Apple Is Taking on Venmo and Splitwise With a New Receipt-Scanning Bill Splitter in iOS 27

The move puts Apple on a direct collision course with popular third-party payment and bill-splitting services like Venmo, Splitwise, and Cash App, by turning a frequent social friction point—dividing a dinner or group-activity bill—into a native iPhone capability.

How the iOS 27 bill-splitting feature works

The workflow Apple has designed is straightforward, aiming to reduce the back-and-forth often required to settle group expenses :

1. Receipt photo scan: After a group meal or shared purchase, the person who paid the full bill points their iPhone camera at the receipt. AI-powered optical character recognition (OCR) and computer vision technology identify individual line items, the subtotal, tax, and tip .
2. Assign items to people: The user can then tap each line item on the scanned receipt and assign it to the relevant person from their contacts. This allows for precise item-level splitting rather than just dividing an even total .
3. Generate Apple Cash payment requests: Once all assignments are made, the system automatically calculates each person’s exact share—including their portion of tax and tip—and generates individual Apple Cash payment requests. These requests are sent directly through iMessage or via the Wallet app, allowing recipients to pay with a single tap .

The entire experience is built into iOS and watchOS, meaning no additional app downloads or account sign-ups are required beyond an existing Apple Cash setup .

Announcement and release timeline

• Announcement: The feature is expected to be previewed at WWDC 2026, which runs the week of June 8, 2026. Bloomberg’s Gurman reported Apple would announce it “as early as next week,” referring to the conference .
• Public release: The bill-splitting tool will be part of the full iOS 27 software update, which Apple historically releases in September alongside its new iPhone hardware .

A direct threat to Venmo and Splitwise

Apple’s bill-splitting feature isn’t just a convenience upgrade; it’s a strategic move into the turf of established fintech apps. Here’s how it challenges them:

• Deep operating-system integration: Venmo and Splitwise are third-party apps that require users to download them, create accounts, and link bank details. Apple’s feature is embedded directly into the iPhone’s Wallet and Messages apps, which are already used by millions of people daily. This removes significant barriers to entry .
• Combining tracking with payment: Apps like Splitwise excel at tracking who owes what, while Venmo handles the actual money transfer. Apple’s tool collapses these two steps into a single flow—scan, assign, and request payment in one interface—potentially eliminating the need for a separate tracking app .
• Leveraging the iPhone network effect: Because Apple Cash is available to nearly every iPhone user in the US, Apple can instantly reach a massive user base without the user-acquisition costs that third-party apps face. For the common “split a dinner bill” scenario, the path of least resistance might now be using the built-in tool, not opening a separate app .
• Privacy-focused positioning: Apple is expected to process receipt data on-device or through its private cloud compute infrastructure, a selling point that could resonate as more private than sending sensitive purchase data to a third-party service .

The key limitation: US-only availability

The most significant near-term constraint is geographic. Because the feature relies on Apple Cash—which is currently only available in the United States—the bill-splitting tool will be limited to US users at launch . This leaves the global market for bill-splitting apps largely unaffected for now, giving international services like Splitwise room to breathe outside the US.

For iPhone users in the United States, however, the convenience of a native, tightly integrated solution for one of modern life’s small financial headaches could prove compelling enough to draw significant activity away from standalone payment and bill-splitting apps.