Kids’ holidays: splitting when the stays are unequal
Holidays concentrate everything that goes wrong between separated parents: bigger sums than usual, paid up front by one of them, for unequal stays. Splitting by nights settles most of it — provided you know what it does not settle.
The short answer
What is consumed per night is split per night. The rental, the food, the lift pass: divide by the total nights, then multiply by each parent’s nights.
Everything else is split as usual. Travel, equipment and insurance do not depend on how long the stay was, so they follow the group’s normal rule — even split, or in proportion to income.
Splitting by nights
Two weeks of holiday: the child spends ten nights with Clara and four with Thomas. The rental cost 700, paid by Thomas.
- Total nights: 10 + 4 = 14
- Clara’s share: 700 × 10 ÷ 14 = 500
- Thomas’s share: 700 × 4 ÷ 14 = 200
Thomas paid for all of it, so Clara owes him 500.
Counting nights rather than days avoids the familiar argument about handover day, when the child is with one parent in the morning and the other in the evening. A night belongs to exactly one parent.
What should not be split by nights
Applying the night ratio to everything is the most common mistake, and it always favours the same parent.
Travel. A return train fare costs the same whether the child stays four nights or ten. It follows the usual rule, not the length of the stay.
Equipment. A ski suit, a swimming costume, a suitcase are used all year afterwards, at both homes. Charging them against the nights of one trip makes no sense.
Anything one parent chose for themselves. A bigger rental to host their own guests, an upgrade one of them picked: the extra is theirs.
The trap of money paid in advance
A rental is often booked six months ahead, with a deposit. Dates can change in between.
The deposit is not the cost. Record it as soon as it is paid, so whoever put it in does not forget — but the final split is worked out on the total, once the stay is over and the nights are actually known.
If it is cancelled, the question is who cancelled, and why. Something nobody controls — illness, an employer — is split the way the stay would have been. A change of plan decided by one parent stays with that parent. This rule only holds if it is agreed before booking, not after the cancellation.
Cancellation insurance is always split like travel: it protects both, whatever the length of the stay.
A full stay, with the figures
Clara: 10 nights. Thomas: 4 nights. Everything else split evenly.
- Rental 700 (paid by Thomas) → by nights: Clara 500, Thomas 200
- Food 280 (paid by Clara) → by nights: Clara 200, Thomas 80
- Return train 160 (paid by Thomas) → evenly: 80 each
- Ski suit 120 (paid by Clara) → evenly: 60 each
So each owed: Clara 500 + 200 + 80 + 60 = 840, Thomas 200 + 80 + 80 + 60 = 420. Clara put in 400, Thomas 860. In the end, Clara owes Thomas 440.
Set out like this, the figure stops being arguable. Done from memory, it never comes out right.
Agree it before you leave
Three sentences are enough, and they are worth settling before booking rather than on the way home: what is split by nights, what is split the usual way, and what happens if it is cancelled. Both parents then hold the same rule, and the holiday does not end in a negotiation.
With WeSplit
The shares mode takes 10 and 4 as readily as 40 and 60: enter each parent’s nights on the costs that depend on them, and the usual split on the rest. Each expense keeps its own rule, inside the same group.
At the end of the stay one figure is left: what one owes the other. The spreadsheet export gives the dated detail if memories differ.