Fair Chore Split Calculator
To divide domestic labor fairly, split the time the chores take, not the number of chores. Each job here carries its weekly minutes — cooking 120, laundry 60, dishes 45, trash 15 — and each person gets a share in line with the time they have, from 10 to 100 per cent. Mark anything somebody refuses, and the calculator hands out the largest chores first to whoever is furthest below their share.
1. Household Members
2. Select Chores
Add a custom chore
Your Fair Chore Split
Fairness Score
Hours per Week
How the split is calculated
Every chore carries a weekly minute figure, and the split is a division of those minutes rather than of the chores themselves. The library ships twelve with our own estimates attached: cooking 120 minutes a week, meal prep 90, laundry 60, groceries 60, yard work 60, dishes 45, pet care 45, bathroom cleaning 40, vacuuming 30, mopping 30, dusting 25, trash 15. Any chore you add carries whatever minutes you type, and your number is used exactly as given.
Each person gets an availability figure between 10 and 100 per cent, and their target is their share of the total availability multiplied by the total weekly minutes. Two people at 100 and 60 per cent split a 400-minute week as 250 and 150 minutes, not as 200 each. Chores are then handed out largest first, and each one goes to whoever is furthest below their own target — the score is their assigned minutes divided by their target, so somebody at 40 per cent of a small target is picked before somebody at 60 per cent of a large one. Marking a chore "prefer not" multiplies that score by 1.5, which makes it a tie-breaker rather than a veto. Marking it "refuse" removes them from consideration for that chore entirely.
The fairness percentage is our own construction and worth reading sceptically: it is 100 minus twice the largest gap between anyone's assigned minutes and their target, expressed as a share of the whole week's minutes, floored at zero. It rewards a split that lands near everybody's target and it says nothing at all about whether the targets themselves are fair. That part is the conversation the tool exists to start.
Every figure above was read out of the code that runs on this page. Where a number is our own judgement rather than a published one, the note says so and cites nothing. Method last checked 21 August 2026.
Why an unfair chore split causes so much friction
An unfair chore split is a common source of conflict in shared households. In the 2025 American Time Use Survey, 87% of women and 75% of men did some household activities on an average day, and on the days they did, women spent 2.8 hours on them and men 2.1.
The problem isn't usually that people are unwilling to help. It's that household labor is invisible and unevenly perceived. Tasks like "mental load" (planning meals, remembering appointments, noticing when supplies run low) often go unaccounted for in casual chore splits.
This calculator makes the invisible visible. By putting actual time estimates on every task, you can talk about who does what using numbers everyone can check, rather than impressions.
A fair split does not have to be 50/50. What matters is that everyone in the house can see how it was worked out and agrees with it.
A split only holds if something keeps score after the conversation ends. That is what a household chores app is for: assignments, rotations and a record of who did what. If there are two of you, start with the best chore app for couples; if nobody in the house needs star charts, the chore app for adults shortlist skips them entirely. Sharing with roommates rather than family? The best apps for roommates comparison splits it by job — chores, bills and groceries — because no single app covers all three.
The other half of the same argument is the money, and it splits on the same principle: total it first, then divide it. Our household bills calculator adds up rent, utilities, phone and the rest, and gives you the monthly figure, the yearly one, and the share per person.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is a "fair" chore split calculated?
What if one person works more hours outside the home?
Can I add custom chores?
How often should we recalculate?
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