Percentage to tip a limo driver

Ten euro. Max.

Why would you tip a limo driver? What's the point in paying more than locals?
Italians do not tip, for sure not drivers and never a ridiculous 10 Euro or a 15-20%! For what, being alive? You agreed a price, the drivers' wage is none of your business.

Why not tip city bus drivers then? My father was a city bus driver in Florence. Nobody tipped him. And he wasn't making anywhere close what my neighbor friend's father made as a taxi driver.

No tips for limo drivers or taxi drivers please. Don't get them spoiled. They are already a privileged caste in Italy.

Personally I prefer to start with 15-20% even when country guidelines
recommend less.

That is straight up Ugly American behaviour. Please don't do that.

(I also assume that you don't have any problems with European and Asian tourists visiting the US and not tipping.)

In Italy tip is not an habit, except in few big tourists cities (Rome, Venice, Florence, and limited in touristic area).
Italian usually don't leave a tip (or maybe few euros) anywhere.
Isn't better a fair wage / tariff than a tip? Why so many tourists are travelling "on budget" or asking discounts and finally leave huge tips?
Of course for workers a tip is welcome, but why leave a tip to somebody and not to another? How many tips are collected by a waiter, but if your dish is perfect and on time is because there is a network of cookers and dish-washers that are silently doing their job. And after a strong service they receive nothing.

In a Italy it is out of the ordinary, therefore unexpected and can be taken a couple of ways. Big spender rich American flinging around money, sort of insulting. Or maybe gratitude at such a windfall. You will never know.

We tipped the guy who drove us from Salerno to the Rome Airport Hilton - 20 Euros. We tipped the guy who drove us to and from our hotel in Pompei to the Archeology Museum in Naples - 20 Euros.

20 Euro to tax cheating entrepreneurs that own the license in a restricted market, but I bet you have never sent a tip to Rick Steve's who's an honest entrepreneur subject to fiery competition in a free market.

Did you enjoy showing off and ignoring local customs? Good for you. Some need these small pleasures when traveling.

Tipping in Italy for anything is not needed.

Thanks for the many passionate comments.

I'm so grateful to read the replies from Italians about this topic.

Right or wrong (wrong in my opinion), in America we have a tip based service economy. That means that many people in the service industry are paid less than what might be expected for the labor performed. There is even a separate minimum wage for waiters / waitresses that is below the national minimum wage. Their income depends on the patrons subsidizing their income. Again, this is not right, but it is the way it is.

To not tip service people in America is considered to be very rude. You are actively hurting someone's income. Again, this should be a burden placed on their employer, but it is not. So if you don't tip someone you feel very guilty and are considered uncaring. You are often shamed publicly for being a bad tipper.

There are also mixed messages in guidebooks about tipping. We often read that it's not necessary, but "a few coins" is appreciated. Or that you tip for coffee but not for taxis, etc. It then becomes a moment of crisis when we are unsure if this is a tipping situation or not and in an effort not to offend we err on the side of tipping.

I can now see how this is seen as rude and as trying to impress people or appear superior. It is eye-opening and still feels a bit odd. As if someone told me that it would be rude to say "Thank You" to someone. It is that deeply ingrained in our culture. In the future, I will resist the urge to tip and just sit in my own discomfort about not doing so. I will remind myself of the words I've read here to be reassured that I am doing the right thing even though it feels wrong.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped

val's comments about wages in the US for 'tipped employees' needs to be 'footnoted' to show there is a wide variation, depending on where in the US one is.

Joe,

Thank you for the link. I'm always happy to be educated. It does look like this is starting to shift, but that the majority of US states still allow for tipped employees to be below that of minimum wage.

What has been your experience with tipping culture in the US? I'm 50 and have lived in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York City where server's minimum were lower then minimum for non-tipped employees. Tipping has been expected and not tipping was very much frowned upon.

I do hope it changes!

Regarding the practice of tipping waiters in the US, I invite you to read this article I read in the WaPo years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/18/i-dare-you-to-read-this-and-still-feel-ok-about-tipping-in-the-united-states/

Tipping a small amount to a waiter is understandable, although not the local practice in Italy. Waiters in Italy, may earn a living wage, but, except for some luxury restaurants, their salary is not at all high.

Regarding tipping Taxi drivers in Italy, that is a totally different matter, and I'll explain below the difference with American taxi drivers.

In the US the "taxi medallion" or license is often awarded to a company which may employ taxi drivers or, more often, lease the cab to an independent driver on a shift basis.

In Italy, by law, taxi licenses cannot be awarded to companies. They can only be given to 'individual taxi drivers'. Since the number of licenses cities award is severely restricted and much lower than the demand (taxis are a powerful lobby, and in fact Uber was banned in Italy), basically the few individuals who have a license have a monopoly (or better an oligopoly). The fares are for that reason very high and the taxi driver business is therefore very lucrative. Licenses are therefore sold for hundreds of thousand of euros, when a driver decides to quit, or, since it's a lucrative business, they are passed on from generation to generation. All the taxi drivers you see in Italy are independent entrepreneurs who definitely earn an above average income, they are not poorly paid employees immigrated from a third world country, as a matter of fact they are likely the only Italian workers you will deal with (nearly all restaurant and hotel workers are immigrants in big cities) since to be a taxi driver you must be an Italian citizen, and becoming a naturalized Italian citizen is not even that easy. In spite of this, taxi drivers are a category of entrepreneurs who (according to gov't statistics) dodge the tax man more than many others. Tipping a taxi driver in Italy is not like tipping a poorly paid employee at a restaurant, but it is equivalent of tipping your lawyer or your tax accountant or your physician on top of the fee you pay him/her for their services.

That is straight up Ugly American behaviour. Please don't do that.

(I also assume that you don't have any problems with European and
Asian tourists visiting the US and not tipping.)

I love this answer. We were on a Rabbies tour in Edinburgh last week, Americans, Canadians, Germans and an Australian on the tour. Only the Americans tipped, showering the driver/guide-a retired history teacher with tens and twenties. Talk about an awkward look by a guy.

I just returned from 1 1/2 weeks in southern Italy. For me, tipping this time was very awkward and confusing. Many restaurants went out of their way to tell us tips were not included. We probably over tipped in some situations (and under in others).

We used several private drivers/services (often the same person multiple times) and they seemed to be employed by larger companies. All the people we tipped seemed very appreciative.

This may come across as defensive, but my actions on tipping were derived from my gratefulness for the kindness and superior services we received, not from some place of feeling superior to those who provided those services to us. Tourism was non-existent for a long time due to covid and I was happy to make up a little for all that was lost by those in the tourism industry for so long. Maybe my instincts were wrong, but they are all I have. I am not very fond of shaming people when they make judgement errors (especially when it comes to puzzling local customs).

I have travelled to Europe many times (3 times to Italy in past few years) and try to educate myself about country appropriate customs. For this trip, tipping was the one thing that sort of threw me for a loop.

Only the Americans tipped, showering the driver/guide-a retired
history teacher with tens and twenties.

Did they at least tip in pounds or did they assume that US-dollars are useful in Scotland?

and try to educate myself about country appropriate customs

Well done, now you know that the appropriate customs is not to tip even if some waiter / driver would really want you to. Put yourself in their place, Why not telling all Americans that tips are not included? Half of the Americans will ignore the local customs and make them earn more under the table.

Any tip greater than zero is "overtipping", got it?

In the old days, I'd just round up to the nearest Euro or two to make it easier. With Contactless payment there is no line for a tip so.......

Every country in Europe is different. I've taken Rabbies tours and on one we had a great driver/guide. During breaks, he gave me help with things I wanted to do on other days and told me more about what was going on in Scotland at the time.. (He was passionate about his country and independence.) At the end of the tour, I handed him a fiver and said "Thanks for your help, have a pint on me." He didn't looked confused. He looked appreciative.

If someone performing a service goes above and beyond what was expected, I will show my appreciation. If not, I follow local customs.

A few years ago, a restaurant group in NYC decided it would pay its servers a proper wage and offer health insurance. It wanted a no tipping policy. All customers were told of the new policy and that there was no need to tip. After a few months, the restaurant group went back to its old ways. The customers hated the change and wanted it back to "normal" Americans have tipping ingrained in our systems.

Still. Gonna. Tip.