Tipping Statistics (2026)

Tipping is still close to universal at the restaurant table and far less settled everywhere else. Card and digital tips at full-service restaurants averaged 19.1% in Q2 2026 on the Toast platform, and 92% of Americans who eat at sit-down restaurants told Pew they always or often tip there. At a coffee shop that falls to 25%, and at a fast casual counter to 12%.

At the same time, frustration has grown. Bankrate's 2025 survey found 63% of Americans hold at least one negative view of tipping, and Pew found 72% say tipping is expected in more places than five years earlier. The figures below come from three kinds of sources, which are labeled throughout: surveys of what people say they do (Pew, Bankrate), payment data from restaurants on one point-of-sale platform (Toast), and official wage and tax rules (Department of Labor, BLS, IRS).

In Bankrate's 2025 Tipping Survey, conducted online by YouGov with 2,277 adults in late April 2025, 63% held at least one negative view of tipping, up from 59% a year earlier. The most common complaints were that businesses should pay employees better rather than rely on tips (41%, up from 37%), that tipping culture has gotten out of control (41%, up from 35%), and annoyance with pre-entered tip screens (38%, up from 34%).

Other signs point the same way. 16% would accept higher prices if tipping went away, up from 14%, and 14% say they are confused about who and how much to tip, up from 11%. Only 26% say they feel good when they leave a generous tip, down from 29%. Older adults complain the most: 68% of boomers and 66% of Gen Xers hold a negative view, against 58% of millennials and 57% of Gen Zers.

Bankrate asks people who use each type of service whether they always tip. In 2025, sit-down restaurant servers topped the list at 70%, followed by hair stylists and barbers (54%), food delivery workers (52%) and taxi or rideshare drivers (43%) (see the chart below).

Below that, consistent tipping drops off quickly: 25% always tip hotel housekeepers, 18% always tip coffee shop baristas, 15% always tip furniture or appliance delivery workers, 12% always tip when picking up takeout, and 9% always tip home services or repair workers. Women tip more often in almost every category, with the widest gap at hair salons and barber shops, where 62% of women and 45% of men always tip.

Bankrate has run its tipping survey since 2021, and for most of that time the share of consistent tippers fell. The share always tipping a sit-down server went from 75% in 2021 to 73% in 2022 and 65% in 2023, before recovering to 67% in 2024 and 70% in 2025 (see the chart and table below).

2025 was the first year the decline clearly stopped. Five of the nine service categories saw a larger share of people always tipping than in 2024. Only hair stylists (55% to 54%), baristas (20% to 18%) and home repair workers (10% to 9%) slipped. Hair stylists and food delivery remain well below 2021 and 2022 levels, at 54% versus 66% in 2022 and 52% versus 59% in 2021.

Pew Research Center's November 2023 report, based on 11,945 adults surveyed Aug. 7-27, 2023, asked how often people tip in seven common situations. Sit-down restaurants led at 92% always or often, including 81% who always tip. Haircuts followed at 78%, food delivery at 76%, a drink at a bar at 70%, and taxis or rideshares at 61% (see the chart below).

Tipping was far less common at coffee shops (25%) and fast casual restaurants with no servers (12%). Upper-income adults were more likely than others to tip always or often in most situations. The one exception was fast casual dining, where lower-income adults were the most likely to tip, though only 16% said they usually do.

Pew gave respondents a hypothetical sit-down meal with average food and service. 57% said they would tip 15% or less, including 2% who would leave nothing, 12% would tip 18%, and 25% would tip 20% or more. Older adults leaned lower: 61% of those 65 and older would tip 15% or less, compared with 54% of adults under 30.

Bankrate's 2025 survey found a similar split from a different angle: 35% of Americans say they typically tip at least 20% at sit-down restaurants, down from 37% in 2024. Norms have risen over the past century. Pew notes that the first edition of Emily Post's etiquette book in 1922 set 10% for a meal in a first class hotel, and that 15% was the typical restaurant tip in the late 20th century.

Survey answers measure intentions. Payment data measures what lands on the receipt. Toast, a restaurant point-of-sale company serving roughly 180,000 locations at June 30, 2026, publishes quarterly tip rates from card and digital payments on its platform (industry data, cash tips excluded). In Q2 2026 the average tip was 19.1% at full-service restaurants, 15.8% at quick-service restaurants, 13.8% on takeout, and 18.7% overall.

The rates barely move. Full-service tips hit a seven-year low of 19.1% in Q2 2025, rose to 19.3% in Q1 2026, and fell back to 19.1% in Q2 2026. Quick-service tips have held at 15.8% for seven straight quarters. Toast calculates tips against processing volume that includes taxes and fees, so the figures are not directly comparable with a tip calculated on the pre-tax bill.

Regulars give more. In a Toast survey of 1,500 adults fielded in April 2026 (industry survey), 77% said they tip more at restaurants where they are regulars, with 46% adding an extra 5% to 10% and 37% adding 10% to 15% or more.

Tipping varies by about four percentage points across states. In Toast's Q2 2026 data, Delaware tipped the most at 21.4% overall, followed by West Virginia (20.7%), New Hampshire (20.5%) and Indiana (20.4%). Kentucky, Ohio and Wyoming tied at 20.3% (see the table below).

The lowest overall rates were in California (17.1%), the District of Columbia (17.3%) and Washington state (17.6%), with Florida and Nevada at 18.1%. California and Washington are both states that require tipped workers to receive the full state minimum wage before tips, while Delaware's tipped cash wage is $2.23, though a state-level correlation in one company's card data does not establish why tip rates differ.

Point-of-sale tablets, apps and kiosks have made tip prompts routine, and Pew notes that this technology has let more businesses offer customers the chance to tip. Pew found more Americans oppose (40%) than favor (24%) businesses suggesting tip amounts on a bill or checkout screen, with 32% neutral. Opposition was highest among adults 65 and older (47%), while adults under 30 were evenly split: 31% in favor, 33% opposed and 32% neutral. Men were more likely than women to object (44% vs 37%).

Bankrate's 2025 survey shows how prompts change behavior. 38% of Americans are annoyed with pre-entered tip screens, and 27% say they tip less or not at all when shown one, up from 25% in 2024. Only 11% say they tip more in those situations, down from 14%.

Fixed service charges added to the bill are even less popular than suggested tips. In Pew's survey, 72% of adults opposed businesses including an automatic service charge or tip on the bill regardless of party size, including half who strongly opposed it. Only 10% favored the practice and 13% were neutral.

Opposition rises with age, from six in ten adults under 30 to 79% of those 65 and older. Pew points out the legal difference: service charge revenue goes to the restaurant and generally does not have to be passed to workers, while tips must stay with employees.

Bankrate's data shows tipping frequency climbing steadily with age. Among people who use each service, 43% of Gen Zers and 61% of millennials always tip at sit-down restaurants, compared with 83% of Gen Xers and 84% of boomers. The gap is similar for hair stylists (25% of Gen Z vs 71% of boomers) and rideshare drivers (23% vs 61%). Only 16% of Gen Zers typically tip 20% or more at restaurants, against 49% of boomers (see the table below).

Younger adults are more likely to feel pressure to tip. In Bankrate's 2025 Holiday Tipping Survey, 44% of Gen Zers and 42% of millennials said they often feel obligated to tip, compared with 38% of Gen Xers and 29% of boomers. Pew similarly found 38% of adults under 30 see tipping as more of an obligation than a choice.

Service quality comes first. In Pew's survey, 77% of adults said the quality of service is a major factor in deciding whether and how much to tip, 18% called it a minor factor, and 5% said it is not a factor. Only about three in ten cited a worker's pre-tip wages as a major factor, and about a quarter cited social pressure or the cost of the tip.

The ranking is shifting a little. In Bankrate's 2025 survey, 58% said service quality most influences how much they tip, down from 64% a year earlier, and 10% say they always tip the same amount regardless of service. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to weigh pre-tip wages (35% vs 27% in Pew's data).

Americans do not agree on what a tip is. In Pew's survey, 21% called tipping more of a choice, 29% more of an obligation, and 49% said it depends on the situation. The sense of obligation rises with income: 39% of upper-income adults see tipping as an obligation, compared with 30% of middle-income and 24% of lower-income adults.

Few find the rules easy. Only 34% said it is extremely or very easy to know whether to tip, and 33% said the same about how much. When tips are shared, 72% said the fairest arrangement is for each server to keep their own tips, while 14% preferred pooling among the whole staff and 13% pooling among servers.

Experience on the other side of the counter matters. In a companion Pew analysis, 43% of adults said they have worked a job where they received tips. 76% of them always or often tip at a bar, versus 66% of those who never worked for tips, and 28% would tip 20% or more for an average restaurant meal, versus 22%.

Seasonal tipping is slipping. In Bankrate's 2025 Holiday Tipping Survey (YouGov, 2,445 adults, Oct. 27-29, 2025), 56% of people who use a housekeeper planned to tip one, followed by childcare providers (47%), teachers (47%), landscapers or snow removers (37%), mail carriers (27%) and trash collectors (21%). Childcare tipping fell the most, from 55% to 47%, and teachers from 53% to 47%.

Among those who still tip, amounts held steady or rose. The median holiday tip to landscapers jumped from $30 in 2024 to $50 in 2025, and to trash and recycling collectors from $20 to $25. Only 16% expect the person they tip to notice the amount, and just 7% see tipping as a sign of financial success.

Federal law lets employers count tips toward the minimum wage. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a tipped employee, defined as someone who regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips, can be paid a cash wage of $2.13 an hour, with up to $5.12 of tips credited toward the $7.25 federal minimum, according to the Department of Labor's July 1, 2026 table.

States vary widely. Seven states require the full state minimum wage before tips: Alaska ($14.00), California ($16.90), Minnesota ($11.41), Montana ($10.85 for larger businesses), Nevada ($12.00), Oregon ($15.55 standard) and Washington ($17.13). At the other end, the DOL lists 15 states, including Texas, Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina, at the federal $2.13 cash wage. In between, cash wages range from $2.23 in Delaware to $14.75 in Hawaii, and the District of Columbia requires $10.30 (see the table below).

No official count of tipped workers exists, a gap Pew also notes. The IRS estimates that about 6 million workers report tipped wages. The largest tipped occupation, waiters and waitresses, employed 2,270,910 people in May 2025, according to BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, with 756,390 bartenders, 542,750 dining room attendants and bartender helpers, and 432,690 restaurant hosts.

OEWS wage figures include tips as reported by employers. Waiters and waitresses earned a median $16.94 an hour ($35,230 a year) and a mean $19.26, against a median $24.51 for all occupations. The bottom tenth of waiters earned $8.70 an hour or less, below the 10th percentile for every other occupation in the table below. Hairdressers earned a median $17.21 and taxi drivers $20.24.

The 2025 budget law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (the IRS now groups its provisions as the Working Families Tax Cuts), created a federal deduction for tips. For tax years 2025 through 2028, employees and self-employed people can deduct up to $25,000 a year of qualified tips, defined as voluntary cash or charged tips from customers, including shared tips. The deduction phases out above $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($300,000 for joint filers) and is available whether or not the taxpayer itemizes (see the table below).

Eligibility depends on the job. The tips must come from an occupation on the IRS list of 71 occupations that customarily received tips on or before Dec. 31, 2024, grouped in eight categories from beverage and food service to transportation and delivery. The list runs from bartenders and wait staff to digital content creators, home plumbers, tutors and golf caddies. Workers in specified service trades or businesses are excluded, married couples must file jointly, and the deduction is claimed on Form 1040, Schedule 1-A.

For 2025, the first year, W-2 and 1099 forms did not separately show qualified tips, so IRS transition guidance lets workers use the tips in box 7 of a W-2, tips reported to an employer, or their own daily tip logs. In one IRS example, a server whose W-2 shows $18,000 of Social Security tips can use $18,000 as qualified tips.