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Convert UK bank statements.
Checked to the penny, in GBP.

UK statements are friendlier to convert than most: nearly every bank prints a running balance on every row and a payment type code beside the description. The catch is the date order, which US-built software reads wrongly for the first twelve days of every month, and the ninety-day window most banks put on their CSV export. These pages cover the high street banks, the app banks and the card issuers we see most from bookkeepers and self-assessment filers.

Drop your bank statements here

One file or a whole year. PDF, scanned image, CSV, QIF or OFX. Up to 12 files at a time; long PDFs are split for you.

Not ready to upload your own? See a sample result

5 pages free, no account. Dates, number format and currency are read from the statement; there is no country setting.

UK banks with their own page

Any other UK bank or card issuer works the same way; these are the ones people ask about. Each page covers how to download the PDF, what the statement looks like and where the bank's own export falls short.

How UK statements are laid out

Dates are day first, DD/MM or day and abbreviated month, with the year in the statement header or on each row depending on the bank. Money is shown with a point for decimals and a comma for thousands, in separate Money In and Money Out (or Paid In and Withdrawn) columns, with the balance on every row at Barclays, Lloyds, Halifax, Santander and the app banks, and on the last row of each day at HSBC. Payment type codes such as DD, SO, BP, FPI, FPO, DEB, VIS, CHQ and TFR sit in their own column or at the start of the description and are worth keeping for bank rules. An overdrawn balance carries a minus sign, or D or OD after the figure at some banks.

What to know before converting

  • Day-first dates mean 03/04 is 3 April; the statement period settles the order, so the check does not depend on a locale setting.
  • Faster Payment references are long and often wrap to a second line; a wrapped line misread as a row breaks the running balance at that point and is flagged there.
  • Open banking feeds into Xero and QuickBooks need re-authorising every 90 days and drop out silently; the PDF is the record for the missing weeks.
  • Most banks' CSV exports cover a few months at most and omit the opening balance; the statement archive reaches back six or seven years.
  • Credit card statements (Barclaycard, Halifax, HSBC cards) mark credits with CR after the amount rather than a minus.

Who asks for statements, and in what form

HMRC asks for bank statements in a compliance check and self-assessment filers reconstruct untracked income and expenses from them; Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, phased in from April 2026, pushes sole traders toward keeping digital records of exactly these rows. Mortgage lenders want three months, landlords and letting agents three to six, and UK visa applications commonly need six months showing the required funds held throughout.

Importing into Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage and others

United Kingdom questions

Will the dates be read as day first?

Yes. The statement period printed in the header fixes the order, and the running balance on every row confirms it, so a UK statement is not mistaken for a US one. The Xero export writes dates as DD/MM/YYYY and the Excel export writes real date cells, so nothing is ambiguous downstream.

Which export is right for Xero and which for Sage?

For Xero, the Xero download: a CSV in the exact layout Xero's Import a Statement screen expects. For Sage Accounting or Sage 50, the plain CSV, which Sage maps on import; Sage also reads OFX and QIF if you already have one from the bank. FreeAgent takes the plain CSV as well.

Are the payment type codes kept?

Yes. Codes like DD, SO, FPO and DEB are part of the description on the converted rows, in the position the bank printed them, so a bank rule written to match "DD BRITISH GAS" keeps matching after import. The suggested Category column is separate and does not replace them.

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