Singaporean questions tipping culture after restaurant app pre-selects tip on S$111.51 bill

A Singaporean woman has expressed her frustration on Reddit about what she perceives as an excessive tipping culture in the city-state. In a post on the r/singapore subreddit on August 17, the woman questioned the increasing prevalence of tipping practices in Singapore, which is typically associated with Western countries.

The woman recounted a recent dining experience at a restaurant, where she and another person received a bill of S$111.51, which already included a 10% service charge. She noticed that the payment screen had pre-selected a tip, which she promptly changed to 0% to avoid an additional tip on top of the service charge. However, the payment screen then asked if she wanted to round up her bill, adding S$3.49, approximately 3% more, to the total.

The woman acknowledged that she was not obligated to press the button, but she found the sequence of prompts—first the service charge, then the pre-selected tip, and finally the voluntary rounding up—to be excessive. She suggested that restaurants should simply charge a higher service charge upfront instead of adding charges at the time of payment.

Her post quickly gained attention on the forum, with over 940 upvotes and 240 responses in less than a day. Many commenters criticized the restaurant for this practice, with some arguing that restaurants should not sneakily add charges and that menu prices should include GST. Other commenters expressed their disapproval of the tipping culture altogether, stating that it should remain in the US and that Singapore should not adopt it.