The short answer

For most food delivery orders, a tip of 15% to 20% of the order subtotal is the standard most etiquette experts point to. If you're looking for a general rule for services in the U.S., 15% to 20% of the bill is a common guide, according to most etiquette experts. For drivers specifically, food and grocery delivery drivers — people bringing food orders, like a pizza delivery or your week's groceries — should get a tip of at least 15%.

If you're picking up your own order instead of having it delivered, the math changes. If you're simply picking up an order from a restaurant, leaving a few dollars up to 15% is standard.

Bankrate's guidance lands in a similar place but frames it a bit differently for two common situations: restaurant delivery should get $5 or 20% of the meal price, whichever is greater, while grocery delivery runs 15% or 20% of your order total, or more for a large order.

Why the delivery fee doesn't count as a tip

It's easy to assume the "delivery fee" or "service fee" tacked onto your order covers the driver. It doesn't — that fee goes to the platform (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Instacart, Grubhub), not the person on your doorstep. The driver's pay comes from two separate things: a base payment from the app, and whatever you tip.

On DoorDash, for example, base pay is DoorDash's base contribution for each offer, ranging from $2 to $10 or more depending on the estimated time, distance, and desirability of the offer. That base amount doesn't move based on what you tip — every dollar a customer tips is an extra dollar in the Dasher's pocket, with 100% of tips going to the Dasher on top of base pay and promotions, and the amount DoorDash pays in base pay and promotions never varying based on the tip.

That matters because for a lot of orders, the base pay alone is closer to gas money than a wage. The tip is often the difference between a delivery that was worth the driver's time and one that wasn't.

When to tip more

A few situations call for bumping the tip above the standard range:

  • Bad weather. Bankrate notes that if your area has severe weather, if the driver has to walk up several flights of stairs, or if you're making a large order, tipping an extra 3 to 5 percent shows your appreciation for a difficult job.
  • Stairs or a hard-to-reach address. Same logic — more physical effort deserves more on top.
  • Large or heavy orders. A big grocery haul or a catering-sized food order takes longer to carry and load than a single bag.
  • Late night or early morning. Fewer drivers are working those hours, and the trip is less convenient for them.

Why your tip decides who shows up

On apps where drivers can see the expected payout before accepting a delivery, the tip isn't just a thank-you after the fact — it can affect whether anyone takes the order quickly, or whether it sits unclaimed while your food gets cold. This is one reason platforms increasingly show tip prompts earlier in the checkout process rather than after delivery.

New York City went a step further. As part of its delivery worker protections, the city requires delivery platforms to offer customers a clear tip option before or at checkout, rather than only after the delivery is complete. The change follows city findings that moving the tip screen to after delivery had significantly reduced how much customers tipped.

Are Americans actually tipping delivery drivers?

Fewer than you'd think, according to Bankrate's annual tipping survey. Among a long list of tipped services, servers at sit-down restaurants topped the list at 70 percent, followed by hair stylists and barbers at 54 percent and food delivery people at 52 percent. That means roughly half of customers don't tip delivery drivers consistently at all — which is part of why the amount you do leave carries extra weight.

The survey also found that tipping rates are stabilizing after years of decline, despite growing frustration with "tip creep." In other words, people are annoyed by being asked to tip more often, but most who were already tipping haven't stopped.

A simple way to think about it

You don't need a spreadsheet to tip fairly. A workable rule for most delivery situations:

  • Start at 15–20% of the order subtotal (before taxes and fees).
  • If that comes out to just a couple of dollars on a small order, round up — the driver still made the same trip regardless of your order size.
  • Add a little more for bad weather, stairs, a long distance, or a big or heavy order.
  • Remember the delivery fee you paid doesn't go to the driver, so it shouldn't factor into how much you tip.

Tipping is a personal decision and there's no legal requirement behind most of it, outside specific local rules like New York City's checkout-prompt requirement for delivery platforms. But if you've ever worked a gig job where the app's base pay didn't come close to covering gas and time, you already know why that extra few dollars at checkout matters to the person delivering your order.