Split a bill evenly or by item
Split any restaurant bill evenly or item by item, share dishes between people, spread tax and tip proportionally, and see exactly what each person owes.
- Runs in your browser
- Nothing you enter is sent
- Free, no account
- Subtotal
- $120.00
- Tax
- $9.90
- Tip (18%)
- $21.60
- Total
- $151.50
| Person | Pays |
|---|---|
| Person 1 | $37.88 |
| Person 2 | $37.88 |
| Person 3 | $37.87 |
| Person 4 | $37.87 |
tax = $120.00 × 8.25% = $9.90 tip = subtotal × 18% = $21.60 total = $151.50 share = $151.50 ÷ 4 = $37.88
How to split a bill by item
- Switch to the Split by item tab.
- Add everyone at the table. Names are only labels — they never leave your browser, so first names or nicknames are fine.
- Enter each line from the check with its price. You do not have to be exhaustive: group the drinks together if that is how the bill reads.
- Tap the names of whoever shared each item. A dish tapped for three people is divided three ways automatically. The Everyone button assigns a shared platter in one tap.
- Set the tax and tip. Tax can be a percentage or the exact amount printed on the bill, and the tip can be calculated before or after tax.
Each person gets a card listing their items, their share of the tax, their share of the tip and the total they owe. Copy the whole split to paste into a group chat.
Why tax and tip are shared proportionally
Splitting the food by item but the tax and tip evenly quietly overcharges whoever ate least. This calculator gives each person the same fraction of the tax and tip as they hold of the subtotal:
person total = own items + tax × (own items ÷ subtotal) + tip × (own items ÷ subtotal)
If your food is 30% of the subtotal you pay 30% of the tax and 30% of the tip. That rule has two useful properties: nobody can game it by ordering differently, and the parts always add up to the exact bill.
What happens to the odd cents
Proportional shares almost never land on whole cents. The calculator computes exact shares, rounds each down to the cent, then hands the remaining cents to the people with the largest fractional part — the largest-remainder method used in apportionment. Nobody pays more than a cent extra, and the personal totals sum to the bill exactly, which is what matters when one person hands over a card.
Worked example
| Item | Price | Shared by | Alex | Bailey | Casey |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Margherita pizza | $18.00 | Alex | $18.00 | — | — |
| Sharing platter | $24.50 | All three | $8.17 | $8.17 | $8.16 |
| Pasta | $16.00 | Bailey | — | $16.00 | — |
| Two cocktails | $21.00 | Casey | — | — | $21.00 |
| Subtotal | $79.50 | $26.17 | $24.17 | $29.16 |
With 8.25% tax ($6.56) and an 18% pre-tax tip ($14.31), the $100.37 total splits to roughly $33.04 for Alex, $30.51 for Bailey and $36.82 for Casey — instead of $33.46 each, which would have moved about $2.50 from the cheapest order to the most expensive one.
When an even split is the right answer
Itemising is not always worth it. If everybody ate roughly the same, or the group is close enough that precision would be rude, the Split evenly tab is a subtotal, a tax rate, a tip and a headcount. It still does the cent-exact allocation so the shares add up.
Common questions the numbers answer
- Someone only had a drink. Assign the drink to them alone and their tax and tip shares shrink automatically.
- An item is unassigned. The calculator warns you, names the item and keeps it out of everyone's total, so you can see the gap between the bill and what the group is paying.
- The bill has a service charge. Enter it as a fixed tax amount and set the tip to 0%, or add it on top if you want to tip further.
- One person is paying and being reimbursed. Copy the split — each line is a name and an amount, ready to paste into a payment app request.
Privacy
Names, prices and assignments live only in this browser tab. There is no account, no sync and no upload — closing the page discards everything.
Questions
How is tax and tip shared out in itemised mode?
Proportionally. If your food is 30% of the subtotal, you carry 30% of the tax and 30% of the tip. That is the fairest common rule: the person who ordered the steak pays more tax than the person who ordered soup.
Can two or three people share one dish?
Yes — tap every name that shared it and the price is divided equally between them. A platter shared by four counts as a quarter each, and appears in each of their item lists with a ÷4 marker.
Why do the individual totals sometimes end in odd cents?
Because a proportional share rarely lands on a whole cent. The tool rounds each person to the nearest cent and then hands the leftover cent or two to whoever had the largest fraction, so the personal totals add up to the bill exactly.
Does it handle a service charge that is already on the bill?
Switch the tax field to "a fixed amount" and enter the service charge there, or set the tip to 0% if the service charge covers it. Any fixed amount you enter is shared in the same proportional way.