Start with the restaurant subtotal before tax, add the tax shown on your receipt, and choose the amount on which you want to calculate your tip. Then add any existing service charge and divide the final total. Check every line first: a service charge may already be included.

Calculate the bill in four steps

  1. Open the Tolibox tip and split bill calculator and enter the meal subtotal. Don't enter a tax-inclusive total in this field.
  2. Copy the receipt's tax amount into its separate field. This is a dollar amount, not a tax percentage.
  3. Enter an existing service charge, if present, and choose your additional tip percentage. Select whether that tip applies before or after tax.
  4. Enter the number of people sharing the check and select Calculate.

For a $100 meal with $8 tax, a chosen 20% tip on the pre-tax subtotal adds $20. With no service charge, the final bill is $128. Three people can pay $42.67, $42.67 and $42.66. Those one-cent differences matter: three payments of $42.67 would exceed the bill.

What changes when you tip after tax?

Using the same receipt, the tip base becomes $108. At 20%, the tip is $21.60 and the final bill is $129.60. The tool makes this choice visible instead of silently deciding for you. The percentage in this example demonstrates the arithmetic; it isn't a required or recommended tip.

Is a service charge the same as an extra tip?

Don't assume so. The IRS distinguishes service charges from voluntary tips. Ask the restaurant what an unclear charge covers before adding more. Tolibox adds an entered service charge once and excludes it from the tip base.

The split is equal by person, not by individual menu item. If diners ordered very different amounts, agree on another allocation. You can change any field and calculate again; the previous result is hidden until you update it.

Prepared by the Tolibox editorial team. Follow the tool links above to try the examples.