How to split rent 3 ways in a 2-bedroom apartment

How should three people split rent in a 2-bedroom apartment?

Choose how the three of you sleep first, because the layout decides the weights. Three people in two bedrooms leave three real options: two share a bedroom, one takes the living room, or you rotate who gets the single each lease year. This page prices all three on a $2,400 apartment, shared by Noa, Leo and Pia.

Each layout uses weights, called parts here. A person’s rent is their parts divided by the total parts, times the rent. With 24 parts in total, a part is $2,400 ÷ 24 = $100. The parts are a judgment call. To turn square feet into parts, how to split rent by room size shows how to measure and weigh a room.

What does each person pay if two share a bedroom?

The room is priced first, and the two who share it split that price. Say the single bedroom is worth 10 parts and the larger shared bedroom is worth 14 parts, which is 7 for each of its two people.

Person	Sleeps in	Parts	Rent
Noa	Single bedroom	10	$1,000
Leo	Shared bedroom	7	$700
Pia	Shared bedroom	7	$700
Total		24	$2,400

The shared bedroom costs $1,400 in all, more than the single’s $1,000 because it is bigger. Each of its two people still pays $300 less than Noa, because they split a room and each gets less of it.

What if the third person takes the living room?

Give the living-room tenant a discount, and let the two bedroom tenants cover it. Say the living room has no door, people walk through it to reach the kitchen, and the house has no shared sitting room once someone sleeps there. A person who gives up the door and the shared room can fairly ask for a discount, because an equal $800 may be too much for it.

Person	Sleeps in	Parts	Rent
Noa	Bedroom 1	9	$900
Leo	Bedroom 2	9	$900
Pia	Living room	6	$600
Total		24	$2,400

Pia pays $200 less than the equal $800, and Noa and Leo pay $100 more each. Whether $200 is right is up to the three of you. A larger discount fits a living room that is the only path to the bathroom. A smaller one fits a living room that has been given a door.

How does a yearly rotation work?

Rotating the best spot makes the three-year cost equal. In the first layout, whoever has the single pays $1,000 and the other two pay $700 each. Each lease year the single moves to the next person.

Lease year	Noa	Leo	Pia
Year 1	$1,000	$700	$700
Year 2	$700	$1,000	$700
Year 3	$700	$700	$1,000
Average a month	$800	$800	$800

The average is ($1,000 + $700 + $700) ÷ 3 = $800, the same as splitting equally, and each person gets the single once. The living-room layout rotates the same way: $900, $900 and $600 moving around the three of you also averages $800. Decide the order before year one and write it into your roommate agreement so that a person who moves out early or a new roommate does not break the order.

How do you split utilities with three people in two bedrooms?

Split utilities by head, three ways, whichever layout you choose. Each person showers, turns on lights and uses the internet, so two people sharing a bedroom do not use half as much as one person with a single. Say the utilities are $210 a month. That is $70 each.

In the shared-bedroom layout, the monthly cost per person is then $1,000 + $70 = $1,070 for Noa and $700 + $70 = $770 for Leo and Pia. The three total $2,610, which is the $2,400 rent plus $210 in utilities. If someone is away for weeks, the days-present method in how to split utilities between roommates adjusts for it.

What should you check in the lease before choosing a layout?

Check what the lease says about how many people may live in the unit, whether each person has to be named on it, and whether a living room can be used as a bedroom. Ask the landlord, and keep the answer in writing, before anyone moves in or changes rooms. This page covers the arithmetic. What your lease or local rules allow is outside it, and the answer varies between places and between leases.

How do you record it in EvenOut?

Make a Household group, which is the type labelled “Rent and bills”, and add the rent as one expense. Set the “Paid by” chip to whoever pays the landlord, then open the split picker and choose Shares. Type 10, 7 and 7. The dollar amounts show under each name: $1,000.00, $700.00 and $700.00. Add the utilities as separate expenses with “Split equally”.

To make rent repeat, open “Photo, repeat, pending or note” and choose Repeat, then Monthly. The expense you save is the first one, and EvenOut adds each later one with the same payer and split. Setting up a repeat needs a connection, and the app has no end date for it. When the lease year turns and the single rotates, open “Repeating expenses” from the group menu, choose “Stop repeating” and add the new one with shares of 7, 10 and 7.

What should you do next?

Write the layout, the weights and the rotation order into your agreement, and give each person their number before anyone signs. How to split rent fairly compares the other methods, and how much more the master bedroom should pay prices a single feature such as a private bathroom. To check the sums, use the roommate expense calculator.