. Rounding to the displayed figure always does this somewhere; the practical fix is to have one person pay the odd cent, or to settle the last digit by card.
Before tax is the more traditional base, because tax is not a service the restaurant performed. On a typical sales tax rate the difference is well under a point of the final bill, so the choice matters less than the convention that you pick one and stay consistent.
Many restaurants add 18 per cent for parties above six or eight. Look for it on the bill before entering a tip; adding your own on top is the most expensive way to be generous.
In the United States, 15 per cent has long been the baseline for adequate service, 18–20 per cent for good service, and 25 per cent or more for excellent service or unusual requests. Outside that market these anchors do not travel.
Split the bill first with the Bill Split page to see who owes what, then come back here to compute the gratuity on the full bill and divide that separately.
No. It only changes the symbol and the decimal conventions used to display the result. Enter the bill in the currency you are actually paying.