What this tip calculator does
Enter the bill and pick a tip percentage — or round up to an even total: the calculator shows the tip, the final amount and the effective tip rate. When splitting among up to 500 people, the per-person amounts add up exactly, with no cent lost or invented. Everything runs locally in your browser.
How much do you tip in Germany and Austria?
5 to 10 percent is customary — or simply rounding up to an even total: 46.80 euros becomes 50, with a “keep the change”. Tipping is a voluntary gesture in German-speaking countries, not part of the wage, because staff are paid by collective agreement or minimum wage. The amount is genuinely up to you: more for great service, less or nothing if it fell short.
For employed staff it arrives untaxed, too: under section 3 no. 51 of the German Income Tax Act (EStG), voluntary tips from guests have been tax-free without an upper limit since 2002. Only owners must count tips as business income.
Why is 15 to 20 percent the norm in the US?
Because tips are part of the wage system there. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the federal minimum cash wage for tipped employees has stood at 2.13 dollars per hour since 1991 — tips are expected to fill the gap up to the regular minimum wage. Tipping under 15 percent there effectively cuts the server's pay. That is why the 15 and 20 percent presets in this calculator are labelled as the US convention rather than the local yardstick.
How does the calculator split the bill without losing a cent?
All arithmetic is done in whole cents, never in floating-point euros. When splitting, everyone first pays the rounded-down share; the leftover cents go to the first people in the round, who each pay exactly one cent more. The per-person amounts therefore always sum to the exact total — easy to verify at the table:
| Total | People | Per-person amounts |
|---|---|---|
| €50.00 | 3 | €16.67 + €16.67 + €16.66 |
| €100.00 | 6 | 4 × €16.67 + 2 × €16.66 |
| €23.50 | 4 | 2 × €5.88 + 2 × €5.87 |
The calculator tells you how many people carry the extra cent — nobody pays more than one cent above the smallest share.
Percentage or round up — which mode fits?
Percentage mode applies a rate to the bill, rounded half-up to whole cents. Round-up mode is how it is actually done in German-speaking countries: you pick an even total, and the tip is the difference. The calculator suggests the next even amounts above the bill (to the nearest 1, 5 and 10 euros) and shows the effective tip rate for each total — so you see at a glance whether rounding up is generous or tight.
What this calculator deliberately does not do
- No itemised splitting. The bill is divided evenly — who had the expensive wine is still settled at the table.
- No currency conversion. The currency selector only changes the display (symbol and formatting), not the value. For exchange rates, use the currency converter.
- No etiquette ruling. The calculator does the maths; whether and how much you tip is your call.
Privacy
Your entries never leave your device — the calculation is a handful of integer steps right in the browser. Data is stored only locally on your device so the tool opens where you left off on your next visit. The address bar carries the entered numbers so you can share a result as a link — no server is involved for that either.