Itinerary Cost-Splitter
List who paid for what across the trip — and who it was shared by — to get each traveler’s balance and the shortest list of payments needed to settle up.
Why group trips need this, not just a shared spreadsheet
Group backpacking trips rack up dozens of small shared costs — a hostel booking one person fronted, a group taxi three people split, a dinner the whole group shared. Tracking who owes whom in your head, or trying to unwind it expense by expense at the end, gets confusing fast. Netting every expense down to one balance per traveler, then finding the fewest payments to clear all of them, is the same approach behind most shared-expense apps — here it's a single, transparent calculation you can check by hand.
The result is deliberately not “undo every transaction.” It's the smallest number of transfers that leaves everyone exactly even, which is usually far fewer payments than the number of expenses that went into it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the tool decide who owes whom?
For each expense, the payer is credited the full amount and everyone it was shared by is charged an equal share. Add up every expense and each traveler ends up with a net balance — positive if they've overpaid their share overall, negative if they still owe. The settle-up list then matches the biggest creditor against the biggest debtor, repeatedly, until every balance clears.
Why isn't every expense shared by the whole group?
On a real trip, not everything is shared evenly — a group dinner might include everyone, but a taxi only the two people who took it, or a private room only the couple who booked it. Leave the 'shared by' field blank to split across everyone, or list specific names for anything narrower.
Why does the settle-up list have fewer transfers than the number of expenses?
The tool nets everything down to one balance per traveler first, then finds the minimum number of payments needed to zero every balance out — instead of unwinding every individual expense between every pair of people, which would mean far more transfers than necessary.
What if two people paid for the exact same thing together?
Record it as two separate expenses, one per payer, each shared by the group it covers. The math nets out the same either way, since only the total paid and total owed per person matter for the final balance.
Planning tool only. Figures are calculated entirely from what you enter and are not stored or shared — double-check names and amounts before using the result to actually settle up.