Tip clearance losses occur in every turbomachine. To estimate the losses in efficiency it is important to understand the mechanism of this secondary flow. Tip clearance losses are mainly caused by a spiral vortex formed on the suction side of the blade of a turbomachine, which induces a drag and also has an influence on the incident flow of the blades. In this paper a physical based scaling method is developed out of an analytical ansatz for the tip clearance losses. This scaling method is validated by measurements on an axial fan with five different tip clearances.