Chore rota for a 26-week term
A rota that runs for a whole term, or half a year, saves you from rebuilding it every month, and every housemate gets calendar events for the full run in one file. The question is whether a long rota stays fair. Here are the real counts for 6 housemates and 4 chores over 26 weeks.
Worked example: 6 people, 4 chores, 26 weeks
Jess, Omar, Kat, Leo, Mina and Raj share the kitchen, the bathroom, the bins and the hoovering. Week 1 starts on Monday 14 September 2026 and week 26 starts on Monday 8 March 2027. Each chore moves on by one person every week, so the pattern repeats every six weeks. Twenty-six weeks is four full cycles plus two weeks, and those two extra weeks decide the counts.
| Housemate | Kitchen | Bathroom | Bins | Hoover | Chores in total | Weeks off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jess | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 17 | 9 |
| Omar | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 18 | 8 |
| Kat | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 18 | 8 |
| Leo | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 18 | 8 |
| Mina | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 17 | 9 |
| Raj | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 16 | 10 |
No one does the same chore more than five times or fewer than four, so any two people differ by at most one on a given chore. Over all chores, though, the totals run from 16 to 18, because the two spare weeks hand extra turns to the people at the start of the cycle.
Pick a length that divides evenly
If you want exactly equal counts, choose a number of weeks that is a multiple of the number of housemates. For these six people, 24 weeks gives each person each chore exactly 4 times and exactly 8 weeks off. A longer rota is still fair, only slightly uneven at the end.
What a long rota needs
The free version makes rotas for up to 4 people and up to 4 weeks. A 26-week rota needs the paid Chore Rota Pro licence, which covers up to 12 people and up to 26 weeks and nothing above that. Each housemate then gets one personal link and one calendar (.ics) file holding all their weeks, so the whole term is in their calendar after a single download.
Privacy: the schedule lives only in the link. Anyone with the link can read the names and chores in it, and nothing is stored on a server. See the privacy page.