Taxi Tip Calculator

How much to tip a taxi driver

In the United States, a taxi tip runs 15% to 20% of the metered fare. Eighteen percent is the number most riders use when the ride was fine. Twenty percent covers help with bags, a route that saved time in traffic, or a driver who waited while you ran back inside. Ten percent is for a ride that went wrong but not badly enough to leave nothing.

The percentage applies to the meter, not to the total with tolls and bag fees. Tolls are money the driver hands to the toll authority, and bag fees are set by the taxi company, so tipping on either one pays the driver twice for the same work. Some drivers see it the other way. On a short ride the difference is a few cents, and on an airport run it can be a dollar or two.

Decide the number before you look at the payment screen. Back-seat screens now offer 20%, 25% and 30% buttons, and the middle one is easy to hit by accident when the car is moving.

The table uses an $18.50 fare, close to a typical metered ride in a large city. The percentages hold at any fare size; only the dollars change.

Worked example: an $18.50 ride at 18%

Start with the plain case. The meter reads $18.50, there is no bag in the trunk and no toll on the route, and you pick 18%.

• Tip: $18.50 x 0.18 = $3.33
• Total: $18.50 + $3.33 = $21.83
• Paid in cash: hand over $22.00, which adds 17 cents

At 20% the same ride is $3.70 and $22.20. At 15% it is $2.78 and $21.28. The gap between a 15% tip and a 20% tip on this fare is 92 cents, which is the whole argument in one line: the difference between an ordinary tip and a good one is less than a dollar.

Now add a bag. One suitcase at $1.00 lifts the bill to $19.50, the tip stays at $3.33 because it follows the meter, and the total is $22.83. Rounding that to $23.00 adds 17 cents, the same as before.

Run the numbers the other way and the tip gets easier to judge. A $3 tip on an $18.50 ride is 16.2%. A $4 tip is 21.6%. Once you know those two figures you can tip in whole dollars and skip the arithmetic.

Cash, card and the tip screen

Card readers are standard in cabs in most large cities, and the tip you add on the screen goes through the payment processor with the fare. The driver is taxed on it. That is the main practical difference between card and cash: card tips are recorded, and cash tips depend on the driver reporting them. The IRS guide to reporting tip income spells out that duty for the driver, not for you.

Cash has two small advantages. You can hand over a round number, and the driver keeps the whole amount instead of losing a processing fee of roughly 2% to 3%. Card has one advantage riders forget: a record. If a bag stays in the trunk or the charge looks wrong later, the trip and the tip are both on the receipt.

Watch the base the screen uses. Suggested percentages usually apply to the full amount the meter shows, including an airport surcharge or a toll that was added on. A 25% button on a $60 airport fare is $15.00, which is more than most riders intend to leave.

Some cities require drivers to accept a card, and some still do not. If the reader is broken the ride is cash only, and the driver should say so before the trip starts rather than at the end.

Airport flat fares, tolls and bag fees

Airport trips bend the meter rule in a useful way. Several large cities set a flat fare for the ride between the airport and the city center, and some add an airport fee or a pickup charge on top. New York sets a flat fare for the JFK run. When the fare is flat, the tip is a percentage of that flat fare, because there is no meter to read.

Take a $45.00 flat airport fare, two bags at $1.50 each, and 18%:

• Bag fees: 2 x $1.50 = $3.00
• Tip: $45.00 x 0.18 = $8.10
• Total: $45.00 + $3.00 + $8.10 = $56.10

Tolls work the same way. A $6.00 toll on that trip makes the total $62.10 with the same $8.10 tip, because the toll is passed through at cost and never enters the tip base.

Bag charges vary, and in some cities there is no charge at all. A dollar a bag is common, two dollars a bag shows up at airports and cruise terminals, and a few cities cap the figure. New York sits at the other end: its fare page states that luggage and bags ride free in a yellow cab, so a per-bag line on a New York receipt is worth questioning. Where the fee does exist it is set by the company, so ask before the trunk opens if the number matters.

The New York City taxi fare page lists the meter rate and every surcharge that can land on a fare, including the overnight and rush hour charges. It is a useful reminder that bag fees and airport fees are local rules rather than a national standard.

Tip percentages for common fares

The grid below covers the fares most riders see. Each cell is the tip on its own, so the total is the fare in the left column plus the tip in the cell.

A $10 ride at 18% is a $1.80 tip. That is a small number in the hand, which is why many riders round a short fare up to a flat $2 or $3 instead of running the percentage. A $50 ride at 18% is $9.00, and there the percentage is the only sensible way to do it.

The middle column is the one to remember. Eighteen percent is easy to estimate: take 20% and subtract a tenth of that. On $30, 20% is $6.00, a tenth of that is $0.60, and 18% is $5.40.

Taxi apps, rideshare apps and shared rides

A street hail and an app ride are regulated differently, and the tip convention follows the regulation. Street hails in most cities run on a meter at a rate the city sets, so the 15% to 20% range applies. App rides show a suggested tip after the trip, and the suggestions often start at 15% and climb to 30%.

App receipts also carry fees that are not tips: a booking fee, a service fee, and sometimes an airport fee. Those come off the top before the driver sees anything, which is why 20% on an app ride can be worth less to the driver than 20% in a cab.

Shared rides are the exception to the range. The fare is already split, the driver makes more stops, and a 10% to 15% tip on your share is normal. Many riders tip nothing on a pooled trip, and drivers do not count on it.

One more difference: in an app you can tip after you leave the car, and in a cab you cannot. Forget in the cab and the tip is gone. Forget in the app and the prompt stays open for a while.

When the ride goes wrong

The meter is regulated, so a fare that looks wrong usually is wrong. Ask for a receipt, note the medallion or plate number, and check the rate code. Night, weekend and airport trips often carry a different rate, and a $28 fare can be a $20 fare plus a surcharge you did not know about.

If the driver took a long route, tip on what the fare should have been rather than on what the meter says. Say it once, calmly, and pay the metered amount. Most cities take complaints by phone or online, and a receipt with a time and a plate number is what makes a complaint useful.

Safety is a different category. A driver who runs lights, texts at the wheel or refuses to stop gets no tip and a report. That is not a stingy call. It is the only signal the company and the city see.

The SFMTA taxi pages show where a rider goes to check that a cab is licensed, read the rules the driver works under, and file a complaint through the city's 311 line after a bad trip.

Rounding up, and what a dollar a ride adds up to

Rounding up is the simplest tip rule there is, and it lands near 18% on most fares. On $21.83, rounding to $22 adds 17 cents, which is 0.8% of the fare. On $14.88, rounding to $15 adds 12 cents. On a $12.40 fare the round-up is 60 cents, which is 5%.

That last number is why rounding alone is not a tip policy. It under-tips a fare that ends in 90 cents and over-tips one that ends in 10 cents. Work out the percentage first, then round the total to a whole dollar if you are paying cash.

Small choices add up over a year. Three rides a week is 156 rides. At $18.50 a ride, the gap between 15% and 20% is $144 a year. Between 18% and 25% it is $202.

None of this is a law you can break. A tip is a judgment about service, and the only firm rule is that the driver should be able to tell what you meant.