Is there a polite and correct way to give the wanted amount of tip in the restaurant when you have no suitable cash?

Tipping is very cultural. There are places that don’t expect tips (like Japan) and places that expect a 20% tip even when service isn’t great (e.g. the USA) with lots of places in between where tipping is 10-15% and you are not expected to tip if you did not enjoy the service.

My advice for travelers is to check. Places like WikiTravel contain sections on tipping, for example for Switzerland it’s:

Tipping isn’t mandatory. You can leave something if you want, but you’re not obligated to. Unlike other countries, restaurant staff have very high salaries and tips are normally included in the price of your meal.

This has also been my personal experience during my trips in Switzerland. The nice thing is that it has also been my experience traveling to any other country 🙂

If you would still like to tip my advice would be to ask a local, as other answers indicate this depends a lot on the customs and culture of the country and in most countries where tipping is common there is technology to accommodate it (like an extra choice in the credit card payment terminal).

It is also totally fine to ask your waiter how to tip, I am sure that’s a question they’ll be happy to answer.

Where I live and due to covid, people have almost forgotten about cash! we use electronic payments in everything to the point I see banks started to remove some ATMs because people do not need cash as they used to.

However, I have the same issue like you, I love to tip and I feel guilty if I didn’t, but cash isn’t available on me at all times, but technology comes to the rescue!

We have a local payment app for individuals, I ask the waiters/delivery people if they have that app installed, if they do I ask them to show me the QR code and I simply scan it and tip them the amount I wish, which then goes directly to their account.

If there is a popular payment app in your country as we do, it will not harm you to ask if the waiter has it installed and use it!

Swiss resident here: when they tell you the amount you have basically the following options when paying with a debit/credit card:

• show the card without comment → they will put the exact amount into the POS-terminal, hand it over to you for payment;
• show the card and tell them a new amount with your tip → they will thank you, put in the amount you said, hand the terminal over to you for payment.

Almost all establishments accept "upped" card payments and everywhere where I asked, the waiters told me that the owners do honorable bookkeeping and distribute the gathered extra amount (tips) as part of the salary.

Usual tip varies amongst Swiss/residents:

• you can go without leaving any tip (especially if you are not happy with the food/service or are a small earner), nobody expects tip, they are earning a living wage
• if you are earning well/showing off/are very happy with the place/food/service, leave a tip of up to 10%, excessively more is unusual. Usual is to round up: small amounts (up to let’s say 50) to the next full Franc or add 1-2 (e.g., 27.80 to 30.00), medium amounts (up to let’s say 100) to the next 5/10 (e.g., 66.60 to 70.00, 68.90 to 75.00), larger amounts round and add some but not much more than 10%.

Just hand over the smallest note you have and ask “Can you please break this note for me?” or “Could you get me some change?”. In French “Pourriez-vous me faire de la monnaie?”. Don’t know the equivalent in other languages, sorry. I’ll make this a community answer so people can add other versions.

Note that the more upscale the establishment, the larger the notes/coins you will get if you don’t specify. You would get a 10 and two fives from a 20 for instance (meaning they expect a tip of 5 or 10), or even two notes of 10, where in other places you would be sure to get a few coins of 1 or 2 of whatever currency.

So you can specify, adding “could you get me coins/notes of X”.

In Germany when asking to pay, I typically will tell the waiter upfront I will be paying with card. Mostly it goes like this, the waiter brings the machine to the table and will tell the total amount. When handing them the card, I will tell them amount that I want them to charge and that’s what they run.

Occasionally they will pre-populate the charge to coax a cash tip out of you, but than they are mostly out of luck. I don’t consider it my responsibility to carry convenient cash with me and cash tips are somewhat questionable: it’s a huge temptation to not share with the back end staff and for tax evasion.

Back when credit cards were done with different technology that used to only allow one number to be entered, I used to tell the person (typically a cab driver) the total to put in. For example, the driver might say "that will be 16.50" and I would hand them my card and say "put it through for 20" and they would say "thankyou!" understanding the difference was to be the tip.

Since your waiters don’t know they need the machine until you give them your card, you can say as you hand it over "please add X for a tip" and they won’t put the zero in for you.