Recipe
Split bills across currencies — without an FX argument
Paid for dinner in EUR while one friend's in USD and another's in GBP? The app converts at the rate on the bill date and settles each peer in their currency. No spreadsheet roulette.
Last reviewed: January 2026
Multi-currency splitting is the one thing every spreadsheet-based bill split eventually breaks on. The questions stack up fast: which exchange rate do you use, the rate today or the rate when the bill was paid? Whose currency is "primary"? When the dollar moves 3% before settle-up, who eats the difference? Split The Bill answers these once and for all: rate locked at the date of the bill, each peer sees their share in their own currency, settle-up math is exact. This guide covers a typical mixed-currency scenario — three friends in different countries splitting a trip — and shows how to wire the deep links so the actual money movement is one tap.
Step-by-step
- 1
(Optional, Pro) Set a fixed display currency in your profile
This step is optional and Pro-only ($7/month or $70/year) — skip it and go straight to step 2 if you're on Free; splitting and settling across currencies (steps 2-5 below) works fully on the free tier without it.
If you're on Pro, `/profile` has a Display currency setting so your dashboard balance summary always shows one fixed currency regardless of what currency each bill is in. Without it (Free), each peer still sees their own per-bill share correctly converted — they just don't get one pinned "everything in EUR" rollup number on the dashboard.
- 2
Snap or upload the receipt in its actual currency
On the New Bill screen, photograph the receipt as-is. The AI auto-detects the currency from the receipt header / total line / fiscal QR (Serbian, Croatian, Polish, etc.). If it gets it wrong, you can override on the review step.
The currency on the bill is the paid currency — what the cashier actually charged. This is the currency the bill is stored in. All math is anchored here.
- 3
Choose who paid + select the group
On the split step, mark the payer (the person who actually fronted the money). Choose the group of friends to split with — the group can have members in any currency; the app handles conversion automatically.
If you're splitting with people not in a saved group (one-off trip), use the By peer mode and add friends ad-hoc by name. They don't need accounts to be on the bill — share links work for paying back.
- 4
See per-peer shares in each peer's currency
After the split runs, each peer's share is displayed in their own profile currency — converted at the FX rate on the bill date. Peer A (EUR) sees their share in EUR; Peer B (USD) sees the same share auto-converted to USD; etc.
This is the key correctness move: by locking the FX rate to the bill date (not "now"), nobody gets stiffed by currency drift between when the bill happened and when they actually pay you back.
- 5
Settle up via the right rail per currency
Each peer sees a Pay button on their share. The button opens the right rail for their currency:
- EUR: SEPA QR (most European banks scan it from the camera) - USD: Venmo / PayPal - GBP: Revolut / PayPal - Cross-currency: Wise (formerly TransferWise) deep link with prefilled amount + recipient handle
Settings you put in your profile (`/profile/payment-methods`) determine which rails appear on your bills.
Why "FX rate at bill date" matters
The default in spreadsheets and most apps is "convert at today's rate" — which feels right but isn't. Imagine: a friend in the US fronts $100 for dinner in Belgrade in March. You agree to pay your share. Three months later you settle up — but EUR/USD has moved 4%. Whose 4%?
Lock-at-bill-date answers this exactly: the rate on the day the bill happened is what counts. The friend got hit with $100 then; you owe what your share was then, not what it would convert to today. This is how foreign-exchange contracts work in finance, and it's how Split The Bill works by default.
Edge case: for very long delays (>90 days), some currencies move enough that this rule starts to feel unfair to the payer. There's no perfect answer — Split The Bill's position is "lock at bill date, settle promptly". If you regularly let bills age 6+ months across volatile currency pairs, that's the friction signal — settle more often.
How the FX data is sourced
Rates come from a daily-snapshot exchange-rate provider (mid-market rate, no spread baked in). Cached at the bill date so the same bill always shows the same numbers regardless of when you reopen it. Refreshing the bill page does NOT re-fetch a newer rate — the rate is part of the bill record.
For fiscal-QR receipts (Serbian, Croatian, Polish, etc.), the rate is captured at QR-decode time. For non-QR bills, it's captured at parse time. For manually-entered bills it's captured at create time. Three slightly different anchors but always at "the moment of the bill", never "the moment of the settle-up".
Comparison to alternative approaches
Wise multi-currency account. Excellent for actually moving money. Doesn't solve the splitting math — you still need to figure out who owes whom. Split The Bill complements Wise: we tell you the amount, Wise moves it.
Spreadsheet with =GOOGLEFINANCE. Works until the spreadsheet breaks. Re-runs the FX formula on every load, so historical rows show "today's" rate, not the bill-date rate. Subtle source of arguments three months later.
Splitwise multi-currency. Splitwise charges Pro for multi-currency. Split The Bill includes it on the free tier.
Just settling in one currency and eating the FX risk. Works for very small groups where everyone trusts each other. Breaks down at >3 people or >$50/person/bill — the cumulative drift gets noticeable.
Frequently asked questions
Which currencies are supported?▾
All ISO 4217 codes (USD, EUR, GBP, RSD, HRK, PLN, RUB, JPY, INR, BRL, CAD, AUD, etc.). The currency picker on the bill review step has them all.
What FX rate is used?▾
Mid-market rate from a daily-snapshot provider, captured at the bill date and frozen as part of the bill record. We do not bake in a spread — the rate you see is the rate the market saw on that day.
Can I see the FX rate that was applied?▾
Yes — on the bill detail page, hover over a non-native-currency share to see the source rate. CSV export includes both columns: amount-in-bill-currency and amount-in-display-currency.
What if my friend wants to pay me in a third currency?▾
The settle-up math handles it — pick "Settle in <currency>" on the share and the app converts using the rate on the settlement date (not the bill date — once you're moving actual money, the live rate is the right anchor).
Does this work in chat-mode too?▾
Yes — the AI extracts currency from the bill image automatically. If you describe a bill in text in chat ("dinner was 4500 yen"), the parser respects whatever currency you state.
Is multi-currency a Pro feature?▾
Splitting and settling across currencies is free — Splitwise charges for it, we don't. The one piece that's Pro-only is the fixed "display currency" dashboard setting (pinning your balance summary to one currency); everyday multi-currency splitting doesn't need it.
Free tier covers most recipes. Pro is 100 receipts every 30 days + private invite links.
