As you can tell from the post title, depends on the country I'm in. In Belgium, all restaurant food is tax and service included, so most people either don't tip or tip ridiculously small amounts (like half a euro for a 60 euro bill or some such). Having some experience with American tipping, I find the tiny tips absurd and rather pointless, so I don't tip at all here.

What with being used to a country without tipping and generally a much slower pace in restaurants, I tend to be quite impressed with the efforts American waiters will go to to serve people (although at times it can be over the top and become annoying), so I pretty much always aim for 20%. If the numbers work out that way and the service was good, it can be up to 25 or 30%. And there was one time that I was taking a small bus - really more like a big SUV - from one city to another, and ended up being the only passenger left. To the best of my knowledge tipping wasn't expected under those circumstances (tickets were bought beforehand), but since I had a good time talking to the driver and he went to some extra effort to make things easier for me, I gave him five bucks at arrival. I'm not really sure what he thought about that... but he took them, anyway.
But I don't usually go lower than 20% - of course, I haven't eaten in American restaurants all that often, and never really had a serious reason to be dissatisfied.


Because it's the thing to do in America. Let me tell you, though, first time I went to a restaurant in America - or Canada, it was, actually - and had to pay the bill while my friends were already outside, and suddenly was informed by an angry waitress that tipping was the custom there, I panicked somewhat.

Yeah - again, in America.

Again, it's the thing to do? And because unlike in Belgium, I know such people aren't paid in full in the US and partially have to live off tips.