How to split utilities between roommates

How do you split utilities between roommates?

Choose a rule for each bill, write it down and use it every month. This page runs one month through four rules. The month has four roommates, Jo, Kai, Lee and Max, and four bills: electric $110, gas $60, water $30 and internet $40. The total is $240.

What are the four rules?

Equal shares

$240 ÷ 4 = $60 each. This fits when everyone is home about as much and nobody’s use stands out. It is also the easiest rule to explain and to automate.

By people living there

Say a friend of Kai’s sleeps on the sofa for the whole month, so five people use the apartment. $240 ÷ 5 = $48 a person. Kai’s room pays $96 and the other three pay $48 each, which adds up to $240. Agree beforehand how long a guest has to stay before they count.

By days present

Say Max is away on a work trip and is home for 10 of the 30 days. Internet is a flat plan, so it stays equal: $40 ÷ 4 = $10 each. The other three bills come to $200, and the person days are 30 + 30 + 30 + 10 = 100. That is $200 ÷ 100 = $2 a person day.

Jo, Kai and Lee each pay $60 + $10 = $70. Max pays $20 + $10 = $30. Together that is $240. Agree what counts as a day present, such as sleeping there that night, and count the days at the end of the month.

By usage, with a heavy user extra charge

Say Kai works from home and runs a window air conditioner all of July. The group agrees a flat $15 extra charge for Kai, written down before the month starts. Take it off the top: $240 minus $15 is $225, and $225 ÷ 4 = $56.25. Kai pays $56.25 + $15 = $71.25 and the other three pay $56.25. A flat extra charge is easier than arguing over meter readings. If you want to measure the usage instead, see how to split an electric bill with roommates.

Who should hold each account?

Spread the accounts so nobody carries every bill. The account holder pays the provider and logs the bill, and everyone else repays them. Set the repay date about five days before the provider’s due date, so the holder has the money in hand before they pay. Here is how it could look if each of the four roommates holds one account.

Bill	Account holder	Provider due	Roommates repay by
Electric	Jo	20th	15th
Gas	Kai	25th	20th
Water	Lee	12th	7th
Internet	Max	8th	3rd

Swap the accounts at each lease renewal, so the same person does not carry the paperwork every year. Split an internet bill covers the one bill where an upgrade is only for one person.

What if the billing period does not match the month?

Treat each bill as its own expense, dated the day the statement arrives, and count days inside that statement’s period, not the calendar month.

Say the electric statement covers September 12 to October 11, which is 30 days, and costs $109. Max moved out on October 1, so Max was there from September 12 to September 30, which is 19 days. The other three were there all 30. The person days are 30 + 30 + 30 + 19 = 109, so each person day is $1. Jo, Kai and Lee pay $30 each and Max pays $19. Bills that are split equally need no counting. Log them under the date they arrive.

How does one person pay and everyone else settle?

The account holder pays the provider and the rest repay them. With four accounts held by four people, you do not need four rounds of payments, because what each person paid is netted against what they owe.

Say Jo paid electric ($110), Kai paid gas ($60), Lee paid water ($30) and Max paid internet ($40), and each person owes $60.

• Jo paid $110 and owes $60, so Jo is owed $50.
• Kai paid $60 and owes $60, so Kai is even.
• Lee paid $30 and owes $60, so Lee owes $30.
• Max paid $40 and owes $60, so Max owes $20.

Lee pays Jo $30, Max pays Jo $20, and the month is settled. That is 2 payments. Settling each bill on its own would take up to 12, since three people owe the payer on each of four bills.

How do you set it up in EvenOut?

Create a Household group, which is the type labelled “Rent and bills”. Add each bill as an expense paid by the account holder. For internet, which is the same every month, set Repeat to Monthly under “Photo, repeat, pending or note”, with the category Internet. EvenOut then adds each later month as a normal expense with the same payer and split. Setting up a repeat needs a connection, and it runs until you stop it, so stop it and start a new one if the plan or the people change.

Bills that change are logged by the account holder when the statement arrives, with the category Utilities. Then choose the split for each one.

• Equal shares: leave “Split equally”. EvenOut shows the amount each person pays, and “Not in” leaves someone out.
• By days present: for electric, gas and water, choose “Shares” and type the days, 30, 30, 30 and 10. The pill shows 100 shares, which is $1.10 a share on the $110 electric bill.
• Heavy user extra charge: put the $15 on the electric bill, which is where the air conditioner shows up. Choose “Exact amounts” and type $38.75, $23.75, $23.75 and $23.75, which add up to $110, and the pill reads “All assigned”. Split the other three bills equally. Kai’s month still comes to $38.75 + $15 + $7.50 + $10 = $71.25.

“Simplify debts” is on by default for a group and cuts the repayments to the fewest, without changing what anyone owes in total. That is what turns four payers into two repayments.

What should you do next?

Write down the rule for each bill, the account holders, the repay dates and the day you count days present. The utility bill split calculator checks the arithmetic, and what expenses roommates should split covers everything else the household buys. If your lease says utilities are included, what “utilities included” means explains the wording.