Tip = Voluntary, and can be any amount. You can tip 1%, 10%, 30%, etc
Gratuity = Automatically added extra amount
When you decide to give you waiter 20%, that's a tip. When the restaurant enforces a 20% mandatory addition to pay their staff, that's gratuity
The culture differences is that in America (and Canada), tips are expected, and not tipping is very disrespectful. In the EU, tipping is not expected. It doesn't mean some places won't try to swindle you and charge gratuity, but it isn't the norm, and it upsets customers since they likely wouldn't have tipped on their own
England is also very different from the rest of the EU. Their culture is the hybrid of EU and North America. Similar to how Canadians use both metric and imperial, UK does as well for example
SunliMin t1_ja0etrq wrote
Reply to comment by BillyShears2015 in This cafe bill comes with a hint for splitting the cost by qwertymanman
Technically they are different things though
Tip = Voluntary, and can be any amount. You can tip 1%, 10%, 30%, etc
Gratuity = Automatically added extra amount
When you decide to give you waiter 20%, that's a tip. When the restaurant enforces a 20% mandatory addition to pay their staff, that's gratuity
The culture differences is that in America (and Canada), tips are expected, and not tipping is very disrespectful. In the EU, tipping is not expected. It doesn't mean some places won't try to swindle you and charge gratuity, but it isn't the norm, and it upsets customers since they likely wouldn't have tipped on their own
England is also very different from the rest of the EU. Their culture is the hybrid of EU and North America. Similar to how Canadians use both metric and imperial, UK does as well for example