Tip Culture in Germany

This past weekend my family came to visit, and although traveling through Europe and looking at amazing castles and cathedrals with them was amazing, the highlight of this visit for me was dining out. 

Everyone loves not having to cook for yourself and eating amazing food, but sometimes when eating out with a family of 5 you can easily rack up a bill, and what’s even worse is that in the US you have to cough up a 20% tip on top of that. Even if you didn’t receive good service, some restaurants in the US pay their servers well under minimum wage so if you don’t tip them around 20% they aren’t making enough money. This can make going out to dinner quite frustrating for many Americans. This 20% tip baseline in the US brought some confusion for my family and I when going out to eat in Germany. 

As my family and I finished eating on their first night here in Germany, I told them that I am pretty sure Germany pays their servers more and that 20% would be too much to tip unless it was excellent service. My parents instantly smiled in disbelief, shocked that on top of inexpensive food, the tip would also not empty their pockets. However, I myself had not dined out so I was going off what I tip at döner shops, which obviously doesn’t include table service. So we were left with one option, looking up how much to tip in Germany on google. As we asked for the check I quickly googled: ‘how much to tip in Germany’ to unfortunately find various different answers. But since the check was on the way I went with the top one: “As a general rule, expect to tip around 10% of the bill. If you get exceptionally good service, say thank you with a tip closer to 15-20% (wise.com).” We thought the waiter did a decent job so we left a 15% tip just to make sure we weren’t making enemies on our first time eating out in Germany. 

However, the next night we went out to dinner with experts on tipping in Germany – my host family. My host parents were very understanding of our confusion and explained in depth just how much to tip. They explained that tipping is quite different compared to what we’re used to: if the service ranges from poor to just okay, they typically tip little to nothing. However, if the service is good or exceptional, they usually leave about a 10% tip. My sister also has an extreme gluten allergy and communicating this, especially in German, can be challenging. Luckily we had my host family here this time to explain her allergy to the waiter in German. They then said that because the restaurant was able to cater to her allergy we should definitely tip the 10%. After finding other sites that agreed with what I learned from my host parents, I have come to the conclusion that if the service was bad then you don’t have to tip, but if the server was showing effort and being friendly then the nice thing to do is to leave a 10% tip. This makes going out to eat in Germany much more affordable, especially because the food itself is often cheaper as well. 

But why is a 15-20% tip in the US so important, when nobody will bat an eye no matter how much you tip here in Germany? The answer is that many restaurants in the US don’t even  pay their servers minimum wage, whereas in Germany servers are paid well and receive benefits: “waitstaff doesn’t rely on their tips for their wage like they do in the US since they’re paid a living wage and everyone gets benefits like healthcare, paid vacation time, etc (thesavvybackpacker.com).” German servers receive better pay and benefits, which makes serving tables a better, more predictable job than in the US. Additionally, because you don’t have to fork over 20% of the bill as a tip, dining in Germany is more affordable than in the US.

-Jack G

The Savvy Backpacker. (2022, October 17). Tipping in Europe: When, where, and how much to tip. https://thesavvybackpacker.com/tipping-in-europe/

Wise. (n.d.). Tipping in Germany: A simple guide. https://wise.com/us/travel-money/tip-calculator/germany