Bank statement to Excel: how to download your transactions as a CSV

Your monthly bank statement is a PDF, and a PDF is hard to get into a spreadsheet. But the statement isn't the only copy of your transactions. Almost every bank and card also lets you download your account activity as a CSV file: one transaction per row, with the date, description and amount in their own columns. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers, and it's the file you want for your books. If all you can get is the PDF, our free bank statement converter turns it into the same kind of file.

Statement or activity download?

• A statement is the monthly PDF your bank posts or mails. It's made for reading and printing.
• An activity download is the same transactions as a data file. Banks call it "Download", "Export" or "Download transactions". Choose CSV as the format. Some banks label it "Comma delimited", "Spreadsheet" or "Excel" instead. QFX, QBO and QIF are for Quicken and QuickBooks, so skip those.

How to find it at any bank

1. Sign in on a computer, not the phone app. Many banks only offer the download on their website.
2. Open the checking account or card you want.
3. Look near the list of transactions for Download, Export, or a download icon (an arrow pointing down).
4. Choose CSV, or the spreadsheet or Excel option if CSV isn't listed.
5. Pick your dates. For this year's taxes, choose January 1 to today.
6. Click Download. The file lands in your Downloads folder.

Do it for each account and card you use for business. If your bank limits how far back one download can go, download a few shorter date ranges and paste them one after another.

Bank by bank

Here's what each bank's own help pages say, checked in October 2026.

Chase

On chase.com, open the account and use the download icon above your transactions, then choose the spreadsheet (CSV) file type. Chase doesn't post these steps on its public help pages, so the labels may differ a little.

Bank of America

For credit cards, Bank of America says you can download transactions for financial software and request up to 12 months of detail. Its help pages don't spell out the steps for checking accounts, so use the steps above on the website.

Wells Fargo

Go to the Accounts tab and choose Download Account Activity. Pick your dates, choose Comma Delimited (ASCII, Spreadsheet) and download. It's on the website only. Checking and savings go back up to 18 months, and credit cards go back 90 days or 300 transactions.

Capital One and Citi

Their help pages only cover viewing transactions on screen and downloading PDF statements. Capital One shows two years of transactions on its website, and Citi shows them on the Account Details page. Try the steps above on the website. If there's no download, copy the rows from the transaction list (see below).

American Express

In your online account at americanexpress.com, choose the CSV download. It covers your recent activity and your past six billing statements.

PayPal

On the website, open your activity, click the Download icon, then Custom, and choose CSV. Each file can cover up to 12 months, going back seven years. Fees have their own column.

Venmo

In the app, go to Settings, then Statements. On the website, go to Statements, pick the month and click Download CSV. Statements come one month at a time.

Stripe

In the Dashboard, open the Payout reconciliation report, pick your dates and download the itemized CSV. It lists each payment, refund and fee that makes up a payout. If you use manual payouts, use the Balance report's Export instead.

Novo and Mercury

In Novo, go to Activity, then Download CSV, and choose your date range. It works in the app and on the website. Mercury lets you export CSVs from your dashboard, and its help center has a guide to bulk-exporting statements, receipts and CSVs.

Chime and Cash App

These two may only give you statements. Chime's help center describes monthly statements you can view and download in the app or at chime.com (Profile, then Documents, then Account statements). It doesn't mention a CSV download of your transactions. Cash App's help center covers this under "How to access your Cash App account statements". If all you can get is a PDF statement, use one of the options below.

If your bank only gives you a PDF

Convert the PDF in your browser. Our free bank statement converter reads statement PDFs on your own computer, without uploading them, and gives you the date, description and amount as a CSV. It checks each statement against its starting and ending balances, so you know no row was missed. It works on PDFs you download from online banking, not on scans of paper statements.

Copy the rows from the website. Sign in on a computer, open the account's transaction list, and set the dates. Select the rows with your mouse, copy them, and paste into a blank spreadsheet. Then copy the date, description and amount columns from there into your books. Check the first and last rows against your statement.

Let Excel read the PDF. Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows can pull tables out of a PDF: Data, then Get Data, From File, From PDF. Pick your statement, select the table of transactions and click Load. Microsoft lists this only for Microsoft 365 on Windows. It isn't in Excel 2019, Excel for Mac or Excel on the web. Microsoft also warns that rows spanning more than one line may not come through correctly, so check the totals against your statement.

Type them in. With a few dozen business transactions a year, typing the date, description and amount from your statements is often the fastest way.

Be careful with other online PDF converters. Many ask you to upload a full bank statement, with your name and account number on it, to a site you don't know. Ours never sends the file anywhere.

Getting the CSV into a spreadsheet

Double-click the CSV and it opens in Excel or Numbers. In Google Sheets, use File, then Import, and upload the file. You'll usually see more columns than you need, such as a running balance, a check number or a category. Keep the date, description and amount.

If PayPal, Venmo or Stripe pays out to your bank, your bank download already shows those payouts. You don't need both files unless you want the detail behind each payout.

Most bank files show money in as positive and money out as negative. Many card files, including American Express, show purchases as positive numbers instead, so check one purchase before you add anything up.

To build a monthly P&L by hand, add up each category for the month and type the totals into our free profit and loss template.

The Paid & Filed workbook takes this file as it comes. Paste the date, description and amount columns into the yellow columns on the Transactions tab, or the debit and credit columns if your bank splits them. A setting on the Setup tab flips cards that show purchases as positive. Then it sorts each row onto a Schedule C line and works out your next quarterly payment.