With many Canadians facing greater financial constraints, sentiment around tipping culture is shifting.<\/p>\n
Over the past few years, customers have seen \u201csuggested\u201d tipping amounts rise, and with more people paying on debit and credit machines instead of cash, they are being asked to tip more often. <\/p>\n
Some say they are feeling annoyed at a time when they might be strapped for cash even before the bill arrives, but experts say there are ways to mitigate the issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to do a bit of soul checking,\u201d said Stacy Yanchuk Oleksy, CEO of Money Mentors. <\/p>\n
\u201cJust because someone asks for 30 per cent on the machine, it doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s what it warrants; it doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s what you have to do. And I think we need to get around the culture of tipping, that it\u2019s become this guilt-laden, \u2018If you don\u2019t tip, therefore somehow that says something about you,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it\u2019s just, you can\u2019t afford it, and that\u2019s OK too.\u201d <\/p>\n
Yanchuk Oleksy said she recommends people be intentional about managing their finances and look at their budget to determine what they can afford. For example, it might make sense to pick up their own food instead of tipping for delivery.<\/p>\n
She said consumers can also decide to tip differently than what is prescribed.<\/p>\n
A recent H&R Block survey found 93 per cent of respondents said they were annoyed when card machines asked for tips on purchases or services that haven\u2019t typically involved gratuities. The same amount said tipping was out of hand and is applied to goods and services they feel are unwarranted.<\/p>\n
The survey was conducted from Feb. 19 to Feb. 23 among 1,545 Canadians who are members of the Angus Reid Forum, an online market research platform. <\/p>\n
Kelley Keehn, CEO of Money Wise Institute, said that as consumers are being asked to tip at more places, fatigue can set in. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe kind of moved from tipping for service, and now it\u2019s sometimes tipping for transactions,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
For sit-down meals at a restaurant, Keehn said it is best to continue to tip to support workers, but for things like counter service, it is more optional. <\/p>\n
She said it\u2019s also important to factor tipping into a budget, especially for larger ticket items like big family dinners out. <\/p>\n
Wayne Smith, a professor and director at the Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research at Toronto Metropolitan University, said that before the pandemic, it was commonplace to tip about 15 per cent in restaurants. <\/p>\n
Today, he said, tipping norms are closer to 20 per cent in restaurants, with the increase in the tip percentage coming alongside increases in the overall price due to inflation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tips are really becoming pricey and costly as a result,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are a lot of studies starting to be done around Canada where they\u2019re finding that people just aren\u2019t tipping at all.\u201d <\/p>\n
The rise in tipping costs also comes as the gap between the rich and poor continues to widen, Smith said, which could have implications for the way Canadians interact with the service industry. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to have a real service encounter with people, it\u2019s going to get really expensive. Otherwise, you\u2019re going to be ordering via your phone, picking up your own stuff … so that gap in the service model is getting wider and wider,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Overall, Smith said the practice of tipping is a personal choice, and people should tip whatever they feel comfortable with based on their experience. <\/p>\n
Neesha Miljanovic, a senior operations manager at Waterworks Food Hall in Toronto, said that sometimes, higher tip options being displayed to customers can push people away from tipping altogether. <\/p>\n
Instead, she said lower options can allow some businesses to potentially get more tips through volume. <\/p>\n
As for her own tipping practices, Miljanovic said there are some rough guidelines she follows.<\/p>\n
For a delivery or takeout experience with minimal interaction, she said she rounds up to the nearest zero and orders directly from a business instead of third-party apps. For counter service, she said she tips between 10 and 15 per cent and generally rounds up change to the nearest dollar or two for bar service. <\/p>\n
For a restaurant setting, she said there is a range she will tip based on her experience. <\/p>\n
\u201cFifteen (per cent) for me is terrible service, 18 (per cent) is \u2018I\u2019m polite, that was OK,\u2019\u201d Miljanovic said. <\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty per cent for me is standard, and then anything above that is an opinion, or a feeling of \u2018You really went above and beyond to make my experience incredible here and the whole team did a great job, and I want that to be reflected financially.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, she said it\u2019s important for customers to remember that tipping is always voluntary, with the exception of larger groups where gratuity is added automatically. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have to tip; the whole thing is supposed to be if you had a good service experience, that you want to give something extra to them, it is not mandatory. On every payment terminal, you can hit zero, you can hit bypass, you can do custom. So there is actually a lot of power in the guest experience to do that,\u201d Miljanovic said. <\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2026.<\/p>\n
Daniel Johnson, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With many Canadians facing greater financial constraints, sentiment around tipping culture is shifting. Over the past few years,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[437,114,184,146,268,85,46,231,266,267,6098],"class_list":{"0":"post-395861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-lifestyle","16":"tag-personal-finance","17":"tag-personalfinance","18":"tag-your-money"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}