Let R 2 be a domain. In 2007 Hencl, Koskela and Onninen proved that if f W onto ! 0 is a homeomorphism of bounded variation then so does its inverse map f 1 D .x; y/W 0 ! . In this paper we present a different proof giving precise formulae for the total variations of the coordinate functions of f 1 , that is,As an application, we prove that weak*-compactness in BV holds simultaneously for sequences of BV-homeomorphisms f j and their inverses f 1 j ; this symmetry result fails in the setting of bi-Sobolev mappings. We also deduce by the above formulae a slight generalization of a recent theorem of Iwaniec and Onninen on the existence a.e. of a right inverse of weak limit of W 1;2 -homeomorphisms. Extensions to higher dimension are given.