Tipping in Georgia: How Much to Tip in Tbilisi

Yes, for table service, and it's a thank-you rather than a fee. About 10% is normal in Tbilisi restaurants and bars, and Georgia's national tourism site calls 10 to 15% of what you paid the optimal tip.

The catch is that some bills have done it for you already. Tipping is the last step of eating out in Tbilisi, and it starts with reading the bill, not with counting out notes.

It shouldn't be. Since 12 February 2024, Georgia's Competition and Consumer Agency has expected restaurants to show the total price on the menu, VAT and any service charge included, so the price you read is the price you pay.

Tbilisi hasn't entirely caught up: reviews of a dozen places on our own lists, all from 2025 and 2026, describe 10 to 25% added on top of menu prices. So look under the food and drink for a line marked მომსახურება (momsakhureba, service) or a bare percentage, and if it's there, you've already tipped.

With no service line, leave about 10% for good table service, and closer to 15% when a waiter steered your order or kept a long dinner running. Round to a clean number rather than counting tetri: on a 68 GEL bill, leave 75.

With a service line, pay the total and stop there. A few extra coins are a kindness, not an expectation.

The bill	Typical total	About 10%
Dinner for 2 at a sit-down restaurant	40 to 80 GEL	4 to 8 GEL
Dinner for 6 at a Georgian restaurant	120 to 360 GEL	12 to 36 GEL
2 cocktails at a cocktail bar	50 to 70 GEL	5 to 7 GEL
Coffee and cake for 2 at a cafe	20 to 40 GEL	Round up the total

Totals use Google's per-person price bands for venues on our lists and the 25 to 35 GEL a cocktail that one cocktail bar reviewer quotes. With meal prices in Tbilisi where they are, dinner for 2 usually needs a single 5 or 10 lari note.

Even at a khinkali house with 6,541 Google reviews, reviewers thank waitresses by name, 4 times in 4 days of September. Go to the top of the range when a waiter walks you through the menu or builds your khinkali plate around what you like.

Bars run on the same 10%, with less ceremony: add it at a table when you settle up, and round each round up at the counter. The tip that plainly earns itself is the off-menu drink: reviewers at 3 of our cocktail bars mention custom cocktails, and at 2 of them describe bartenders building one around the flavours they like.

Cafes are simpler still. At a cafe counter, rounding the coffee up to the next lari is plenty, and a sit-down brunch with table service takes the same 10% as a restaurant.

One reviewer paid 12 GEL for a vegetable stir-fry at a takeaway wok counter, where you order, pay and collect. Counters like that expect nothing on top.

A courier tip is optional, and it's the one tip an app can pass on for you: Georgia's national tourism site says payment systems don't usually take a commission, so the courier gets 100% of an in-app tip. Bolt Food takes one at checkout when you pay by card or Bolt Balance, and on the other delivery apps, a few lari in cash at the door does the same job.

Tip a little more when the job was harder: a 5th-floor walk-up, a downpour, or a 2 AM order from across town. Rounding a cash payment up to the next 5 or 10 lari does it.

Pay the bill however you like and leave the tip in lari. Of the 202 venues on our lists whose Google listing records payment methods, 200 take cards or contactless, but the tourism site says a tip goes on at the terminal with cards from Bank of Georgia or TBC Bank.

At a supra you're somebody's guest, and the host settles the bill. A bill that bears no relation to the menu, arriving after a stranger walked you into a bar, isn't a tipping question either: it's the Tbilisi bar scam, and the number to call is 112.

Now and then a waiter asks for a tip outright, and one reviewer on our lists describes a request for 10%. You don't have to say yes, and pointing at the service line, if there is one, is a complete answer.