Tip and bill split calculator

What this tool does

It works out the tip on a restaurant or bar bill and how much each person pays. You can split evenly, or by items when people ordered very different things: each person enters what they had, dishes everyone shared are divided equally, and tax and tip are shared in proportion to what each person ate. Every share is calculated in whole cents (or whole dong, yen or won), and the shares always add up exactly to the bill. If you would rather hand over round notes, it rounds each share up to 1,000 dong, a whole dollar or another step, and tells you how much extra that leaves. Nothing is sent anywhere; it all runs in your browser.

How to use it

1. Pick the currency. Dong, yen and won have no cents, so the tool works in whole units for them.
2. Choose evenly and enter the bill and the number of people, or choose by items and enter each person's own items (names are optional) and the total of the shared dishes. Add or remove people as needed.
3. Enter the tip in percent, or tap a common one (0, 5, 10, 15, 18 or 20 %). If tax or a service charge is added on top of the menu prices, enter it as well; if your bill already includes tax, leave that field empty.
4. Choose whether everyone pays the exact amount or a share rounded up. Copy the summary to send it to the group chat.

How the numbers are worked out

Tax and tip are percentages of the food and drink before tax, each rounded half up to the cent once, on the whole bill (tipping on the pre-tax amount is the usual advice where tipping is expected). Split evenly, the total is divided by the number of people; when it does not divide exactly, the few cents left over go one each to the first people in the list. So 100.00 with a 15 % tip between three is 115.00, paid as 38.34 + 38.33 + 38.33, not three times 38.33, which would leave a cent missing.

Split by items, each person's share of the food is their own items plus an equal part of the shared dishes. Tax and tip are then divided in proportion to those amounts using the largest remainder method: everyone first gets the whole cents their proportion gives, and the cents still missing go to the people with the largest leftover fractions (an exact tie goes to the person listed first). That is why the tax column and the tip column in the table each add up exactly to the bill's tax and tip.

Worked examples

• Evenly, in dollars. A 100.00 bill with a 15 % tip is 115.00. Between three people that is 38.34, 38.33 and 38.33. Rounded up to a whole dollar, everyone pays 39.00, which leaves 2.00 extra on top of the tip.
• By items, in dong. Four friends at a hotpot restaurant: An had 320,000 of her own dishes, Bình 185,000, Chi 240,000 and Dũng 95,000, and they shared a 360,000 hotpot. With 8 % VAT and a 5 % tip the bill is 1,200,000 + 96,000 + 60,000 = 1,356,000. An's share of the food is 320,000 + 90,000 = 410,000; adding 8 % (32,800) and 5 % (20,500) gives 463,300. The others pay 310,750, 372,900 and 209,050. Rounded up to 1,000 dong, they pay 464,000, 311,000, 373,000 and 210,000, which is 2,000 more than the bill.
• Evenly, rounded. A 1,350,000 dong bill between four is 337,500 each; rounded up to 1,000 it is 338,000 each, 2,000 over.

Tips and common mistakes

• Tipping on tax. Calculating the tip on the total after tax makes it a little larger than intended. This tool tips on the pre-tax amount; if you want to tip on everything, add the tax to the bill and leave the tax field empty.
• Splitting evenly when orders differ a lot. If one person had a salad and another a steak and wine, an even split quietly makes the first pay for the second. The by-items mode keeps it fair without anyone doing arithmetic at the table.
• Rounding that does not add up. Rounding every share to the nearest unit can leave the bill short. Rounding up never does, and the tool shows the extra so the group can decide whether it is a bigger tip.
• Service charge already on the bill. Many restaurants in Vietnam add a 5 % service charge, so a further tip is optional.

For the tax on the bill itself, the VAT calculator adds or removes VAT from a price, the percentage calculator handles any other percentage, and the currency converter helps when you paid in a different currency. To decide who pays the whole bill this time, spin the random name picker. There is a longer guide on splitting a bill fairly.