Trip Expense Splitter
List who traveled, who paid for what and who shared each cost. Get the exact amount everyone owes and the short list of payments that settles it all
Your trip
Travelers
ShareExpenses
Informal bookkeeping for friends and family, not accounting, tax or legal advice. Results are only as accurate as the amounts and exchange rates you type.
How to use this tool
- Pick the trip currency and, if some bills were paid in another currency, a second currency with your own exchange rate.
- List every traveler. Change Share only when someone should pay a different portion, such as 0.5 for a child.
- Add each expense with its amount, who paid and who shares it. Everyone is ticked by default; untick anyone who did not use it.
- Read the payments list, then use Copy Result to send it to the group.
Worked example
Alex, Sam and Jordan spend 594.80 in total: a rental house (360.00, paid by Alex), groceries (94.50, Sam), fuel (62.30, Alex) and a dinner that only Alex and Jordan attended (78.00, Jordan). Alex paid 422.30 but owes 211.27, so gets back 211.03. Sam paid 94.50 and owes 172.27, so owes 77.77. Jordan paid 78.00 but owes 211.26, so owes 133.26. Two payments settle everything: Jordan pays Alex 133.26 and Sam pays Alex 77.77. The fuel bill does not divide evenly (62.30 ÷ 3), so its 2 leftover cents go to the first two travelers in the list instead of vanishing.
Methodology
Every amount is converted to whole minor units (cents, pence, yen) before anything is divided, using the number of decimals the browser's Intl.NumberFormat reports for the chosen currency under ISO 4217: 2 for the euro and the dollar, 0 for the yen and the Chilean peso. Working with integers means totals can never drift by a fraction of a cent, and the shares of an expense always add back to exactly what was paid.
Five ways group trips go wrong with money
Most trip arguments come from the arithmetic, not the friendship. Here is what this splitter is built to avoid.
- Losing a cent. 100.00 shared by three is not 33.33 × 3. The tool pays out 33.34, 33.33 and 33.33, which adds up to 100.00.
- Charging everyone for a dinner some skipped. A 78.00 dinner for two is 39.00 each; spread over three it would be 26.00, so the two who ate would underpay. Untick whoever was not there.
- Treating a child like an adult. A 300.00 rental for two adults and a child at 0.5 share splits into 120.00, 120.00 and 60.00.
- Paying everyone back bill by bill. If Ana paid 200.00 and Bruno 120.00 for four people, settling each bill separately means up to six transfers. Netting the balances needs three: Carla pays Ana 80.00, Dani pays Ana 40.00 and Bruno 40.00.
- Using a different exchange rate per person. A 45.00 dinner at a rate of 1.05 is 47.25 for the whole group. Type the rate you actually got once, and everyone sees the same figure.
This is informal bookkeeping among friends, not accounting advice.
Packing & Travel Essentials
Small things that make a group trip easier: weigh your bag, keep documents safe and stay organized
Digital Luggage Scale, Portable Hanging Scale, 110 lb Capacity, Backlit LCD
Hang it on the suitcase handle and check the weight at home, before airline baggage limits catch you out at the airport.
TOPBAG Family Passport Holder, RFID Blocking Travel Document Organizer
One waterproof organizer for passports, cards and boarding passes, so the whole group's documents stay together.
BAGAIL 8-Piece Packing Cubes Set for Luggage, Cream
Eight cubes in several sizes keep clothes and accessories sorted by person or by day, which makes shared rooms easier.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I split an expense when not everyone shared it? ▼
Tick only the people who used it in the “Split between” row of that expense. A 78.00 dinner for two travelers becomes 39.00 each, and the others are not charged. Whoever paid is credited with the full amount, whether or not they are among the people ticked.
What do I do with a bill paid in another currency? ▼
Choose a second currency, type the exchange rate you actually got (the card statement or the receipt shows it), and set that expense to the second currency. The tool converts it once and rounds to the smallest unit of the trip currency, so every traveler sees the same figure. It never fetches live rates, which keeps your data in the browser and means nothing here goes out of date.
Why can the amounts differ by one cent from my phone calculator? ▼
A bill that does not divide evenly leaves cents that somebody has to carry. The tool gives the extra cents to the travelers listed first, so the shares always add up exactly to what was paid. A calculator that rounds each share separately can end up one cent short or over.
Are the payments really the fewest possible? ▼
They always settle every balance and never exceed the number of travelers minus one. Finding the true minimum is a famously hard problem, so in rare cases a different grouping could save a single transfer. The amounts are exact either way.
Can I split by ratio instead of equally? ▼
Yes, use the Share box. Weights work like ratios: 2 and 1 means two thirds and one third of every bill that both share. Allowed values run from 0.1 to 10, and values outside that range are clamped.