Driving on holiday with several families: how to split fuel, vignettes and tolls

By Milan Martiniak · 1 November 2026 · 2 min read

Car costs on the way to a holiday split differently from accommodation. Fuel use hardly depends on how many people are in the car, and a motorway vignette is for the car, not the crew. So “per person” is not automatically right here.

What to count

Fuel there and back, and for day trips if you use the same car.
Motorway vignettes in every country on the route. A vignette belongs to the car, so with one car you only buy it once. Check that a short-term vignette covers the whole stay and the drive back.
Tolls, tunnels and ferries. Some countries charge for sections or tunnels on top of the vignette.
Parking at the accommodation or on day trips.

Wear and tear on the car is a sensitive topic. Some groups give the owner a fixed amount per kilometre, others do not. If you are thinking of it, say so before the trip, not after.

Example: a drive to the sea

The Smiths (2 adults, 2 children) and the Browns (2 adults, 1 child) go in the Smiths’ car. Fuel there and back costs €228, vignettes and tolls €80, €308 in total. The Taylors drive their own car.

Split	Smiths	Browns
Per family	€154	€154
Per person	€176	€132
Children at half	€168	€140

Per person it is €308 / 7 = €44 each. With children at half, the Smiths have 3 shares and the Browns 2.5, so 5.5 shares at €56.

The Taylors drop out of this expense completely. They pay for their own car. If their costs were added to a shared pot and split between all three families, the Smiths and the Browns would be paying towards a car they never sat in.

Which way to choose

Per family, if the crews are a similar size, or if the car owner would have driven anyway. The others pay for a seat that would otherwise stay empty.
Per person, if the crews differ in size and you want everyone to pay for their seat. That is common with car-sharing.
Children at half, if you split food that way too and want one rule for everything.

None of these is wrong. What goes wrong is finding out about it at the settlement.

How to set it up in Spolu

In Spolu, Transport expenses are split per family by default. On every car expense keep ticked only the families who rode in that car, and leave the others out. To split per person, choose “Everyone equally”.

Fuel and vignettes for the Smiths’ car: split between two families, the Taylors left out

With two cars, log each car’s costs as a separate expense and keep only its crew on it. In the event’s plan you can also note who goes in which car and when they get picked up.

Spolu does exactly this maths. It is free and runs in your browser.

Try Spolu

More guides

How to split costs at a holiday cabin when every family has a different number of childrenThirds, per head or children at half? A worked example with three families and the rules worth agreeing on before you leave.
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A family with children and couples without in one cabin: how to split the accommodationPer family, per person, per bed or per room? All four on one example, and a recommendation nobody will feel short-changed by.
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