How to Split a Restaurant Bill and Tip Fairly

Splitting a bill is arithmetic anyone can do and almost nobody wants to do at the table, in poor light, after a drink, while seven people wait and one of them insists they only had a starter.

What the Tip & Bill Split does

Works out the tip, the total and what each person owes, with an option to round each share up so the collected amount actually covers the bill.

The rounding option exists because of a real failure: four people each paying a rounded-down share leaves the table short, and someone quietly covers it.

Open the Tip & Bill Split and follow the settings and checks below.

Conventions worth knowing

Setting	What it means
United States	18-20% is standard for table service; 15% now reads as poor
Canada	15-20%, often calculated before tax
United Kingdom	10-12.5%, and frequently already added as a service charge
Most of Europe	Rounding up, or 5-10%; service is usually included
Japan	Not customary and can cause confusion
On tax	Tipping on the pre-tax amount is normal in the US and slightly cheaper

How to use it

1. Enter the bill total as printed.
2. Set the tip percentage.
3. Check for a service charge first. If one is already on the bill, adding a full tip on top is tipping twice.
4. Set the number of people, and turn on rounding if you want the collected total to cover it.

Practical advice

Look at the bottom of the receipt before you calculate anything. Service charges of 12.5% are added automatically by most UK restaurants for groups, many US venues add 18-20% for parties above six, and both are easy to miss under the subtotal. Tipping on top of an included service charge is the single most common way people overpay a restaurant bill, and it happens most often in exactly the situation where nobody is checking.

Common questions

Should I tip on the amount before or after tax?

Before, if you want to be precise — the tax is not part of the service. In the US the difference on a $100 bill with 8% tax and a 20% tip is about $1.60, so it rarely matters much in practice, but on a large group bill the gap becomes real money and rounding up on the pre-tax figure is a reasonable compromise.

What does the round-up option actually do?

It rounds each individual share upward, so the amount the table collects is equal to or slightly above the bill. Without it, four shares rounded to the nearest sensible note can add up to less than the total, and the person who paid the card ends up covering the shortfall without mentioning it.

Is it rude to tip less than the usual percentage?

It depends entirely on where you are. In the United States, tipped staff are often paid a sub-minimum base wage on the assumption that tips make up the difference, so a low tip has a direct effect on someone’s income. In much of Europe and Japan, staff are paid a full wage and the same gesture carries no such weight.

How do I split unevenly when people ordered differently?

This tool splits evenly, which is what most tables actually want. For genuinely uneven bills, total each person’s items first, then apply the tip percentage to each subtotal — the tip should follow what each person spent, otherwise the person who had a salad subsidises the person who had the steak.

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