page_title: Gratuity
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Gratuity / By region / North America and the Caribbean / United States
caption_attribution_description: עברית: מלון המלך דוד This is a photo of a place that is recognized as a heritage site by The Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites in Israel. The site's ID in Wiki Loves Monuments photographic competition is 2-3000-501
context_page_description: A gratuity is a sum of money customarily given by a client or customer to certain service sector workers for the service they have performed, in addition to the basic price of the service. It may or may not be customary to tip servers in bars and restaurants, taxi drivers, hair stylists and so on, but this depends on the country or location. Giving a tip is typically irreversible, differentiating it from the reward mechanism of a placed order, which can be refunded.
  Tips and their amount are a matter of social custom and etiquette, and the custom varies between countries and between settings. In some places tipping is not expected and may be discouraged or considered insulting, while in other places tipping is expected from customers. The customary amount of a tip can be a specific range of monetary amounts or a certain percentage of the bill based on the perceived quality of the service given.
  It is illegal to offer tips to some groups of workers, such as U.S. government workers and more widely police officers; the tips may be regarded as bribery. A fixed percentage service charge is sometimes added to bills in restaurants and similar establishments.
context_section_description: Tipping is a practiced social custom in the United States. Tipping by definition is voluntary – at the discretion of the customer. In restaurants offering traditional table service, a gratuity of 15–20% of the amount of a customer’s check (before tax) is customary when good to excellent service is provided. In buffet-style restaurants where the server brings only beverages, 5% is customary. Higher tips may be given for excellent service, and lower tips for mediocre service. In the case of bad or rude service no tip may be given, and the restaurant manager may be notified of the problem.  Tips are also generally given for services provided at golf courses, casinos, hotels, spas, salons, and for concierge services, food delivery, and taxis. This etiquette applies to service at weddings where the host should provide appropriate tips to workers at the end of an event; the amount may be negotiated in the contract.
  The Fair Labor Standards Act defines tippable employees as individuals who customarily and regularly receive tips of $30 or more per month. Federal law permits employers to include tips towards satisfying the difference between employees' hourly wage and minimum wage. Federal minimum wage for tipped employees in the United States is $2.13 per hour, as long as the combination of tips and $2.13 hourly wage exceed the standard minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, although some states and territories provide more generous provisions for tipped employees. For example, laws in Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Guam specify that employees must be paid the full minimum wage of that state/territory (which is equal or higher than the federal minimum wage in these instances) before tips are considered.  
  A tip pool cannot be allocated to employers, or to employees who do not customarily and regularly receive tips. These non-eligible employees include dishwashers, cooks, chefs, and janitors.
  There is only limited information available on levels of tipping. A study at Iowa State University provided data for a suburban restaurant surveyed in the early 1990s. The mean tip was $3.00 on a mean bill of $19.78. As such, the mean tip rate was 16.1%, and the median tip rate was about 15%. In a 2003 research study at Brigham Young University, the sample restaurants had an average tip percentage ranging from 13.57 to 14.69% between 1999 and 2002. A 2001 study done at Cornell University exploring the relationship between tip amount and quality of service has shown that quality of service is only weakly related to the amount the server is tipped by the guest. This study suggests that servers who provide amazing service are tipped marginally better, if not better at all, than servers who provide standard service.
  According to the National Restaurant Association, only a handful of restaurants in the United States have adopted a no-tipping model and some restaurants who have adopted this model returned to tipping due to loss of employees to competitors.
caption: Waiters at the King David Hotel
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