Rent Split Calculator by Income
Enter each person's income and your rent to split housing costs in proportion to what you earn, so everyone pays the same share of their income.
By Tess Mullins · Updated
Your rent
Each month
$1,371.43 and $1,028.57
Each person pays 27.4% of their monthly income. An equal split would be $1,200 each.
| Person | Share of income | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Person 1 | 27.4% | $1,371.43 |
| Person 2 | 27.4% | $1,028.57 |
A starting point for a fair split. Agree on it together, in writing. How we calculate
General information, not legal or financial advice.
The short answer
Split the rent in proportion to income: each person pays the rent times their income, divided by everyone’s income added together. With incomes of $90,000 and $60,000 and $2,600 in rent and bills, that’s $1,560 and $1,040.
The result is that everyone pays the same share of their own income, here 20.8% of each person’s monthly pay. Nobody pays more than they can manage just because the other person earns more.
How to use the calculator
- Enter the monthly rent and any shared bills you want split the same way.
- Pick how many people are splitting it.
- Enter each person’s yearly income. Use gross or take-home pay, but the same kind for everyone.
- Read the split and the share of income each person pays.
The calculator opens in income mode on this page. Switch to room size if your bedrooms differ and you’d rather split by space; the rent split calculator explains that method. Use Copy link to save the result.
How we calculate
- Each person’s share: rent and bills × that person’s income ÷ everyone’s income added together.
- Share of income: the monthly share ÷ (yearly income ÷ 12). It comes out the same for everyone, which is the point of the method.
- Rounding: each share is rounded to the cent so the shares add up to exactly the total.
- No income entered: if every income is $0, the calculator splits equally.
It’s our own method, a plain proportional split, and it treats every dollar of income the same.
Worked example
Example: A couple splitting by income
What we know
- Rent: $2,400 a month, plus $200 in shared bills
- Person 1: $90,000 a year
- Person 2: $60,000 a year
How it works out
- Incomes: $90,000 + $60,000 = $150,000 a year.
- Person 1: $2,600 × $90,000 ÷ $150,000 = $1,560.
- Person 2: $2,600 × $60,000 ÷ $150,000 = $1,040.
- Everyone pays the same share of their monthly income: 20.8%.
Person 1 pays $1,560 and person 2 pays $1,040.
Equal, by income or a mix
Splitting by income isn’t the only fair way. Some couples split everything equally, and some split part of the rent equally and the rest by income. A few things to talk through:
- Gross or take-home pay, and what counts as income: bonuses, side work, benefits.
- Which bills are shared, and whether groceries or other costs are split the same way.
- When to revisit, for example when one of you changes jobs or goes back to school.
There’s no legal rule for how people on a lease divide the rent between them, and your lease decides what each of you owes the landlord. Agree on your split in writing.
Run the numbers both ways, equal and by income, and look at what each leaves each person after rent. It makes the conversation about fairness, not about who earns more.
Frequently asked questions
How do you split rent by income?
Each person pays the rent times their income, divided by everyone's income added together. With incomes of $90,000 and $60,000 and $2,600 in rent and bills, that's $1,560 and $1,040.
How should a couple split rent?
There's no single right answer. Couples split equally, by income, or a mix of the two. Splitting by income means you each pay the same share of what you earn: in the example above, 20.8% of each person's monthly income.
Should we use gross or take-home pay?
Either works, as long as you use the same kind for everyone. Take-home pay is closer to what each person actually has to spend.
Do bills get split by income too?
In income mode, the calculator splits shared bills the same way as the rent. If you'd rather split bills equally, leave them out and divide them separately.
How much of our income should go to rent?
There's no single rule. As one benchmark, New York City's housing agency describes housing as affordable when a household spends no more than about one-third of its income on rent. The calculator shows what share each of you would pay.
Next step
Net Effective Rent CalculatorEnter the gross rent, the lease length and the free time on offer to see the net effective rent, what you pay over the whole lease and what the concession is worth.
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