Venmo Etiquette: How to Navigate Digital Debts Between Friends

Payment apps make it so much easier to share expenses with people. But that leaves us with a lot of difficult questions.

By Annabelle Williams of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"The financial etiquette dilemmas run the gamut. Is it appropriate to send a friend a Venmo request, asking for their exact share of a meal or event? Or do you wait for them to send you a payment? What if they round down or don’t include a tip? Do you point that out? Worse, what if they ignore the request? And what’s an acceptable time frame to pay someone back?"

"Letting someone put their card down to cover the meal is something to ideally talk about in advance . . . [and] discussing a time frame for payback beforehand, if possible."

"Sure, you can. [share small purchases with friends] But do you want to? Charging somebody $1.57 because he or she came to your house for a drink or two can seem tacky. As can charging somebody $5.56 because you shared some appetizers after work. There’s something about the precision that makes it all seem impersonal." 

"making it so easy to split expenses threatens to take away one of the joys of friendship—the gesture of picking up the tab. In many ways, it can serve as a glue that helps hold friendships together. When one person pays the tab, and the other person says, “I’ll get the next one,” it creates momentum to actually get together again."

"sometimes it’s worth taking a financial hit to preserve a friendship"

"it feels rude to be too exact when someone’s spotting me by picking up the bill."

"now, it’s pretty hard to plead ignorance." [about past bills]

"Venmo etiquette isn’t so much about money as it is about friendships. With a friend I have just met, or someone with whom I am not close, I would be more assiduous about payback."

"Mostly, my friends prompt each other in person or via text, rather than using Venmo’s in-app “remind” function, which can feel, as one friend put it at our recent brunch, “harsh.”"

One person "finds it in poor taste to nickel-and-dime people. Anything under 5 bucks is a wash."

Related posts:

If a Friend Bills You $4 for a Favor, Are They Really a Friend? Surprise Venmo requests are souring relationships and revealing just how closely some of us keep score (2024)

More on the social aspects of Venmo (2018) 

Is Venmo Affecting Friendships? (2017)

Who Pays on the First Date? No One Knows Anymore, and It’s Really Awkward (2017)

Yes, You Can Have Too Many Friends (2009)

You Think You’re Doing Fine in Life, Until You Hear a Friend Is Doing Better (2024)

If It Pays To Have Friends, Can You Pay To Have Friends? (2013)

The Incredibly True Story of Renting a Friend in Tokyo (2020)

Would You Pay $250,000 To Get Your Friends' Respect? (2011)

Excerpt: But here is something interesting about one student, who is now $250,000 in debt:

"Mr. Wallerstein, for his part, is not complaining. Once you throw in the intangibles of having a J.D., he says, he is one of law schools' satisfied customers.

"It's a prestige thing," he says. "I'm an attorney. All of my friends see me as a person they look up to. They understand I'm in a lot of debt, but I've done something they feel they could never do and the respect and admiration is important.""