Trip cost splitter
Add up what the group spent, divide it fairly, and work out the smallest set of payments that settles everyone up.
What the trip cost
Start by ignoring who paid for what. List everything the group spent, then divide it by the number of people to get the fair share.
hotel 640 | + | 640 |
flights 388 | + | 388 |
car hire 210 | + | 210 |
food and dinners 341 | + | 341 |
split among 4 | = | 394.75 |
| Total | 1,579 |
The trip cost 1,579, so a fair share is 394.75 each. Nothing about who paid matters yet.
Working out who owes whom
Now compare what each person actually put in against that 394.75. Anyone who paid more is owed the difference; anyone who paid less pays it in.
sam paid 640 | = | is owed 245.25 |
alex paid 388 | = | owes 6.75 |
jo paid 210 | = | owes 184.75 |
kim paid 341 | = | owes 53.75 |
The three amounts owed — 6.75, 184.75 and 53.75 — add up to exactly 245.25, which is what Sam is owed. If your two columns do not match, a cost is missing or counted twice.
That reconciliation is the whole trick. Rather than a tangle of small transfers between everyone, three people each send one payment to Sam and the trip is settled. In a group of four that is three transfers instead of up to six.
To do it in the scratchpad, write each person as a named line and subtract the share:
share: 394.75 then alex: 388 - share, and so on. A negative result means they owe that much; a positive one means they are owed it.
Costs that were not for everyone
Two people hired ski gear, one person did not drink, somebody had their own room. Do not force those into the shared pot — take them out, split the genuinely shared costs, then add the individual items back onto the right person:
ski hire each: 180 / 2 gives you the figure to add to those two people and nobody else. It is worth being slightly generous about what counts as shared; the ten minutes of arithmetic to apportion a 6.00 coffee is rarely worth having.
Different currencies
If the trip crossed a border, convert as you go rather than at the end, and write the rate into the sheet so the group can see it:
dinner in euros: 84 / 1.17
Keeping the conversion visible matters more than getting the rate perfect. Everyone can see which rate was used, and if somebody disagrees, one number changes and the whole settlement re-reads.
Split your own trip →Questions
How do you split a trip when people paid different amounts?
Total everything first, divide by the number of people to get a fair share, then compare each person against that share. Anyone who paid more than their share is owed the difference, and anyone who paid less pays it in. The amounts owed should add up exactly to the amounts due.
What is the fewest payments needed to settle up?
Have everyone who owes money pay the person who is owed the most, rather than settling pair by pair. In a group of four that is usually three transfers instead of six.
How do we handle something only some people did?
Keep it out of the shared total. Split that cost among the people involved and add the result to their individual lines only.
Can we split by nights instead of evenly?
Yes. Divide the accommodation by the total number of person-nights and multiply by each person’s nights, so someone who came for two nights of a four-night trip pays for two.
Is it free, and does anything get uploaded?
It is free with no account, and nothing is uploaded. The arithmetic runs in your browser, and the share link carries the sheet inside the web address rather than through a database.