Travel Expense Splitter
Track every shared cost on a group trip — who paid, who's in, how much. The planner shows each person's balance and the minimum number of transfers needed to settle up.
Travellers
Add an expense
About Travel Expense Splitter
The Travel Expense Splitter tracks shared costs across a group of travellers and tells you exactly who owes whom at the end of the trip — with the minimum number of transfers. Add the people on the trip, log every shared expense as it happens (title, amount, who paid, who's in), and watch each person's balance update in real time. When you're done, the "Settle up" panel collapses dozens of small debts into the smallest possible set of cash transfers.
Unlike a one-off bill split, this tool is built for a multi-day trip with many transactions: dinners that not everyone joined, museum tickets only a few wanted, taxis split four ways, hotel rooms split three ways, the lot. Each expense can be split among any subset of the group. The settlement uses a greedy debtor-creditor algorithm that's optimal for typical trip sizes (under ~30 people). Everything saves to your browser's local storage — no account, no signup, nothing uploaded. Pair it with the Travel Budget Planner for pre-trip cost estimates and the Itinerary Timeline Builder for the schedule.
How to Use Travel Expense Splitter
- Name the trip and pick a currency. The currency applies to every expense.
- Add each traveller by name. Use unique names — if you have two Sams, label them "Sam K." and "Sam R."
- For each shared expense, fill in title, amount, date, and choose who paid.
- Toggle which travellers should split it. Use "All" for everyone or click individual chips to include just a subset.
- Click "Add expense". The list, balances, and settlement panel update instantly.
- Use the trash icon to delete an expense if you logged it wrong. Removing a person also removes them from any expense they were on.
- At the end of the trip, scroll to "Settle up" — the listed transfers are the minimum needed to balance everyone.
- Export the trip as JSON if you want a backup, or to share the ledger with someone else who can re-import it.
Tip: log expenses as they happen, not at the end of the trip. By day three, no one remembers who paid for the lunch on day one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from the Bill Split Calculator?
The Bill Split Calculator handles a single shared bill — split tax + tip across N people for one meal or hotel. The Travel Expense Splitter handles dozens of separate expenses across multiple days, each with its own payer and its own subset of people, then computes the optimal way to settle the whole pile.
Why are there so few transfers in the settle-up panel?
The planner uses a greedy algorithm: it pairs the largest creditor with the largest debtor, transfers as much as possible, and repeats. This produces the minimum number of transactions for most real-world trips. Three friends with overlapping debts of 10, 15, and 20 collapse down to one or two transfers, not six.
Can I split an expense unequally?
Currently every expense is split equally among the selected subset. To make one person's share larger, log two expenses: a smaller one split equally, and a top-up expense paid by the same payer but split only among the people who should bear the extra cost.
What if someone doesn't drink and shouldn't pay for the bar tab?
Log the bar tab as a separate expense and untick that person from the split. They'll still appear on dinner, taxis, and any other expense they were part of, just not the bar tab.
Is my data private?
Yes. The trip name, traveller list, and expense ledger are stored only in your browser's local storage on this device. Nothing is uploaded to any server. Clearing your browser data will remove the saved trip.
Can I share the ledger with my travel companions?
Yes — Export downloads the whole trip as a JSON file. Send it to anyone who can open this page, and they click Import to load the exact same data. Useful when one person is the de facto bookkeeper but everyone wants visibility before settling.
Does it support multiple currencies in one trip?
Not directly — the trip uses one currency at a time so totals stay accurate. If you cross currencies (a side trip in another country), convert each foreign expense to your trip currency before logging it. Exchange rates can shift mid-trip, so locking everything to one currency is the safest way to keep the ledger consistent.
What happens if I delete a person who paid for things?
You'll be asked to confirm. If you confirm, every expense they paid is deleted, and they're removed from the split list of any expense they were merely on. Use Export first if you want to keep a record before that destructive change.