Have you ever wondered how much to tip in México?
I’m here to help you, friend.
I live in a city that is known as the “Happiest Place on earth”, TIJUANA.
I will start explaining tips in my city. Here isn’t is too difficult if you are familiar with tipping in the United States; in restaurants normally is according to service in a range to 10 to 20%; in some places your food can be very cheap, so consider about 1 USD for person.
In many bars you are expected to pay everythime you ask for a drink (not at the end), so you can give them like 1 dollar for drink, or 5 dollars the first and then none.
We usually don’t tip Taxi drivers, unless they help you with your bags, but if you tell them to keep the change or 1 dollar, they will be very happy with that.
*Same rules from Tijuana, apply to Mexico City and Cancun (this one on the expensive side)
All of this is too much like the american style, mainly because we live in a border; many people is from USA and we are used to it.
But the more you are going to center-south of the country, the cheapest the food and service will be, also the tipping.
In most parts of Mexico you are not expected to tip the taxi Drivers, but the tour guides will almost evertytime ask for a tip if you enjoyed the tour.
In coffee shops (were they sell coffee, not like the ones in Amsterdam) the will have a tipping jar, so you aren’t expect to but yo can leave your change or a dollar on it.
And the last one (this applies for al the country); in the supermarkets they usually have elderly people packing your groceries in bags. You are expected to tip them (even though many people don’t) because the have no salary, they call them “volunteer packers” so, no social securty, no vacations, no anything.
At the beggining of this paragraph I told you these were elderly people and sometimes they even push your shopping cart to the parking lot and load your groceries to your car. So be nice and tip them well ($ 1 to $ 10 usd) according to your wallet and your hearth/