Nobody falls out with a flatmate over ₹400. They fall out over three months of small things nobody wrote down, and the growing feeling that they are the only one paying for anything.
The fix is boring and it works: agree the rules in the first week, log everything in one place, and settle on a fixed date. This guide covers how to split rent when the rooms are not equal, what to do about utilities, and the setup that keeps working after month three.
On this page
When rooms aren't equal
Equal split is right when the rooms are genuinely comparable. Most flats are not. One room has the attached bathroom, one is a windowless box next to the kitchen, one has the balcony.
Three approaches that people actually use:
By square footage
Measure the private rooms, add the shared area, and divide the shared area equally. If the flat is ₹45,000 and the rooms are 200, 150 and 100 square feet, then rent per square foot of private space plus an equal share of the common area gets you a number nobody can argue with. It is the fairest method and it takes twenty minutes with a measuring tape.
By features
Faster and works fine among friends. Attached bathroom adds ₹2,000. Balcony adds ₹1,500. The box room comes down ₹2,500. Agree it once, over dinner, before anyone moves in.
Equal, then adjust
Split rent equally, then let whoever has the worst room pay a smaller share of utilities or skip the cleaning fee. Slightly messy on paper, but if everyone is content it is fine.
Whichever you pick, write it down and put it in the group description. The argument in month seven is never about the method. It is about what everyone remembers agreeing to.
The deposit trap
In most Indian cities the deposit is large, often several months of rent, and it is the single biggest source of flatshare disputes at the end.
Three things to do on day one:
- Record who paid how much of it. Not in a WhatsApp message that gets buried. In the same ledger you use for everything else, marked clearly as a deposit rather than an expense.
- Photograph the flat before anyone unpacks. Every wall, the bathroom fittings, the kitchen. This is what protects the deposit when the landlord starts finding damages a year later.
- Agree the exit rule now. If someone leaves mid-lease, does the incoming flatmate pay them out directly, or does the deposit sit with the landlord until the end? Both work. Not deciding is what causes trouble.
Bills and groceries
Rent is the easy part. It is the same every month and nobody forgets it. The chaos comes from everything else.
| Expense | Usual approach | When to do it differently |
|---|---|---|
| Electricity | Equal split | If one room runs an AC all night and another has no AC, weight it |
| Internet | Equal split | Rarely worth changing |
| Water and gas | Equal split | Rarely worth changing |
| House help and cleaning | Equal split | If one person's room is skipped by agreement |
| Shared groceries | Equal split from a common list | Keep personal items off the shared list entirely |
| Cooking gas cylinder | Equal split | If someone genuinely never cooks |
| Repairs and maintenance | Equal split | If the damage was clearly one person's doing |
| Streaming subscriptions | Split among users only | Never split among people who do not use it |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
The single most valuable rule in a flatshare: shared groceries and personal groceries are different things. Rice, oil, milk, cleaning supplies go on the shared list. Your protein powder and your specific brand of coffee do not. Almost every grocery argument between flatmates traces back to this line being blurry.
Week one rules
Have this conversation before anyone has a reason to be annoyed. It takes fifteen minutes and saves a year of low grade resentment.
- Who pays the landlord and by when. One person usually does. Everyone else transfers to them by a fixed date, ideally two days before rent is due.
- The settle up date. Pick one, like the 5th. Everything logged in the previous month gets squared then. Not "whenever", which means never.
- The threshold for logging. Some flats log everything down to ₹20. Others agree that anything under ₹200 is not worth the entry. Both fine, decide which.
- Guests. A friend staying two nights is normal. A partner living there four days a week and using the electricity and the house help is a conversation, and it is far easier to have before it starts.
- What happens when someone moves out. Notice period, deposit handling, and who finds the replacement.
Setting up the flat
- Create a group for the flat and add everyone by phone number.
- Add rent with your agreed shares. If the shares are unequal, set them by exact amount rather than percentage, which is far easier to read back months later. Whoever pays the landlord logs it, on the day it goes out, and it takes about twenty seconds.
- Log the deposit separately with who paid what, so it is on record for the day you move out.
- Scan the grocery bill instead of typing it. The app reads the line items so you can put the shared things on the group and keep your own stuff off it.
- Settle on the agreed date. The app nets everything down to the minimum number of transfers, so three flatmates with a dozen expenses between them usually settle in two payments rather than six.
There is no daily cap on expenses in Splitify, which matters on the 1st of the month when rent, electricity, internet, gas and the house help all go in at once. There are no ads either, and none of this costs anything.
The hidden cost to you
If you are the flatmate who pays the landlord, something is happening to your money that you probably have not noticed.
₹45,000 leaves your account every month for rent. Your share is ₹15,000. But every expense tracking app you have ever installed books the full ₹45,000 against you as rent, then books the ₹30,000 coming back from your flatmates as income. Your rent looks three times too high and your income looks inflated, so your savings rate is fiction.
Splitify is the only app that gets this right, because the split and the bank transaction are in the same place. It matches the ₹45,000 debit to the split you already created and counts ₹15,000 against you. The transfers coming back are recognised as settlements, not earnings.
That side of the app is Splitify Pro, with a 7 day trial, and it is entirely optional. Splitting the rent stays free either way. But if you have ever wondered why your money tracking app tells you a story you do not recognise, this is usually why. There is more on it in the expense tracker guide for India.
Set the flat up once
Recurring rent, unequal shares, no daily cap on the 1st of the month. Free.
Common questions
How should roommates split rent when rooms are different sizes?
The fairest method is by square footage: work out each person's private room area, split the common area equally, and derive shares from that. A faster method that works well among friends is to agree adjustments per feature, so an attached bathroom adds a fixed amount and the smallest room pays less. Whichever you use, write it down at the start.
What is the best app for splitting rent with roommates in India?
You want unequal split support for rooms that are not the same, no cap on how many expenses you can add on the 1st when five bills land together, a clear record of the deposit, and settlement that nets everything down to the fewest transfers. Splitify does all of that for free.
How do you split electricity when one person uses more?
Equal split is fine in most flats. If one room runs an air conditioner most nights and another has none, weight the split, either by an agreed percentage or by adding a fixed amount to the AC user's share. Agree it before the summer bill arrives, not after.
Should shared groceries be split equally?
Yes, as long as everyone is clear on what counts as shared. Staples like rice, oil, milk and cleaning supplies go on the shared list. Personal items stay personal. Keeping that line sharp prevents most grocery disagreements in a flatshare.
How often should flatmates settle up?
Monthly, on a fixed date. A specific date works because it removes the awkwardness of asking. Letting balances build for three months is how a small number turns into an uncomfortable conversation.
What happens to the security deposit if someone moves out early?
Decide this when you move in. The two workable options are that the incoming flatmate pays the outgoing one directly for their share, or the deposit stays with the landlord and is settled at the end of the lease. Record who paid what into the deposit on day one either way.