How much to tip for free walking and private tours?

I share your concern. Recently, in preparation for a Scandinavian adventure, I searched for "free walking tours" of Reykjavik, and signed up for one to take place on the morning of arrival. But, as we were instructed by our tour guide Johannes, an Icelandic native, "nothing is free".
The tour lasted about two hours, starting in front of the Icelandic Parliament building and ending at the pond near the waterfront. A good intro to a fascinating city. I gave him 2000 Icelandic Krona - which is about $19. The method of delivering payment was a little mysterious.....Johannes explained we were now at the end of the tour, and as he removed his backpack and placed it on the ground with the top open, stated that he was going to walk down the path a short distance, giving us an opportunity to place our "payment" anonymously inside his pack, kindly reminding us that there was no obligation to pay him anything but also restating that "nothing is free". A trusted relationship on many levels.
There were 35 people on this " free tour", but I cannot report if my "payment" was appropriate or consistent with others on the tour. I hope I did right by him.
Iceland is expensive....maybe I should have taken that into greater consideration.

There's been some discussion here in the past about this. I've heard that in some cases the tour guides are required to pay the tour operator based on the size of the tour group. Sometimes they take a photo of the group which they say they'll post on their web site, but the real reason for this is to provide a headcount to the tour operator. So if the guides don't get enough in tips, they have to pay out of their own pocket. I don't know if this is true or not, but I have seen it posted here.

Personally, I never feel obligated to give any tip for something that's free, but I'm always happy to tip according to the value of the tour. If there's pressure to tip, that makes me feel less inclined to be generous. One of the main factors I take into account during the tour when deciding about tipping is how does the guide engage with people while walking from stop to stop. I will often attempt to walk alongside the guide and ask follow-up questions. And sometimes the guides will go out of their way to engage with people individually. Also, they often go "off script" in a way that is entertaining and enlightening, and this also earns them my appreciation in the form of a generous tip.

My advice: give as little or as much as your feel is appropriate, and don't feel pressured to give more than that.

Enjoy!

I believe it's understood that on "free" tours you are expected to "tip" the guide. I often take the free tours in stead of TI walking tours on the theory that a guide working for tips is going to try harder than a city employee. In Spain, I took 2 TI walking tours in Barcelona, both were excellent. In Madrid I took 1 TI tour that was so-so. In Sevilla, I took a free tour that was excellent. For a free tour, I'd say about what you'd pay for a TI or similar tour, a little more if the guide was very good. When I've taken private tours that were very good, I've invited the guide to lunch or drinks.

I recall a bus tour in New York where the guide repeatedly droned on about tips to the point that it became almost the whole focus of her patter.

I gave her a dollar.

I've paid for the tour (an expensive one at that) and as far as I'm concerned that fee should include the services of the guide as it does everywhere else in the world. Why should I then feel pressured to pay more? The price for the tour was comparable to others I've taken elsewhere so if the company aren't paying their guides then they are making a very healthy profit. I don't see why I or anyone else should pay twice.

Free tours are a different matter, I'll tip according to a) how much I enjoyed it and b) how much I have in my wallet.

Another thread mentioned $15 or $20 per person. Americans are known to be generous tippers however.

It's worth mentioning that if you take a "Greeter" tour, like Paris Greeters, they do not accept tips. They might recommend that you contribute to the Greeter organization, and maybe you can buy them a cup of coffee or drink if the opportunity presents itself, but they won't take cash. And from my experience and all I've read here, the Greeters are top-notch.

To add onto Celeste's post, to find out whether greeters are in the cities of interest, the website to check is Global Greeters. There is a chapter in Cordoba and Granada (I'll be signing up for these for November). They are not, however, trained tour guides. They are vetted volunteers who love their city and want to show a part of it to visitors.

That's indeed a very interesting question as the answer is complex since it's very ingrained into the specific culture you might be referring to.

Tipping is seen and understood very differently in different cultures -and note I say "culture", not "country" because it so happens in some parts of the world (ie here in Europe this is very common), political borders do not necessarily match cultural borders or, as it often happens, several cultures with different traits and ways of doing things might be co-existing within the same country. Furthermore, tipping is also a very delicate matter since "more is not always better", on the contrary, sometimes over-tipping is perceived as rude and offensive and in some cultures tipping in itself is not part of the traits of that society.

To complicate things more, it's sometimes also a generational thing. For example in my own culture here in Catalonia -which is very "egalitarian", and "fairness" is always important- elderly people tend to tip more often but younger generations not necessarily. The reason lays in the fact we had something called "minimum salary" incorporated in our legislation in the 1960s so nowadays everybody gets paid, at the very least, a "minimum salary", that is annually agreed between the Government and the major unions, and which is automatically increased according to different parameters, normally indexed to inflation and cost of living, albeit lately is rather more a fixed %. So, "theoretically" this allows a person to live on one's earnings. Yet this is debatable, of course, because the cost of living is not uniform across the country.

This "legal safeguard" changed over time the tipping culture of younger generations since now the helping the worker to reach ends meet was no longer needed (again, theoretically!), nowadays, tipping is more related to service, or rather the perception of it, the fairness of the barter: has the person serving/attending me gone beyond what it was expected?, if so, a tip is given, if not, then no tipping.

So, for example, "tipping" here in my homeland, and in my city: Barcelona (and in my generation, 35-54) generally speaking works by "rounding up" the bill, and only in the services industry, of course! Let's say you take a taxi, and the fare is 10.80€, you'll round up to 11; you have a snack in a coffee shop and the bill is 23.60€, you'll probably round up to 25; the same case on a restaurant with a bill that's 114€, that might be rounded up to 120€. As you can see in the pattern, tipping is somehow related to the total amount... but only (only!) IF the service received is perceived to be beyond expected.

No tipping is perfectly acceptable and is also common -regrettably, a lot of people in the service industry don't see the need to go beyond what's expected.

I believe this "introduction" was necessary and important since this is a forum with a large chunk of US members and the tipping culture in, say, the restaurant scene there is rather different ---and, if I may, despairingly abusive from our point of view, although I understand your labour circumstances are different.

Tour guiding is a highly professionalized occupation here. Guides fall into three categories:

• official tour guides, which have undergone a university education on the matter and a specific exam to become official tour guides. They might be working for the TI, in private companies or freelancing.
• freelancers, many of which (albeit not all!) have also gone thru a specific higher education focused on art, history, architecture, etc. They tend to freelance for small tour guide companies. They haven't concurred to get the official exam but this doesn't necessarily make them less qualified since, as you'll agree, besides knowledge, attitude and passion are also key ingredients in a good tour guide. Note they can't enter into museums or most attractions while accompanying a tour as they're not "official tour guides".
• pirates, hustlers that with little or no knowledge of the city's history, art, etc. burst into the profession offering lousy tours at rock-bottom prices. Be suspicious on "over-the-top" charm... this group is full of charlatans. They tend to be working under-the-table without paying taxes or having any sort of legal cover. Sadly, many expats and passersby are among this group. This, of course, doesn't mean there aren't also many expats working in the industry in one of the above groups. Pirates do a lot of harm to the industry because the quality of their services is totally unacceptable and one's feeling at the end of the tour is often that you've been taken for a ride. It's highly advisable to avoid feeding these trolls. Fortunately, though, there aren't that many of these.

Well, after all this rambling...

For a FREE walking tour in BARCELONA ( the heart of the Catalan culture, which is said to be a bit stingy at times, LOL!) that has gone beyond your expectations, a tip between 5 and 10€ would be considered generous without bordering the ridiculous. Note many of your fellow "tour-goers" will be giving between 2-3 to 10€ per person. and rarely 15€ and above -that's a confidence I got from the partner of one of the most popular free tours here in Barcelona.

A PRIVATE tour -"private" as in for you and your family/partner only- is a whole different ball game... labour costs are high here in Catalonia, so in those you're handsomely paying, in comparison, to have someone at your disposal for half a day, and 250 to 500€ and more is not unusual for a few hours. Furthermore, the policy in many small tour companies (which are the majority here) is to split a generous % with the guide. For all these reasons, tipping in these tours is rather a levelled field without any "rules", and it might go from a symbolic 10-20€ to whatever. In any case, note the guide is already getting paid a % of what you've paid...

Enjoy!

Disclaimer and a note to tour guides and restaurant owners... maybe "your" company does things differently, the above are simply generalisations, don't jump to my throat!

PS: Know though that irrationally over-tipping can even be offensive to many professionals.

--end of post--

Another hearty endorsement for the city Greeters tours. We have been on several and prefer them over commercial (free or otherwise) tours. With one exception. More on that in a minute.
The Greeters tours are given by volunteers who not only show you their city but also give you insights into what life is like in the city or area you are visiting. There is no canned patter and you aren't part of a mob of tourists trying to hear what is being said or crowding the sidewalk trying to see what the guide is yammering on about. As was mentioned previously, with each tour we have stopped for refreshments with the guide and of course we have paid and we always make a contribution on the Greeters website after the tour of €20 per person.
The only other 'commercial tour' we would recommend is Hidden City Tours in Barcelona. The tours are conducted by people who are homeless or formerly homeless. I strongly urge you to read the reviews and the website as it's not what you might think and definitely was one of the highlights of our visit in Barcelona. In that instance, we paid for the tour and we tipped our guide generously, commensurate with the value of the tour to us. If you enjoy a tour it will be as a result of an informed and interesting guide and I believe that is worthy of a tip. In the instance of the private guide, I would suggest you consider a tip of 10 -20% of the cost of the tour and for the free tour, tip approximately the cost of a group tour per person if you enjoyed it and scale down if it was just OK.

Thank you Enric. We will be in Spain in two months and your comments on tipping are timely and much appreciated.

There have been several threads on this very subject. Here is one that is fairly recent: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/tips-for-tour-guides-of-free-walking-tours

Thanks @traylaparks... note though my insistence on the "culture" vs "country" part.... Spain is not a country -not in the traditional sense that is- and several cultures, quite different among them, co-exist (well... more or less!). Not only they have different heritage, values and even language, but also customs, so tipping, for example, is quite different in Barcelona (capital city of Catalonia) than, say Seville (capital city of Andalucia), or Vitoria-Gasteiz (capital city of Euskadi, also known as Basque Country).

Thanks everyone for your time to help us out!