Tip Calculator: Split the Bill, Before or After Tax
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Tip Calculator
Works out the tip, the total and the split, and lets you choose whether the tip is figured on the bill before tax or after it. That choice is the one thing most tip calculators ignore, and on a taxed bill it changes what you pay.
Jump to a common tip
Tip at different percentages
| Tip percent | Tip amount | Total | Each |
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Every row and chip is a live link you can bookmark or share.
How to use this tool
Enter the bill, the percentage and how many people are splitting it. The table underneath shows every common tip rate at once, which is usually faster than changing the number and looking again.
The sales tax box is the one worth setting. Leave it at zero and the tool behaves like any other tip calculator. Put your local rate in and it shows what the same tip percentage costs figured before tax against figured after it, which is a real difference and not a rounding one.
Before tax or after tax
Custom in most of North America is to tip on the bill before tax. The reasoning is simple: the tax is not part of the service, and the server had nothing to do with it.
Card terminals frequently disagree. Many present their suggested percentages calculated on the taxed total, and the difference is exactly the tax rate. In a 15 percent tax province, an 18 percent tip on a 100 bill is 18.00 before tax and 20.70 after, so tipping on the total hands over 2.70 more, which is 15 percent extra tip. Over a year of eating out that is not trivial, and almost nobody notices because the terminal only shows the percentage.
Neither approach is wrong and this tool does not take a side. It just shows you both so the choice is yours rather than the terminal’s.
The mental shortcuts, and when they break
Ten percent is moving the decimal point one place left. Twenty percent is that doubled. Fifteen percent is ten plus half of it again. Those three cover most situations without a phone.
The double the tax shortcut is popular and only works where the tax rate happens to be near half your intended tip. It is close to a 15 percent tip where tax is around 7 or 8 percent, and it is badly wrong anywhere tax is 5 percent or 15 percent. Check the arithmetic once for your own area rather than importing a rule from somewhere else.
A worked check you can repeat on paper
Take a bill of 85.50 with an 18 percent tip split three ways, no tax. Ten percent of 85.50 is 8.55. Half of that is 4.275, giving 12.825 for fifteen percent. Another fifth of the ten percent figure, 1.71, brings you to 14.535 for seventeen. One more fifth gives 15.39 for eighteen percent.
The total is 85.50 plus 15.39, which is 100.89. Split three ways that is 33.63 each. The tool agrees to the cent.
Mistakes that catch people out
Tipping on a bill that already includes service. Many places add a service charge automatically for larger groups. Read the bill before adding anything, or you are tipping twice.
Splitting the total instead of the tip. If people ordered very differently, splitting the whole bill evenly can be less fair than splitting only the tip and tax proportionally.
Assuming the terminal percentages are on the pre tax amount. Often they are not, and the button that says 18 may be charging you the equivalent of nearly 21.
Applying one country’s norms in another. Tipping expectations vary enormously and in several countries a tip is genuinely not expected. A percentage calculator cannot tell you the local custom, only the arithmetic.
Common tip amounts
The bill and tip combinations people look up most. Each opens the calculator ready to go with its own address.
How this was checked
The arithmetic was verified against hand worked examples. A 15 percent tip on 100 gives 15.00 and a total of 115.00. An 18 percent tip on 85.50 gives 15.39, a total of 100.89 and 33.63 each between three, all matching the manual calculation to the cent.
The pre tax and post tax paths were checked separately at a 15 percent tax rate. An 18 percent tip on 100 comes to 18.00 on the pre tax amount and 20.70 on the taxed total, a difference of 2.70 which is exactly 15 percent more tip, confirming that the gap between the two methods equals the tax rate rather than something more complicated.
The round up option was checked to make sure it adds the difference to the tip rather than inventing money: rounding a 100.89 total up to the nearest 5 gives 105.00 and moves the extra 4.11 into the tip, so the bill and tax stay untouched.
Related Calculators and Reference
- Percentage Calculator for the general version of the same arithmetic.
- Discount and Sales Tax Calculator for working back from a taxed total to the price before tax.
- Markup and Margin Calculator for the difference between adding a percentage and taking one off.
- Unit Price Comparison Calculator for comparing prices before the bill arrives.
- GST HST Calculator: the Canadian sales tax on the bill before you tip.