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Layover guideToronto · YYZ · YTZ

Tipping in Toronto

Ontario law treats a tip as the employee's money, and treats a service charge on the bill as a tip.

Markus Spiske / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
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The legal definition covers three things: a payment voluntarily made or left by a customer to an employee, a payment voluntarily made by a customer to the employer for employees, and a service or similar charge imposed by the employer where a reasonable person would believe the payment would be kept by an employee or shared among employees.

An employer is prohibited from withholding, making deductions from, or making an employee return their tips, except as the Employment Standards Act permits. Debit card processing fees and any other type of processing fee cannot be deducted. Credit card processing is the exception: the definition of a tip excludes the greater of the tip multiplied by the percentage the credit card company charges and the tip multiplied by 1.5 per cent.

Tips can lawfully be pooled and redistributed among some or all of the employees at the workplace, so a tip left on a card does not necessarily go to the person who served you.

Because a service charge already counts as a tip, adding a further amount on top of one is a second gratuity rather than a correction to an untipped bill.

  1. Government of Ontario: tips or other gratuities · checked 2026-09-03

The rest of Toronto

The whole guide
Getting out of the airportUP Express runs between Terminal 1 and Union Station in 28 minutes, every 15 minutes, from 05:27 to 00:54 out of Pearson on weekdays and from 06:24 at weekends and on holidays.Ride-hailingHail a taxi on the street or take one from a stand and it must charge the City-regulated rate. Book through an app and you agree the price before the trip starts.Local laws that catch crew outCannabis is legal to buy at 19 in Ontario and a serious criminal offence to carry across the Canadian border in either direction, with or without a medical document.Staying connectedPearson's Wi-Fi is free, and subway platforms no longer have free Wi-Fi, but every station on Lines 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 has 5G.WeatherWinter is the operational fact here: at the airport, January does not average above freezing at any hour of the day.Eating near the crew hotelsEvery eating and drinking place posts its latest inspection notice at the door, the menu price may or may not include tax, and the alcohol clock stops at 02:00.What to buyThirteen per cent HST goes on at the till, and the customs quantity limits are tighter than most crew assume.