Round up to the nearest euro when you pay for services if you'd like, but beyond that, you don't need to tip anything in restaurants or hotels. It's not customary or necessary.
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“It is not customary to tip at a continental breakfast that is served buffet-style,” Bergen says. “It is customary and appreciated to tip during breakfast when there is a server who takes your order or serves coffee and juice.”
Tipping at Hotels in EuropeIf hotel porters help you carry your bags to your room, a tip of €1 or €2 per bag is expected. At the end of your stay, you can also leave a tip for the person who had been cleaning your room. This is optional, but it's always a nice gesture of appreciation.
Since restaurants charge a service fee, tips are not expected. It is customary to round up in full-service restaurants, leaving as much as five extra euros when the service is excellent. However, larger tips are rarely expected.
At bars in Europe, tips are not customary, but leaving change or a few euros is always appreciated, if not expected. For takeaway food or drinks, counter dining, or stand-up service, tips are also not customary.
Tipping culture in Europe is very different, so there are some habits American travelers will want to leave at home. For most, tips are not expected in Europe, and it's fine not to tip at all, especially in more casual settings like bars or cafes.In other cases, though, small tips may be warranted.
At table-service restaurants, the tipping etiquette and procedure vary slightly from country to country. But in general, European servers are well paid, and tips are considered a small bonus — to reward great service or for simplicity in rounding the total bill to a convenient number.
Tipping in hotels in Spain is rarely expected except in cases of exemplary service or if you solicit special services. The most commonly tipped employees are the porters and chambermaids. If a porter helps to carry your bag(s) to your room the customary tip is €1 or €2 per bag, usually no more than 5 Euros total.
When to tip your hotel room cleaners. Some travelers like to leave one tip for hotel housekeeping at the end of their stay. But most experts say it's better to leave a tip every day of your trip. “We recommend tipping nightly, as your room may be serviced by different people,” said Ten Eyck.
In Spain, tipping is entirely optional and it's not very common. You may see people leaving small change at cafés and bars and, eventually, someone tipping at a nice expensive restaurant. But most of the time, you won't see anyone other than tourists leaving a tip.
Is it rude to not leave a tip at the hotel? In many ways, there is no wrong way to tip. However, in countries like the U.S. where workers depend on tips to supplement salaries, it can be considered rude not to do so.
Japan. Unlike Spain, Japan is a country where you should not tip at all; it's actually offensive. In the majority of Japanese restaurants a bill is not brought to the table. Instead, payment is accepted at the bar, so even trying to leave a tip for the waiter can be tricky.
In Greece it's considered bad form to leave a single euro, even for a small total — if service isn't already included in the bill and it's for, say, €10, leave a €2 tip. Iceland is an emphatically no-tipping country.
She explains that in Japan, tipping is similar to giving a child an allowance, or as it's referred to in Japan, an “okozukai.” So giving a working adult something akin to an allowance comes across as condescending.