Split rent calculator
Work out what each housemate owes for rent and bills, split evenly or weighted by room size when the rooms are not the same.
The even split
If everyone has a comparable room, this is the whole job. Write the rent, write each bill under it, then divide.
rent 1650 | + | 1,650 |
internet 45 | + | 45 |
electricity 88 | + | 88 |
water 32 | + | 32 |
council tax 164 | + | 164 |
split by 3 | = | 659.67 |
| Total | 1,979 |
Each person owes 659.67. Change any single figure (the electricity bill, say) and the share re-reads immediately.
When the rooms are not equal
An even split stops being fair the moment one room has an en suite and another barely fits a bed. The usual fix is to split the bills evenly, because everyone uses them roughly equally, and split the rent by room.
Name the rent line, then take a share of it for each room:
total rent 1650 | + | 1,650 |
large room: total rent * 0.4 | = | 660 |
double room: total rent * 0.34 | = | 561 |
single room: total rent * 0.26 | = | 429 |
| Total | 1,650 |
The three shares add back to exactly 1,650. That is the check worth doing: if your percentages do not sum to 1, somebody is paying for a room that does not exist.
Picking the percentages is a negotiation, not a formula, but two rough anchors help. Floor area is the easiest to defend and easy to measure. Beyond that, an en suite, a double bed, or a bay window are usually worth a few points; a room over the boiler or beside the front door is usually worth a few points less.
Bills that arrive on different dates
Quarterly water, monthly internet and an annual TV licence do not line up, which is where most shared-house spreadsheets fall apart. Put everything on the same footing before you split, by dividing the odd ones down to a month:
water quarterly 96 becomes water: 96 / 3, and tv licence 169.50 becomes tv: 169.50 / 12. Both then sit in the same monthly column as the rest.
Someone moved in halfway through
Charge them for the days they were actually there. If the month has 30 days and they arrived on the 16th, that is 15 days:
their share: 659.67 / 30 * 15
Then reduce what everyone else owes by the same amount, or hold it against next month. The point of writing it as a line rather than doing it in your head is that the housemate can see the working, which is usually the difference between a quick agreement and a long conversation.
Split your own bills →Questions
How should we split rent if the rooms are different sizes?
Split the bills evenly and the rent by room. Floor area is the easiest basis to agree on, adjusted a few points for an en suite, a double bed or a lot of natural light. Whatever percentages you pick, check they add back to the full rent.
Should the deposit be split the same way as the rent?
Usually yes. If someone pays 40 per cent of the rent they normally put in 40 per cent of the deposit, and get 40 per cent back. Keep it as its own sheet, since the deposit is returned rather than spent and mixing it into the monthly total will distort what you owe.
What about a couple sharing one room?
Two people in one room use more of the shared bills than one person does, so a common arrangement is to split rent by room and bills by head. A couple then pays one room share of the rent and two shares of the bills.
Is this bill splitter free?
Yes. There is no account and no limit, and nothing you type is uploaded. The arithmetic runs inside your own browser.
Can I send the split to my housemates?
Use Share link and the whole sheet is encoded into the web address, so sending the link sends the working. Export will also copy it as a plain-text summary to paste into a group chat.