Split bills fairly by income, with a partner or a roommate. Enter both take-home incomes and your shared monthly costs to see a proportional split next to a straight 50/50, and how much each of you keeps after shared bills. Free, no sign-up.
Splitting a dinner check? Divide the total by the number of people. This calculator is for bills you share every month.
Say one person takes home $6,000 a month, the other takes home $4,000, and shared costs come to $3,000.
Split 50/50, the lower earner spends 38% of their pay on the household and the higher earner spends 25%. Split by income, both spend 30%, and the higher earner still keeps more.
Two common setups: each person moves their share into a joint account that pays the shared bills, or one person pays the bills and the other pays them back each month. Either works as long as the amounts match the split you agreed on.
A proportional split gives each person a share of the shared costs equal to their share of combined income. If one person earns 60% of the household take-home pay, they cover 60% of rent, utilities, and other shared bills.
The formula is simple: your share = shared costs × (your income ÷ combined income). The calculator runs that for both people, then shows a 50/50 split beside it so you can see how far apart the two approaches are for your numbers.
The leftover figures are what each person keeps after shared bills. Comparing leftovers is often the fastest way to tell whether a split feels fair in practice.
There is no single right answer. A common approach is proportional: each person pays the same percentage of their income toward shared costs, so the higher earner pays more in dollars but both feel the same squeeze. A 50/50 split is simpler but can leave the lower earner with much less breathing room.
Add both take-home incomes together, divide each income by that total to get each person’s percentage, then multiply the rent by each percentage. For example, on $3,000 rent with incomes of $6,000 and $4,000, the split is $1,800 and $1,200.
Take-home pay usually gives a more honest picture, because it is the money actually available for bills after taxes and retirement contributions.
Anything you both benefit from: rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, insurance you share, internet, and joint subscriptions. Personal spending usually stays out of the pot.
A strict income split puts almost every shared bill on one person, and 50/50 may not be possible at all. Some couples pool all income and give each person the same personal allowance. Another option is to split so you each keep the same amount after shared bills. The fair version is the one you both agree on.
Whenever either income changes, or a big shared cost like rent changes. Once a year is a good check even if nothing moved.
Related reading: Shared goals, separate accounts, Two incomes, one picture, Money talks that stay calm. More free calculators at theflan.app/tools.