Presentation of Canada’s average restaurant tip

Canada’s average restaurant tip is 17.2 percent.

More than 4,200 people recently completed a newsletter survey on tipping, and the vast majority of them said they tip between 15 and 20 percent.

The invitation to ask readers about tips was, first, the rising prices for restaurant meals as a result of the pandemic inflation, and second, Ontario’s move to bring servers to the same minimum wage standard as other workers from January 1, The current minimum wage for bartenders and Waiter in Ontario is $ 12.55, compared to $ 14.35 for others (data for all provinces) here). Starting January 1, the new Ontario minimum wage is $ 15 for everyone.

Just under 59 percent of respondents said they would tip the same in the future, a third said they would tip less, and the rest said they would tip more. As always with tips, there was disagreement in the survey results as to whether the percentage tip should be offset against the total bill or against the pre-tax amount.

A small minority of respondents when completing the survey indicated that they tip on food and drink costs, not on the tax portion of the bill. I’ve looked for opinions on this online and the consensus seems to be that tipping on the pre-tax amount is okay, but tipping the full amount is what a lot of people end up doing.

One reason to tip the full amount is that it is a generous thing to do for people working in a sector that has been hard hit by the pandemic. Even a tip of 17.2 percent on the tax portion of a restaurant bill doesn’t add much to the cost of the meal.

However, the payment terminals used in restaurants definitely encourage people to tip on the full bill. These terminals usually offer preset tip percentages when you finalize your payment with a credit or debit card. I asked on twitter If people found these preset percentages applied to their full bill with taxes, and the consensus answer was yes. Many did not seem satisfied with this arrangement.

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