Road Trip Cost Splitter
Work out the fuel, tolls, lodging and food cost of a road trip and split it fairly between travellers.
- Total distance
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- Fuel used
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- Fuel cost
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- Total trip cost
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- Cost per share
Other shared costs
Who is coming along
Shares let you split unevenly — give someone 2 shares if they take a double room, or 0.5 if they only joined half the trip. “Paid so far” is what that person already put on the table.
| Traveller | Shares | Paid so far | Fair share | Balance | Remove |
|---|
Settle up
How it works
The fuel bill is the only tricky part of a road trip budget, so the calculator does it
explicitly. In metric it uses the European standard consumption figure:
litres = distance ÷ 100 × (L/100 km). In imperial it uses US MPG and US gallons:
gallons = miles ÷ MPG. Ticking “round trip” doubles the distance first. Multiply
by the pump price and you have the fuel cost; add tolls, parking, accommodation and food and
you have the total trip cost. Switching units converts what you already typed
(1 mile = 1.609344 km, 1 US gallon = 3.785411784 litres, MPG = 235.214583 ÷ L/100 km).
The total is then divided by the number of shares rather than by heads, so an uneven split is easy: two shares for the couple in the double room, half a share for the friend who only came along for the second leg. Every person’s fair share is worked out in whole cents and any leftover cent goes to the largest shares first, so the parts always add up to the total exactly. Subtract what each person already paid and you get their balance — positive means they are owed money, negative means they still owe. The “settle up” list turns those balances into the smallest sensible set of payments by matching the biggest debtor to the biggest creditor, so nobody sends four separate transfers.
Everything is arithmetic done in your browser with plain JavaScript. Names, amounts and who paid what never leave your device — nothing is uploaded, stored or logged, and there is no sign-up.
Frequently asked questions
How is the fuel cost for the trip calculated?
In metric the tool uses litres = distance ÷ 100 × your L/100 km figure; in imperial it uses gallons = miles ÷ MPG (US). Ticking "round trip" doubles the distance first, then the fuel volume is multiplied by the pump price. Switching units converts what you typed using 1 mile = 1.609344 km, 1 US gallon = 3.785411784 litres and MPG = 235.214583 ÷ L/100 km.
How do you split gas money and other costs fairly on a road trip?
Add up everything the group shares — fuel, tolls and parking, accommodation, food — and divide by shares rather than by heads. Give one share per person by default, two shares to the couple in a double room, or half a share to someone who only joined one leg. The tool splits the total in whole cents and gives any leftover cent to the largest share, so the parts always add up exactly.
Can it tell us who should pay whom at the end?
Yes. Enter what each person already paid and the tool subtracts it from their fair share to get a balance: positive means they get money back, negative means they still owe. It then matches the biggest debtor to the biggest creditor to produce the smallest sensible set of payments, and flags any part of the trip nobody has paid for yet.