How to split a restaurant bill

Eating out is a routine shared cost rather than an occasional one. In the UK, restaurants and hotels made up around 7% of average weekly household spending in the financial year ending 2024.^[1] Multiplied across a group of friends who eat together regularly, that is a lot of small divisions — and small divisions done carelessly, repeatedly, in the same direction, add up.

Do not add up item prices and then try to apply service afterwards. You get rounding drift, and someone ends up short. Start from the number the restaurant actually charged.

If you need to account for very different orders, apportion that final total — which is what method 2 below does — rather than splitting the food and the service separately.

Divide the final total by the number of people. It takes seconds and it is correct more often than people assume, because over a run of meals the differences cancel out.

Use it when

• Everyone ordered comparably.
• This group eats together often, so anything unfair tonight evens out next time.
• The difference between the highest and lowest order is small relative to the total.

Avoid it when

One person had a starter and tap water while everyone else had three courses and wine. An even split there is not a rounding difference; it is a transfer.

Work out each person's share of the food and drink, then apply that proportion to the whole bill. Everyone pays service in proportion to what they ordered, and the shares always total the bill exactly.

The shortcut worth remembering: divide the final total by the food-and-drink subtotal to get a multiplier (here 144 ÷ 128 = 1.125), then multiply each person's order by it.

Often the cleanest option. Everyone pays for their own main course, and only the genuinely shared things — the starters for the table, the wine, the sides — get divided.

This is the right approach when the group's orders differ wildly and nobody wants to itemise the whole bill. Record the shared plates as one expense split between the people who had them, and leave individual mains out of the shared record entirely.

Strictly a variation on the others, but worth naming because it is what actually happens most of the time: one card pays the whole bill, and the split is worked out afterwards.

This is fine — and it is the case where recording matters most, because the person who paid is now several hundred pounds down and relying on everyone else to remember. Record the expense at the table, and the balance exists whether or not anybody brings it up.

Drinks

The most common source of unfairness, because the range is enormous. Two workable rules: split drinks only between those who drank, or accept an even split and let it even out over time. What does not work is applying whichever rule favours the person doing the calculation.

The tip

If the service charge is on the bill, it is part of the total and apportions automatically. If somebody adds a cash tip on top, record it as its own small expense split between whoever agreed to it.

Someone arrives late or leaves early

Split by what they consumed, not by hours present. Someone who came for one course pays for one course.

Rounding

Round in the group's favour rather than yours, and be consistent about it. Inconsistent rounding is how small amounts drift in one direction across a year — an effect worked through in the comparison with splitting by hand.

1. Add an expense in the relevant group and enter the final total from the bill.
2. Set who paid — usually whoever's card went in.
3. Select the people who shared it.
4. Choose equal for method 1, or exact amounts for methods 2 and 3. Expenddy checks that exact shares add up to the total before saving.
5. Attach a photo of the bill if it was large or confusing (mobile app).

Everyone's balance updates immediately, so the question “what do I owe you?” is already answered before it is asked. See the bill splitter page for more.