How to Export Transactions From Your Bank as a CSV
Every bank can export your transactions — they just hide the button. Where to find it at the major banks, plus what to do with the file.
Every bank lets you download your transactions as a CSV file — a plain spreadsheet of dates, descriptions, and amounts. It's your data, from the source, shared with nobody. Banks just bury the button three menus deep, so here's the universal recipe plus the specific paths at the major banks. Total time once you know where to look: about a minute.
The universal recipe
- Log into your bank on a desktop browser — mobile apps often hide or limit export options.
- Open the specific account (checking, credit card, etc.).
- Look for Download, Export, or a small download icon near the transaction list or search filters.
- Choose the date range — grab 12 months if you're doing a subscription audit, or just the period since your last export.
- Pick CSV as the format (sometimes labeled "Excel/Spreadsheet (.csv)"). Avoid PDF — that's a statement, not data.
Where the button hides, by bank
| Bank | Path to the export |
|---|---|
| Chase | Account → above the transaction list, the download icon → "Spreadsheet (Excel, CSV)" → choose date range |
| Bank of America | Account → "Download" link above transactions → file type "Microsoft Excel format (CSV)" |
| Wells Fargo | Account → "Download Account Activity" → select range and "Comma Delimited (CSV)" |
| Citi | Account → transactions view → export/download icon → CSV |
| Capital One | Account → "Download Transactions" → CSV, pick the range |
| American Express | Statements & Activity → "Download Your Transactions" → CSV (Amex allows up to several years) |
| Discover | Activity & Statements → download icon → "Spreadsheet (CSV)" |
| Credit unions / others | Almost always under the account's transaction history — look for "Export," "Download," or the tray-with-arrow icon. Failing that, search the help center for "export CSV." |
Menus get reshuffled in redesigns, but the pattern is stable: the export lives with the transaction list, not in statements or settings.
Three tips that save annoyance
- Export each account separately. Checking and the credit card are different exports — a complete picture needs both (the card is usually where the subscriptions hide).
- Don't edit the file. No need to clean it up, rename columns, or delete rows — good import tools handle raw bank formats as-is.
- Overlapping ranges are fine. If you export May–June and last time you did April–May, decent software deduplicates the overlap automatically.
What to do with the file
A CSV on your desktop is data, not understanding. The classic move is the spreadsheet (we've written about how that goes); the modern move is dropping it into a tool that reads it for you. Piggey was built around exactly this file: drop it in, the AI categorizes every transaction — including the cryptic "POS PURCHASE #4417" ones — finds your recurring subscriptions, and turns fifteen months of bank noise into a dashboard. No bank login, because you just did the export yourself.
That's the whole privacy trade: one minute a month of downloading in exchange for never handing your bank credentials to anyone. The button's been there all along.
See where your money actually goes
Piggey's AI categorizes your transactions and finds your forgotten subscriptions — no bank login, no budgeting homework. Free to start.
