Best Apps for Splitting Bills UK: Which Actually Pays Out

Almost every roundup of the best app for splitting bills in the UK treats the category as one thing. It is not. Half these apps are ledgers: they work out who owes what and then leave you to chase it. The other half actually move money, so the debt clears instead of sitting in a list. Pick the wrong type and you end up with a beautifully maintained record of £43 your flatmate is never going to hand over.

So this comparison sorts them by that split first, then by the details that matter in practice: whether your friends need the same app, whether a free account stays free once you add a lot of expenses, and whether anything ever gets settled without someone sending a reminder.

Trackers: they do the maths, you do the chasing

Splitwise

Splitwise is the default for a reason. It holds a running balance between you and each person, handles unequal shares, and nets everything down so a group of five settles with two payments rather than ten. For a house share or a fortnight in Portugal, nothing beats it for keeping score.

Two things UK users should know before committing. First, the free plan caps how many expenses you can add in a day; the exact number is not published, and reports put it at a handful before the app asks you to upgrade. On a holiday, when you might log eight receipts before dinner, that cap bites. Splitwise Pro removes it and adds receipt scanning, currency conversion, itemisation and expense search.

Second, the automatic transaction import that makes Pro genuinely hands-off is US only, so a UK subscriber pays for the tier and still types every expense in by hand. Splitwise also does not move money itself: it hands you off to a payment app at the end.

Tricount

Tricount does the same job as Splitwise without the daily cap, which alone makes it worth a look if you got tired of the upgrade prompt. It is owned by the Dutch bank bunq, and it is free. You share a link, everyone adds what they spent, and the app produces the settle-up list. It will send a payment request that lands in your bank account, and if anyone in the group holds a bunq card their spending is added automatically.

Splid

Splid is the one to use when your group will not download anything. It needs no account at all, works offline, and covers a long list of currencies with automatic conversion, so it survives a week somewhere with patchy signal. Like the others it minimises the number of transfers needed to clear a group. It is pure record-keeping: nothing is paid inside the app.

Movers: the money actually leaves someone’s account

Monzo Split

Monzo folded its old bill-splitting and Shared Tabs features into one thing called Monzo Split, and it is now the strongest all-rounder for a UK group. It runs in two modes: a single split for one bill you have just paid, and a running split for a holiday or a household where costs pile up over weeks.

The part that matters is who can join. You can share a link and your friends join as guests, with no Monzo account and no requirement to live in the UK. They pay their share back to you rather than being handed an IOU to ignore. The app tracks who has settled, chases the ones who have not, and lets people pay in chunks if the total is uncomfortable. Monzo charges nothing for it, for you or for the guests.

If you are weighing up the account behind it, our Monzo review and Monzo vs Starling comparison cover the current-account side.

Starling Settle Up

Starling’s approach is simpler and, for one-off splits, faster. Find the transaction on your home screen, tap Split the bill, and the app works out the shares and issues a payment link built on its Settle Up feature. Whoever owes you pays by UK debit card on a secure web page. They need no Starling account and, importantly, none of your account details.

The constraint to plan around is the ceiling: Starling says you can currently receive up to £250 a day this way, with a £1 minimum. That is fine for a restaurant bill split six ways. It is not enough for the deposit on a group cottage, so for large sums you are back to a bank transfer. More on the account itself in our Starling Bank review.

Revolut Group Bills

Revolut’s Group Bills sits awkwardly between the two camps, and its own terms are refreshingly blunt about why: it is a tracking tool, and the entries in it are “informal records used for tracking purposes only” rather than anything enforceable. People outside Revolut can take part through the Group Bills website after verifying an email address, and they settle by entering card or bank details against your payment link.

That makes it a decent choice for a group already living in Revolut, particularly across currencies. For a purely UK group, Monzo Split does the same job with less friction. Our Revolut vs Monzo comparison goes into the wider differences.

The one that splits before the debt exists

Cino takes the other route entirely: a shared card that divides the payment as it happens. The group agrees the ratio in advance, one person taps to pay through Apple Pay or Google Pay, and each member’s share is taken from their own account at that moment. Nobody is owed anything, so nobody has to be chased.

It is available to UK residents alongside most of Europe. The trade-off is that everyone has to be set up before you go out, which suits a regular group of housemates or a stag weekend far better than a spontaneous round at the pub.

Which one to pick

• A house share with ongoing bills: Monzo Split if most of you are on Monzo, Tricount if you are spread across banks.
• A group holiday with a lot of receipts: Tricount or Splid, both free with no daily expense cap and good with currencies.
• One restaurant bill you have already paid: Starling Split the Bill, or Monzo’s single split. Both get you paid back the same evening.
• A group that never pays anyone back: Cino, so the money never becomes a debt in the first place.
• Long-running balances with one friend: Splitwise, still the best ledger, as long as you accept it will not move the money.

Worth remembering that none of these are savings or investment products, so the FSCS protection question applies to the bank account underneath rather than the splitting app. Money should only pass through them, not sit in them.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best app for splitting bills in the UK? For a UK group that wants the money to actually arrive, Monzo Split is the strongest pick, because friends can join by link without a Monzo account and pay their share back directly. If you only need to keep score across a long trip or a house share, Tricount and Splid do it free with no daily expense limit.

Can I split a bill with someone who does not use the same bank? Yes. Monzo Split lets non-customers join a split as guests through a shared link, Starling’s Settle Up sends a payment link that anyone can pay by UK debit card, and Revolut’s Group Bills has a website for people outside Revolut. Splitwise, Tricount and Splid never needed matching banks because they do not handle payments at all.

Is Splitwise still free? There is still a free tier, but it limits how many expenses you can add per day before prompting you to upgrade to Pro. Splitwise does not publish the exact figure. If you regularly log a lot of expenses in one go, Tricount or Splid avoid the cap without a subscription.

Do any bill splitting apps charge a fee to send money? Monzo says Split is free for you and your friends. Starling’s Settle Up sends the payment straight into your current account at no cost, within its daily receiving limit. The trackers charge nothing because they never touch the money, though subscriptions like Splitwise Pro are a separate cost.

What is the limit on Starling’s Settle Up? Starling states you can currently receive up to £250 per day through a Settle Up link paid by UK debit card, with a minimum of £1. Anything larger needs a normal bank transfer.

Is it safer to use a shared card or to split afterwards? A shared card like Cino removes the debt entirely, which is the safest outcome socially, but it requires everyone to be signed up before you spend. Splitting afterwards through your own bank keeps your existing account and its protections in place, and is easier to arrange at short notice.