Mainstream Cruise Line
Carnival Gratuities
The daily gratuity rate, the bar service charge, and how to prepay or adjust tips on a Carnival cruise in 2026, verified against the official policy.
Quick answer
Carnival adds $17 per guest per day in automatic gratuities, rising to $19 in suites. You can prepay them before you sail, and adjust or remove them at guest services on board.
Daily gratuity rate
Standard stateroom
$17 per guest / day
Suite
$19 per guest / day
Carnival's recommended gratuities are $17.00 per person per day for standard staterooms and $19.00 for suites, charged to every guest except children under 2 and regardless of dining choice. A separate 20% service charge is added to bar and beverage purchases, specialty dining fees, and some main dining upsells.
Bar service charge
20% on drinks
Carnival adds 20% automatically to bar and beverage purchases, on top of the daily gratuity.
Prepaying and adjusting
- Can prepay before sailing
- Yes
- Can adjust or remove on board
- Yes
Prepay when booking, on carnival.com up to two days before sailing, or through a travel agent. If not prepaid, the daily amount posts to your Sail & Sign account during the cruise. You may adjust gratuities at Guest Services while on board; once you disembark, the posted amount is final.
Frequently asked questions
How much are gratuities on a Carnival cruise?
Can I remove or adjust gratuities on Carnival?
Can I prepay gratuities on Carnival?
Does Carnival add a gratuity to drinks?
More on Carnival
Gratuities on other cruise lines
Travel data researcher and publisher
Caden Sorenson runs Travel Vient, an independent travel research site built on a verified database of airline baggage rules, airport connection times, cruise line policies, and eSIM plans. He built the verification pipeline behind it: each record is read from the company or government page that publishes it (connection times: OAG data via ExpertFlyer), stored with that source link and the sentence it came from, and re-checked on a schedule. He is a senior staff engineer with 15+ years building software, a Computer Science graduate of Utah State University, and based in Logan, Utah.
Figures link to the source they were read from and show the date last checked; some cite a travel publication or aggregator rather than the company.
Sources
Facts, costs, and travel details in this guide were verified against the following sources. See our research methodology for how we vet and update data.
- Carnival: Help accessed 2026-10-02
If a figure looks wrong, email hello@vient.org, see how we handle corrections, or browse past fixes in our public changelog.
Cruise lines change gratuity rates without notice. Confirm with the line before you sail.