Bill splitting apps in Japan: 6 ranked for warikan in yen

October 7, 2026 · 12 min read · Dimesum Engineering

A ¥10,000 taxi split three ways leaves one yen nobody can cut. Six apps ranked for a trip in Japan on whole-yen splits, separate currencies and the friend who won't install anything.

A ¥10,000 taxi split three ways cannot come out even in yen. Somebody pays ¥3,334, because the yen has no smaller unit to cut the last one into. Of the bill splitting apps in Japan we compared, Dimesum ranks first: it splits in whole yen, keeps every currency's balance apart, and lets a friend without the app take part from a link.

We make Dimesum, so weigh the ranking with that in mind. Every other app below is described from our own market research, dated August 2026, by what it does and what it costs. None is rated by stars, and none is a Japan-only app, because our research does not cover those and we will not guess at them.

Six bill splitting apps for a trip in Japan, by what our research records (competitor facts as of August 2026)
App	Currencies	What it costs	What else to know
1. Dimesum	Any currency, each balance kept apart	Free, no daily limit on bills	Web app live; phone apps in closed testing
2. Splitwise	More than 100; conversion on Pro	Free tier, or Pro from $2.99 to $39.99 in US app stores	Free accounts capped at 4 expenses a day, per its help centre
3. Tricount	Not in our source	Free; Premium withdrawn	Owned by the bank bunq
4. Settle Up	Not in our source	Subscription, or a group pass from $5.99 a week to $149.99 for life	One person can buy for the whole group
5. Splid	Not in our source	$3.99 once	Android app last updated 23 August 2025
6. Spliit	Not in our source	Free, open source	About $1,300 a year of income, 92% from its founder

Warikan works until the bill stops dividing

Splitting the bill evenly has a name in Japanese: warikan. At a dinner for four that comes to ¥23,000, warikan is ¥5,750 each, and nobody reaches for a phone. The arithmetic is kind to round numbers and to tables of two and four.

It is less kind to three. A ¥10,000 bill over three people is ¥3,333 and a third, and there is no third of a yen to pay. Someone carries ¥3,334, and the other two pay ¥3,333.

That single yen is the whole reason a spreadsheet and an app disagree on a trip. Our engineering note on why an app's total differs from your spreadsheet follows it in detail. The short version: Dimesum hands the extra yen to one person, chosen by a fixed hash of the bill, so the same bill always splits the same way and the extra yen moves around the group over many bills.

The yen has no minor unit

Dollars split into cents and euros into cents. The yen splits into nothing: the ISO 4217 currency standard gives it zero decimal places, so ¥1 is the smallest amount anyone can owe. An app that assumes every currency has two decimals will either show ¥3,333.33, which no coin pays, or, worse, multiply a yen amount by 100.

We made that second mistake ourselves before we fixed it. Our text reader multiplied every amount by 100 on its way to minor units, so a ¥2,000 taxi read as ¥200,000. Dimesum now reads each currency's decimal places from the ISO table, and the story of other money bugs like it is in the money bugs a second currency causes.

A trip to Kyoto and Osaka, split in yen and one dollar bill

Here is the trip we run through every app. Aiko, Mei, Lucas and Emma spend three nights in Kyoto and Osaka.

Lucas pays the ryokan, ¥96,000 for the four of them. Aiko pays the train tickets, ¥55,200. Mei pays an izakaya dinner, ¥23,000.

Emma pays a ¥10,000 taxi that only Lucas, Mei and she rode in, since Aiko took the train. Before they left, Emma also paid $240 in dollars for a guided tour, booked from home, split four ways.

Each person's share, in whole yen

The ryokan is ¥24,000 each. The trains are ¥13,800 each. The dinner is ¥5,750 each. Those three come to ¥43,550 a person.

The taxi splits three ways as ¥3,334, ¥3,333 and ¥3,333. On this bill, the hash gives Mei the extra yen. So Aiko's yen share is ¥43,550, Lucas's and Emma's are ¥46,883, and Mei's is ¥46,884.

The Kyoto and Osaka trip in yen: what each person paid, their share, and where they stand
Person	Paid	Share	Stands at
Aiko	¥55,200	¥43,550	owed ¥11,650
Lucas	¥96,000	¥46,883	owed ¥49,117
Mei	¥23,000	¥46,884	owes ¥23,884
Emma	¥10,000	¥46,883	owes ¥36,883
Total	¥184,200	¥184,200	¥0

The yen side settles in three payments. Emma pays Lucas ¥36,883. Mei pays Lucas ¥12,234 and Aiko ¥11,650. Check it: Lucas receives ¥36,883 plus ¥12,234, which is ¥49,117, and Mei pays ¥12,234 plus ¥11,650, which is ¥23,884.

The dollar tour stays in dollars. Emma paid $240, her share is $60, and Aiko, Lucas and Mei each owe her $60. Dimesum never adds the $180 to the yen figures. If the four agree a rate, the app can show everything folded into one currency, labelled with that rate, while each debt stays in the currency it was spent in.

When warikan is not the fair answer

Even splits suit most of a trip, and a few bills need something else. On the last night the four book a kaiseki dinner for ¥50,000. Lucas orders the larger set, which costs twice what the others have. An even split would charge everyone ¥12,500 and leave Lucas's extra course on three other people.

Dimesum splits that bill by shares instead. Lucas takes 2 shares and the other three take 1 each, which is 5 shares in all. Each share is ¥10,000. Lucas owes ¥20,000, and Aiko, Mei and Emma owe ¥10,000 each, which adds back to ¥50,000.

The friend who leaves early is the other case. Had Mei flown home a day before the others, she would not be on the bills from the last day at all. Each bill names its own people, so the group never has to work out what fraction of the trip she was there for.

Shares, exact amounts and line by line splits all run through the same arithmetic as an even split, in whole yen. None of them changes how the trip settles at the end.

Tips and tax on a Japanese receipt

Tipping is not part of eating out in Japan. The Japan National Tourism Organization's note on tipping says as much, which takes one line off most receipts a group will split. A trip that also passes through a country where tipping is expected can still record a tip on that bill, shared by what each person ate.

Consumption tax is the line that stays. Japan's National Tax Agency sets it at 10% at the standard rate and 8% at the reduced rate, from 1 October 2019. When a receipt lists dishes that only some people had, Dimesum shares the tax by each person's subtotal, so nobody pays tax on food they never ate; the method is in apps to split a bill by item.

What we ranked on

A trip in Japan asks four things of an app.

It has to split in whole yen without inventing decimals. It has to keep yen apart from the currency people brought from home. It has to end the trip in as few payments as possible. And it has to work for the friend who will not install anything.

We left out store ratings and install counts on purpose, because neither says whether an app split your ryokan correctly. For the same test applied to travel in general, see the best apps to split travel expenses, and for a wider list, bill splitting apps compared.

1. Dimesum: whole yen, each currency kept apart

Dimesum keeps every amount as a whole number of the currency's smallest unit, so yen are counted in yen and dollars in cents. Every split adds back to the bill exactly, using the largest remainder method, and the odd yen lands on one person per bill. A group can hold bills in any number of currencies, and each balance stays in its own.

When the trip ends, Dimesum plans the payments in at most one transfer fewer than the number of people, per currency. Four friends settle the yen in three payments or fewer, as they did above. The reasoning is in how to settle up group expenses, and the day by day version for a trip is in how to keep track of who owes who on a trip.

A friend without the app can still be on every bill. A quick split hands out a link or a QR code that opens in any browser, and a kept place holds a seat for someone who never signs up; both are explained in how to split a bill with someone who doesn't have the app. The app is available in 18 languages, Japanese among them.

The honest limits: the web app is live, while the Android and iPhone apps are in closed testing. Dimesum never holds or moves money; it keeps the score and records the payments you make in your own banking app. And reading a photo of a receipt is not switched on, so you type the lines.

2. Splitwise: many currencies, conversion on Pro

Splitwise covers more than 100 currencies, as of August 2026. Currency conversion sits in its paid Pro tier, along with unlimited expenses, receipt scanning and charts. US in-app prices for Pro have ranged from $2.99 to $39.99, and regional prices vary.

The free tier has a daily limit: Splitwise's help centre says a free account can add up to 4 expenses each day, as of 7 October 2026. A reviewer in Great Britain on version 26.5.4 wrote that if you go away "with 8 mates, they all need a Splitwise Pro membership". The detail is in the Splitwise daily expense limit.

On the Splitwise feedback forum, a request for a default currency per group, rather than per profile, had 309 votes and was under review on 22 August 2026. Stay with Splitwise if everyone on the trip already pays for Pro. If not, Splitwise alternatives covers moving.

3. Tricount: free, and owned by a bank

Tricount is a free group expense app owned by bunq, a bank, which bought it in 2022. Its paid Premium tier was withdrawn, so there is nothing to buy, as of August 2026. Our research records the ownership and the price, and nothing about how it handles yen or a second currency.

The ownership is the fact worth weighing: the app is part of a bank's product line. If that is fine by your group, it is the deciding point either way. The options for leaving it are in Tricount alternatives.

4. Settle Up: a pass one person buys for the group

Settle Up sells a subscription and a group pass that one person can buy for everyone, priced from $5.99 a week to $149.99 for life, as of August 2026. For a trip, that means one person can pay so the whole group gets the paid features.

Our research records the pricing and nothing about how it splits yen or holds two currencies. Ask those two questions of it with a test bill before the flight.

5. Splid: one payment, and an app that went quiet

Splid is a one-time purchase of $3.99, with no ads and no subscription, as of August 2026. Its Android app had last been updated on 23 August 2025, a year before our research on 22 August 2026.

A year without an update is not proof of a fault, but a trip is the wrong time to find one. Our research records nothing about its yen handling. Splid and Settle Up alternatives covers the switch from either.

6. Spliit: open source, run on a small budget

Spliit is a free, open-source group expense app that runs in a browser or on your own server, and it ships receipt scanning with AI. As of August 2026 the project reported about $1,300 a year of income, with 92% of it coming from its founder's own donation.

That is a fact about how long it can keep going, not a fault in its arithmetic. Our research records nothing about how it splits yen.

What our research does not cover

There are apps built in Japan for warikan, and our research does not include any of them. We name none rather than describe one we have not checked. The same goes for Japanese payment apps with a split button: we have no dated facts about them, so they are not in this list.

Two features from elsewhere do not travel. Venmo Groups works in the United States only, and so does Apple's receipt split with Apple Cash, announced for iOS 27. A group of friends meeting in Tokyo from three countries will find neither open to all of them.

How to pick before the flight

Run one real bill through the app before you leave. Use a yen amount that does not divide, such as ¥10,000 for three, and a second bill in the currency you earn in.

Check that the three shares add to ¥10,000 exactly and none has a decimal.
Check that the second currency shows as its own balance and is never added to the yen.
Send the bill to the friend least likely to install anything, and see whether they can open it.

An app that passes all three will survive the trip. The general method, for any bill, is in how to split a bill, and the dinner with one shared dish is in how to split a restaurant bill fairly.

Start the trip's group before the first train

Make the group the night before you fly, add the friend who has no app as a kept place, and enter the first booking in the currency it was paid in. Open Dimesum and put the ryokan in first.

Common questions

What is warikan?

Warikan is the Japanese word for splitting a bill evenly among the people at the table. A ¥23,000 dinner for four is ¥5,750 each. It works neatly until a bill does not divide, such as ¥10,000 for three, where one person has to carry ¥3,334 because the yen has no smaller unit.

Which app should I use to split bills on a trip to Japan?

We rank Dimesum first, and we make it, so weigh that. It splits in whole yen, keeps every currency's balance apart, settles in at most one transfer fewer than the number of people, and lets a friend without the app take part from a link. It is free, and the web app is live today.

Why can't a yen bill be split into decimals?

Because the yen has no minor unit. The ISO 4217 standard gives it zero decimal places, so ¥1 is the smallest amount anyone can owe. An app that splits ¥10,000 three ways should show ¥3,334, ¥3,333 and ¥3,333, never ¥3,333.33, and the three shares should add back to ¥10,000 exactly.

Do you need to split a tip in Japan?

Usually not, because tipping is not part of eating out in Japan, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. Consumption tax does appear on receipts, at 10% standard and 8% reduced. When only some people had a dish, Dimesum shares the tax by each person's subtotal, so nobody pays tax on food they did not eat.

Can I split yen and dollars in the same group?

Yes, as long as the app keeps them apart. Dimesum holds a separate balance per currency, so a ¥96,000 ryokan and a $240 tour are never added into one number. If the group agrees a rate, the app can show a folded figure labelled with that rate, while each debt stays in its own currency.