How to Split a Security Deposit With Roommates (2026)

You’re moving out. The landlord finally sent the deposit refund — minus $400 for “carpet damage” your roommate’s dog did, minus $120 for cleaning, minus the mystery fee every landlord adds because they assume nobody reads the itemization. Now four people who used to share an apartment have to figure out how to split what’s left without anyone going scorched-earth.

The short version: split the refund the same way you paid in. If everyone paid an equal share of the deposit, everyone gets an equal share of what comes back. Then subtract the cost of specific damage from whoever caused it. Skip either step and you’re going to get a passive-aggressive Venmo request three weeks later.

How do you split a security deposit with roommates fairly?

There are basically three fair methods, depending on how you actually moved in.

• Equal split. Everyone paid the same in, everyone gets the same out. Cleanest when the rooms were equally priced.
• Proportional to deposit paid. If one person paid more upfront because they had the bigger room or moved in first, they get back a proportional share. Math: their refund = (their contribution / total deposit) × refund amount.
• Proportional to rent share. If you split rent unevenly because of room size, mirror that. The person paying 40% of rent gets back 40% of the refund.

Pick the method that matches how the deposit was actually paid, not the one that’s most convenient for whoever is doing the math. If rent was split by room size, the same logic applies — there’s a breakdown in how to split rent by room size.

What about damage? Who pays for that?

Damage comes off the top, before the refund gets split. If the landlord deducted $400 for a hole in the wall in Sam’s room, that $400 comes out of Sam’s share. Not everyone’s.

The rule: shared damage is shared, personal damage is personal.

• Shared damage — kitchen wear, normal scuffs in the hallway, the bathroom getting dingy. Comes out of the pooled refund and everyone eats it.
• Personal damage — a hole in one bedroom wall, a stain on the carpet under one person’s bed, a broken closet door in one room. Comes out of that person’s share only.
• Damage from a guest or pet — falls on the roommate whose guest or pet it was. Their dog, their carpet repair.

If you can’t agree on whether something is shared or personal, the rule of thumb is: would this have happened if that person didn’t live there? Hole in the wall above one bed? Personal. General kitchen tile wear? Shared.

How do you handle cleaning fees?

Cleaning is almost always a shared deduction unless one person trashed their room and bounced. The fair split: everyone pays equally, unless someone clearly skipped move-out cleaning and dumped the work on the rest of you.

If one roommate ghosted on cleaning day, the rest of you can fairly subtract the value of that work from their share. Two hours of cleaning at, say, $25 an hour is $50. That’s not punitive — that’s just accounting for labor they didn’t do.

The conversation goes better if you set this expectation before move-out, not after. A line in your roommate agreement saying “anyone who skips move-out cleaning loses a flat $50 from their deposit share” prevents the entire fight. If you don’t have an agreement yet, the next lease is a good time — see how to write a roommate agreement.

What if your roommate disputes the math?

Document everything before money moves.

• Take photos of the apartment on move-out day, every room, every corner. Time-stamped.
• Save the itemized deduction letter from the landlord. Every single line item.
• Put the proposed split in writing — group chat, email, whatever — with a deadline for objections. “Here’s how I’m splitting it. If no one objects by Friday, I send the Venmos Saturday.”

If someone still pushes back, the photos and the landlord’s itemization do the arguing for you. Most disputes die the second you can point at a date-stamped photo of the carpet from move-out day.

For deposits over a few hundred bucks per person, send the breakdown in a single message with the math laid out. Nobody loses an argument they can verify with a calculator.

How homies helps

homies tracks who paid what into shared funds — including the original deposit, who covered the broker fee, who pre-paid the first month — so when the refund hits, the proportional split is already calculated. The expense log doubles as a paper trail when a roommate suddenly forgets they paid $200 less upfront.

rooming, minus the drama. Join the waitlist at joinhomies.app.