Do You Ask for the Check in London? What’s Actually on the Bill

Money Guide · London

Written by Kat in London, United Kingdom

I paid at the counter before the drink was even in my hand, which is how it goes in a pub. Another night I asked for the bill at a table with waiters and it came over. Somewhere else I scanned a QR code stuck on the table and paid on my phone when I felt like leaving.

So, do you ask for the check in London? It depends where you are. Three routes, all of which I’ve done. At a table with waiters I ask. It doesn’t tend to turn up before I do. “Can I get the bill” does it. At a counter I pay before I get anything, which is how pubs work and how the coffee places I go to work. And since covid, some restaurants have stuck a little QR code on the table so you can pay off your phone and go when you want.

Every receipt on this page is a London one from August 2026. London is where I live, so London is what’s in my bag.

The other half of this, once you’ve got the bill in front of you, is that the tip is probably already printed on it. That part starts halfway down.

Getting the bill	Ask at the table, pay at the counter first, or scan the QR code. Depends on the place
The card machine	It comes to your table or you go up to it. Your card stays in your hand
Splitting	Sorted out at the machine or on the QR code. Not everywhere, common where I’ve been
Time slots	Restaurants give you one now, groups especially. Mine this weekend is 90 minutes
Service charge	15% on one of my August bills. 12.5% on the other. Some places I go to add nothing
Tipping on top	When a service charge is on there, I don’t
Pubs	I order at the counter. Some have a tip jar, some machines ask
Where these numbers come from	London. Every receipt here is a London one from August 2026
Works for	Anyone who’s just landed, or anyone who’s been quietly paying twice

How you actually pay

A table with waiters. I catch someone’s eye and ask. Nothing’s turned up before I’ve asked, which isn’t anyone being off with you.

The counter. In a pub I pay at the bar before I’ve got the drink in my hand. Same at the coffee places I go to, so there’s no bill at the end of the night.

A QR code on the table. You pay on your phone and go when you want.

If someone takes your order at the table, it’s the first one.

How to ask for the bill

“Can I get the bill” is what I say. “Can I have the check” gets understood perfectly well, they’ll just clock in about half a second that you’re not from here.

Or wave someone over and do the classic cheque-signing scribble in the air. They’ll bring it over.

The card machine and splitting the bill

My card has never left my hand in a London restaurant. Either the machine comes to the table or they’ll ask you to come up to it. There’s no version where somebody disappears with your card.

The machine arriving is also when you sort out who’s paying what. Each person can pay for their own, or different amounts, or percentages, whatever you’ve agreed at the table. Splitting isn’t something every place can do. It is very common in the ones I’ve been to, so ask rather than doing sums on a napkin.

The QR codes split it per person too.

The bit that annoys me about the QR ones is the sneaky little processing charge that comes with them. You don’t get that paying on the terminal. It still gets me every time.

Some places give you a time

One thing before you settle in for the night. Restaurants give you a time slot now. It isn’t one place being strict, it’s how booking has gone, so you can’t just sit there all evening the way you might have once. I booked a table for two for this weekend and they told me I’ve got it for 90 minutes. With a group they’ll set the time around the booking, so it’s worth knowing before you plan a long one. If it’s quiet they may well let you sit on longer, although that’s going to depend on their bookings and how the night is running.

Card or cash

Card has worked for everything I’ve paid for here, tip included. In the UK it has been unlawful since 13 January 2018 for a shop to charge you extra for paying with a particular debit or credit card, so you won’t get the 1.5% or whatever it is that gets added to the machine in Australia. The cost of taking the card sits with the business. My own guess is that’s why you’ll still find places that would much rather you paid cash.

Checked at gov.uk on 2 September 2026.

Cash has one advantage left. It definitely reaches the person you hand it to. Card tips have to be passed on under the 2024 rules, so that gap has narrowed. If you want one particular person to have it, cash in their hand has no steps in between.

Some smaller places are card only. Some are cash only. You can’t tell from outside and I’ve walked into both. A bakery I go to has a chalkboard up saying no Amex, which is its own little London tax if that’s the only card in your pocket.

What’s actually on the bill

Now the other half, which is the bit that catches people out.

I had two espresso martinis at Brasserie Zédel, 20 Sherwood Street, on a Friday afternoon in August 2026. Two at £15 each, so £30. Then:

A Discretionary Service Charge of 15% has been added to the bill.

£4.50 on top. £34.50 for two drinks.

The same night at Kumori, Denman Street, a proper dinner. £97 of food and cocktails, then an optional service charge at 12.5%, £12.13, taking it to £109.13.

Two restaurants, one day, five minutes apart on foot. One of them charged half as much again as the other for adding a percentage to a piece of paper. I didn’t know which I was getting until the bill landed either time. And the 15% was on two drinks rather than a meal, which I did not see coming.

Yes, you can ask them to take it off

Look at the wording on your own bill. Mine says “discretionary”. The other one says “optional”. The restaurant has told you, in print, on the paper in front of you, that this one is your call. That isn’t me being cheeky. That’s their word for it.

My rule is short. I never tip on top when a service charge has been added. If the service was poor I ask for it to come off. The way you do it is boring: “could you take the service charge off, please.” No speech. No explanation. It comes off.

My own reasoning for not doing it for sport: the person who looked after you all night is not the person who set the policy, so I keep it for when something actually went wrong.

So do you tip on top?

No. I don’t.

If there’s a service charge on the bill then that is the tip. Add another 10% to it and you’ve paid something like 25% for a dinner you’d already settled.

Where there’s no service charge on my bill I might round up or leave 10% if it was good. That’s my own habit rather than a rule. I’ve not surveyed anyone about theirs.

Counters and pubs

There’s nothing worse than being asked for a tip when you’re not getting table service. That’s my strongest opinion on any of this.

In August I bought a coffee and something to eat at a coffee shop on Bishopsgate. £8.20. When they turned the card machine round it offered me 10%, 15% or 20%, with No Tip sitting in the smallest box on the screen.

Twenty per cent. On a coffee I collected myself from a counter.

I’ve never said yes to that prompt at a coffee shop. The one exception is my favourite coffee people.

The same month I paid £21.50 at the counter at Lockdown Bakehouse and the till didn’t ask me for anything at all, because it wasn’t set up to. Two counters, one fortnight, one asking for a fifth on top and one not asking anything. The prompt is a setting. Press No Tip and think nothing of it.

Pubs work the same way for me. I order at the counter, I pay, I carry the drinks over. Some pubs have a tip jar you can put something into. Some of the machines come up with a tip option too. I don’t, unless the service has been genuinely exceptional. Then I’d rather put it on the next drink and buy them one. A pub with a restaurant side doing table service will show a service charge on that bill.

Where that money actually goes

If you’re going to leave 12.5% on a bill, it’s fair to want to know where it lands.

Since 1 October 2024 the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act has been in force. It covers every sector. A discretionary service charge counts as a tip under it, which is the bit that matters at the bottom of a restaurant bill. So:

• It has to be passed on to staff without deductions except in very limited scenarios such as tax.
• The business has to have a written tipping policy where tips come in more than occasionally.
• Staff can ask to see the tipping records, once every three months, going back three years.

That’s the thing I look at when I’m deciding whether to leave the 12.5% sitting where it is.

Checked at gov.uk on 1 September 2026.

Worth It / Not Worth It

If you’ve just moved here

Two habits to get into. The first is working out how the place takes your money before you sit there waiting: waiters means ask, a counter means pay first, a QR code means it’s on your phone. The second is reading the bottom of the bill before you reach for anything.

I’m not going to tell you how the people serving you are doing, because I don’t know. There’s a legal minimum wage here, which is a different sentence from anybody being comfortable. What I can tell you is what the paper does: in the sit-down places I go to, the tipping has been handled at the bottom of the page before I get to it.

The reflex worth unlearning is adding something at the end without looking. I paid that 15% at Zédel without reading it. I only worked out what I’d handed over when I pulled the receipt out of my bag that night.

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