Is Tipping Your Movers Required?

These days it seems like you have to tip everyone who does anything for you. From driving you in a taxi cab to delivering your food to delivering your mail, everyone expects a tip. Of course, some of these professions rely on tips to make a decent wage, so it’s only proper for you to tip them if you received good service. However, when it comes to professional movers, you might not know whether or not a tip is necessary, since you are probably already paying quite a bit to have them move your household in the first place.

To begin with, you never have to tip anyone if you feel like the service you received was not as good as it should have been. Tipping should always be reserved for people who go above and beyond their typical duties to help you have a better experience. Professional movers are no exception. You should only tip them if they go beyond your expectations in terms of service.

There are some things you can do to make your movers’ job more pleasant, though, that do not require a cash tip. You can offer them cold drinks if it’s warm out or coffee or hot chocolate if it’s cold out. If a move happens over a mealtime, it is always appropriate to provide food for the movers and anyone else who is helping you out. You can buy pizza or subs or make something they can eat quickly so it doesn’t slow down their progress.

If you do decide to tip your movers, there are some guidelines for how much per mover you should give. If you have one or two movers helping you out, you should tip between $40 and $60 for both of them. The higher end of this scale should be reserved for movers who had to navigate stairs or carry extremely heavy or awkward items. If there are more than two movers, $20 per mover is perfectly acceptable. You should give the entire tip to the person in charge of the moving crew so he can split it up after the move is completed.

Of course, as always, you control the exact amount of money you tip. Some people have been known to tip up to $100, but that would be for special cases where the movers did extraordinary tasks like helping with packing, carefully wrapping fragile items or helping you find something (or someone) you’ve lost. These are the marks of awesome movers and they should be tipped accordingly.