Free Expense Split App for Trips, Flats and Dinners

A free expense split app keeps one running list of who paid for what, then tells everyone who owes whom. Expense Split does this for trips, shared flats, dinners and any other group cost. Add each expense, choose how to divide it, and open Balances to see the fewest payments that settle the whole group. It's free to use, works offline, and you can install it on your phone.

This guide covers when a split app beats a spreadsheet or a group chat, how the splitting works, and what the free version includes.

When a split app is worth it

A calculator is enough for one dinner. A split app earns its place when costs pile up over days or weeks and different people pay at different times:

• Trips. One person books the flat, another pays for fuel, a third buys groceries. By day three nobody remembers who is ahead.
• Shared flats. Rent is simple, but the internet bill, the cleaning supplies and the new sofa are not.
• Group gifts and events. One person fronts the cost and the others pay them back.
• Couples and families. A running balance beats keeping score in your head.

How Expense Split works

1. Open Expense Split and make a group, with the names of everyone involved.
2. Add each expense as it happens: what it was, how much, who paid and who shared it.
3. Choose how to divide it. You can split equally between the people you tick, by shares (one person has two shares, say), by percentage, or by exact amounts. The app tells you how much is still left to assign before you save.
4. Open Balances at any time to see what each person is owed or owes.
5. When someone pays another person back, tap Record and the balances update.

Settling up with fewer payments

If four friends have each paid for different things, the obvious way to settle is a web of small transfers. Expense Split works out a short list instead: the person who owes most pays the person who is owed most, and so on until everything is even. A group of five often settles in three or four payments rather than ten.

Amounts are kept in whole cents, or the smallest unit of the group's currency, so every split adds up to the full cost. A leftover cent goes to the first person in the list rather than disappearing.

Splitting something other than equally

Equal splits are the easy case. The harder ones are:

• Different room sizes or nights. Use shares: someone who stayed four nights takes four shares and someone who stayed two takes two.
• Percentages. Useful when people agree a fixed split, such as 60/40 on a shared bill.
• Exact amounts. Use these when each person ordered different things. Type what each owes and the app checks the total.

For a restaurant bill with tip and tax, work out the total with the free tip calculator first, then enter it as one expense.

Does everyone need the app?

No. One person can keep the group and add everyone's expenses. You can copy or share a plain summary of who owes whom with the group whenever you like. If you would rather everyone adds their own expenses, a group can be shared with people you invite, as editors or viewers.

What the free version includes

The splitting itself is free: every way of dividing a cost, balances, the fewest-payments list, and recording repayments. The free version has limits on how many groups you can keep and how many people can join a shared group, and a paid plan raises them. You never need a paid plan to split a bill.

It also works offline, so you can add an expense on a train or in a restaurant with no signal. Your groups stay on your device unless you choose to sync them to your EveryApp account.

Install it on your phone

Expense Split is a web app you can add to your home screen so it opens like any other app. See our step-by-step guide to installing Expense Split on iPhone and Android.