Tipping on card: the policy to publish

Most guests now pay by card, and most tips now come with the card payment rather than as coins left on the table. That shift has turned tipping from something that happened quietly into something the venue designs: the prompt on the card machine, the percentages it suggests, whether a service charge is added, and how the money reaches the team.

Each of those is a decision, and venues that never make them deliberately end up with whatever the card machine was set to on the day it was installed. Some of those defaults feel pushy to guests. Some leave staff unsure whether they will see the money. In Great Britain, the rules on how tips are shared have also changed.

This guide covers the decisions to make once about tipping on card, the rules that now apply in Great Britain, the prompt guests most often find pushy, and the written policy every venue should publish. Every figure in it is an example, and it is general guidance rather than legal or tax advice.

When tips were mostly cash, the system was simple: guests left coins or notes, and the team shared them however it had always done. Card tips are different. They pass through the venue's accounts, they appear on payment reports, they can be seen and counted, and the venue decides how they are paid out.

That makes tipping on card a business process like any other, with rules, records and people who depend on it. Staff want to know what happens to the tips guests leave for them. Guests increasingly want to know whether their tip reaches the person who served them. And in Great Britain, the law now expects venues to answer both questions.

A clear policy, decided once and written down, answers them. Without one, every question about tips becomes an awkward conversation, and trust erodes on both sides of the pass.

In England, Scotland and Wales, the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 came into force on 1 October 2024, with a statutory code of practice on distributing tips fairly. In broad terms, it requires employers to pass on all tips and service charges to workers without deductions, except in very limited cases such as income tax.

The code also requires a written tipping policy, unless tips are received only occasionally and exceptionally, and says that all staff should have the same access to it. Tips must be distributed by the end of the month following the month in which guests paid them. Records of tips must be kept for three years from the date the tip was paid, and a worker may ask in writing to see their tipping record, once in any three-month period.

The rules cover card tips and service charges, and cash tips where the employer collects or distributes them. The government's statutory code of practice on distributing tips fairly sets out the detail, and it is worth reading in full. Elsewhere, check the rules where you trade.

The first decision is whether the card payment asks for a tip at all. In table-service restaurants, a tip prompt is widely expected, and guests who want to tip appreciate an easy way to do it. In counter-service cafés, where guests order and collect, many find a tip prompt surprising, and some find it irritating.

Think about the service the guest has received. Where a server has looked after a table through a meal, a prompt invites the guest to recognise that service. Where the guest has queued, ordered at a counter and collected their own coffee, a prompt asks for a tip for very little service, and that is where much of the resentment about tipping comes from.

Decide by service style, not by what the card machine offers. Some venues prompt for table service and switch the prompt off at the counter.

If the payment asks for a tip, it often suggests percentages for the guest to choose from. Those presets shape what guests leave, and they also shape how the prompt feels.

Presets that match local norms feel natural; presets set well above them feel like pressure. A prompt offering a range a little around what guests in your area usually leave, with an easy option to choose a custom amount or no tip, gives guests a fair choice. A prompt that starts high and makes "no tip" hard to find feels like a test.

Make the no-tip option as easy to choose as any other. A guest who declines a tip should not have to hunt for the button or feel watched while they do it.

A service charge is a fixed amount or percentage added to the bill, often for larger groups. Many venues use one for tables above a certain size, and some add one to every bill. In Great Britain, service charges are covered by the same rules as tips, so they too must be passed on to workers.

If you add a service charge, show it clearly on the menu and on the bill, and say whether it is optional. Guests who discover a service charge only when they read the bill feel misled, even if it was mentioned somewhere in small print.

And never prompt for a tip on top of a service charge without making the charge obvious. A guest who has already paid a service charge, and is then asked for a tip on the card machine, may tip twice without realising, and when they do realise, they rarely return.

The prompt guests most often describe as pushy is the one that combines pressure from several directions at once: the card machine turned towards the guest, the server standing over it watching, preset percentages higher than local norms, and the no-tip option small or hidden. Each element on its own is tolerable; together, they make a guest feel that the venue is extracting a tip rather than inviting one.

A tip prompt where a service charge has already been added causes similar resentment, for the reason above. So does a prompt at a counter where no table service was given.

The fixes are simple. Hand over the machine and step back while the guest chooses. Set presets at sensible levels. Make every option, including no tip, equally easy. And never ask twice for the same service.

The most important decision for the team is how tips are shared. Common approaches include giving each server the tips from their own tables, pooling all tips and dividing them by hours worked, or pooling and dividing by a mix of hours and role, so that the kitchen, the bar and the floor all share.

Each approach has arguments for and against. Individual tips reward individual service but can leave the kitchen and back-of-house staff, who also make the meal, with nothing. Pooling shares the reward across the team but can feel unfair to the servers whose tables tipped most. Many venues use a mix.

Whatever you choose, the rules in Great Britain require the distribution to be fair and transparent, and the code of practice sets out what that means. Consult the team before deciding, explain the reasoning and write it down.

The written tipping policy is where all of these decisions come together. A good policy is short, plain and specific. It should cover:

Make it available to every member of staff in the same way, for example in the staff handbook and on the staff noticeboard, and give it to new starters with their contract. Review it whenever anything changes, and tell the team when it does.

Guests increasingly ask where their tip goes. A short statement, on the menu, on the bill or on the venue's website, answers before they ask: for example, "All tips and service charges go to our team, shared between the kitchen and the floor."

Keep it honest and simple. Guests do not need the formula, only the assurance that the money reaches the people who served them. A statement like that can make guests more comfortable tipping, especially guests who have read stories about venues keeping tips.

Train servers to answer the question too. A server asked "does the tip go to you?" should be able to answer in a sentence, without awkwardness, because the policy is clear.

QR ordering and tips raise their own questions. When guests order and pay from their own phones, the tip prompt appears on their screen, with no server present. That can feel less pressured than a card machine, but it also raises the question of who the tip is for, especially where guests ordered everything themselves.

Apply the same principles. Prompt only where there has been real service, such as food brought to the table and a team looking after the guests throughout. Keep presets sensible and the no-tip option easy. State clearly where tips go. And make sure tips paid through a phone are included in the same records and the same distribution as tips paid by card at the table.

Where guests order by QR but pay at the end with a server, the tip question is simply part of that final payment, as at any table.

Pay at table, where the server brings a card machine to the table, makes the tip a moment of its own. The server presents the bill, hands over the machine, and the guest decides. Done well, it is quick, polite and private. Done badly, it is where most of the pressure guests feel comes from.

Train servers in the moment. Present the bill, hand over the machine, step back or look away while the guest chooses, and thank them warmly whatever they leave. Never comment on the amount, and never react visibly to a guest who chooses no tip.

Our guide to pay at table: minutes back on every turn covers the wider benefits of paying at the table, from faster turns to fewer walk-outs.

Tips are often described as a reward for good service, and in a pooled system they become a shared reflection of the team's work. That links tipping to service standards: the clearer the standards, the more fairly guests' tips reflect what the team actually delivered.

Set and share the standards that matter to guests: how quickly they are greeted, how promptly orders are taken, how the meal is paced, how the bill is presented. Teams that meet clear standards consistently tend to see more consistent tips, and the tips feel earned rather than demanded.

Avoid linking individual tips to individual targets in ways that encourage pushiness, such as rewarding servers for the highest tip percentage. That rewards pressure at the card machine rather than good service at the table.

Card tips appear in the venue's payment records, and they need to be reconciled like any other money: the tips on the card terminal's reports should match the tips recorded for distribution, which should match what is paid out to the team.

Keep that reconciliation regular, at least weekly, and keep the records. In Great Britain, records of tips must be kept for three years, and a worker may ask to see theirs, so the records should be clear enough to answer that request without a scramble.

Reconcile service charges the same way. A service charge added to a bill is money that must reach the team, and it should be traceable from the bill to the payout.

Sometimes a guest asks for a service charge to be removed, usually because something went wrong. Where the service charge is optional, remove it graciously and ask what went wrong; the conversation is more valuable than the charge.

If tips or service charges are removed for a table, make sure the records show it, so the distribution is accurate. And look at the reason: a pattern of guests asking for the service charge to be removed points to a service problem, not a tipping one.

Never argue with a guest about a tip. A guest who feels pressured to pay a tip they did not want to give is a guest who will not return, and who may well tell others why.

Review the tipping policy at least once a year, and whenever something changes: a new card machine, a new service style, a new team structure, a change in the rules. Ask the team how it is working, and look at the records: are tips distributed on time, are the shares understood, are there complaints from staff or guests?

Look at guest feedback too. Comments about pushy prompts, unexpected service charges or confusion about where tips go are signs that the prompt, the presets or the communication need changing.

A policy that is reviewed and explained regularly keeps the team's trust, and trust is what makes a tipping system work.

An invented bistro's card machines were set up with the provider's defaults: a tip prompt on every payment, presets well above local norms, and a small "no tip" button. A twelve and a half per cent service charge is also added to tables of six or more. Staff are unsure how card tips are shared, and some guests have complained about being asked to tip on top of the service charge.

The bistro writes a tipping policy with the team. Card tips and service charges are pooled and shared by hours worked across the floor and the kitchen, paid monthly through payroll, with records kept and available on request. The card machine presets are lowered to match local norms, "no tip" is made as easy as any other option, and the tip prompt is switched off for bills that already carry the service charge.

A line on the menu and the bill tells guests that all tips and service charges go to the team. Complaints about tipping stop, staff stop asking where the tips go, and the total tips received hold steady.

servearound records how each bill was paid, by cash, card, bank transfer or another method, but it does not process card payments today, and it does not record or share out tips. So tip prompts, presets and the tip amounts themselves live on your card terminal, and tip distribution lives in your payroll and your own records; card processing is coming. At the table, guests can request the bill from the menu they open with the table's QR code, which tells the team, and paying the bill by QR is not available.

For payment reconciliation, payment analytics show what was collected by method, by member of staff and by hour, with voids and comps, and bills can be downloaded as a spreadsheet for any range of dates. See Order Fulfillment and Analytics.

In England, Scotland and Wales, the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 requires tips and service charges to be passed on to workers without deductions, except in very limited cases such as income tax.

In Great Britain, yes, unless tips are received only occasionally and exceptionally, and all staff should have the same access to it.

Under the code of practice in Great Britain, by the end of the month following the month in which guests paid them.

Three years from the date the tip was paid, and a worker may ask in writing to see their record, once in any three-month period.

Not necessarily. Prompts suit table service; at a counter with no table service, many guests find them irritating.

Around the levels guests in your area usually leave, with a custom amount and a no-tip option that are just as easy to choose.

Avoid it. Guests may tip twice without realising, and resent it when they do.

By individual tables, by a pool divided by hours, or by a mix of hours and roles. It must be fair and transparent; consult the team and write it down.

A short, honest line on the menu or bill saying where tips and service charges go, such as "all tips go to our team".

Tipping on card is a process the venue designs, so design it deliberately. Decide where to prompt, by service style; set presets near local norms with a no-tip option just as easy to choose; show any service charge clearly and never prompt for a tip on top of it; and hand the card machine over and step back while the guest decides.

In Great Britain, the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 requires tips and service charges to reach workers without deductions, a written policy all staff can see, payment by the end of the following month and records kept for three years. Decide with the team how tips are shared, write it down, tell guests where their tips go, reconcile tip records regularly and review the policy every year.