Tipping drivers and guides in Greece: custom, not a rule

Tipping a private driver or a licensed guide in Greece is a custom, not a rule: no price of Greece Private Tours includes a tip and none expects one, and no official source publishes a figure, so this page prints none. Below: who to tip, when, and how, on a tour of 4 to 14 hours, and why the pages that print amounts disagree with each other.

Is a tip expected?

No. A tip in Greece is thanks for a day that went well, given at the end if you want to give it; it is not a service charge, it is not in our price and nobody will ask you for it. The price you pay for a tour is the price of the tour, and the driver is paid for the day by the company, not by your tip.

How much?

We print no figure, and here is why. No law, ministry or trade body in Greece publishes a tipping rate for drivers or guides; the pages that do print one disagree with each other, one giving an amount per day, another per person per day, a third a share of the tour price, and none of them names a source or a date. A figure copied from them would be a guess dressed as a fact. What we can say is the basis people use when they do tip: the driver’s tip is for the driver and the guide’s for the guide, a full day earns more thanks than a short one, and a group gives once, not per person, when it wants to. If you would like our own suggestion for your day, ask the office when you book and you will get a plain answer.

Driver, licensed guide, or both?

They are two people with two jobs. The driver drives, waits at every stop and gives practical orientation for the whole day; a licensed guide, when you have asked for one, walks the site with you for the hours inside it and is paid separately, as the driver-or-guide guide explains. If you tip, each is thanked on their own; a tip handed to the driver does not reach the guide, and the other way round.

When and how?

At the end, at the drop-off, hand to hand, in euros: a card payment to the office is the tour price and reaches no individual as a tip, and our tours are paid to the driver on the day in any case, so the tip is simply added then if you choose. Small notes are easier than one large one, and a word of thanks with it is the custom.

A full-day example

An 8-hour day in Athens with a driver and a licensed guide at the Acropolis: two people, two possible thanks. The guide’s part ends when you leave the site; the driver’s at the terminal or the hotel eight hours after the pickup. On a 4-hour Santorini tour with the driver alone there is one person and one moment, the exit of the cable car’s top station or your hotel door. On a 14-hour day to Meteora the driver has driven for eight and a half hours by the end, which is the kind of day the custom has in mind.

Restaurants, taxis and the rest

This page is about our drivers and the guides we book; for restaurants, cafés and taxis we have nothing sourced to add, and we would rather print nothing than a guess. The price guide lists what is and is not in a tour price.