How to split a restaurant bill

For an even split: add the tip to the check first, then divide. Dividing the check and the tip separately gives the same answer but doubles the arithmetic.

When it does not divide evenly

Most of the time it will not. A $100 total across three people is $33.333…, and there is no such coin. Rounding everyone up to $33.34 collects $100.02; rounding everyone down collects $99.99. Neither is the amount on the check.

The fix is to give the leftover cents to specific people rather than to everyone: two people pay $33.33 and one pays $33.34. That is how TYPTAPP does it, and it says so on screen when it happens, so nobody is surprised by the odd penny.

When everyone ordered differently

Two fair answers exist and groups genuinely disagree about which is fairer, so decide out loud before anyone starts adding up.

• Tip in proportion to what each person ordered. The person who had the steak tips more than the person who had soup. Tax works the same way.
• Tip split evenly, even though the food is not. The argument is that the service was the same for everyone at the table.

The Split by person panel in the tip calculator does both — enter each person's subtotal, choose which way to share the tip, and it allocates tax proportionally either way.

A practical note on cards

Splitting one check across several cards is slower than it looks and many places cap how many they will take. If the group is large, one person paying and the rest settling up by phone is usually faster — and the per-person number from the calculator is exactly what to send.