How to export transactions from Canadian banks: RBC, TD, Scotiabank, BMO, CIBC and National Bank

Every Canadian bank lets you download your transaction history as a file, and most people never do it. That file is the difference between guessing at your spending and reading it: a dated, itemized record of every debit and credit in a range you choose, in a format a tool can actually parse.

Below is the path for the six largest Canadian banks, in the order most people bank with them. Interfaces change, so where a bank’s exact wording moves around, the general route is given instead of a button label that may already be wrong.

One note before you start: online banking usually keeps a limited window of history available for download — often somewhere between three and eighteen months depending on the bank and account type. If you want a longer run, export in chunks going back as far as the date picker allows, and pull older periods from PDF statements.

RBC Royal Bank

RBC’s online banking exposes download options from the account activity view rather than from a central export screen. You pick the account first, then the range, then the format. Both spreadsheet and accounting formats are offered.

1. Sign in to RBC Online Banking on desktop. The download options are more complete on the web than in the mobile app.
2. From your accounts summary, select the chequing, savings or credit card account you want.
3. Open the account activity or transaction history view for that account.
4. Look for a download or export control on that page.
5. Choose your date range. If you want everything available, set the start date as early as the picker allows.
6. Choose CSV for a spreadsheet-friendly file, or OFX/QFX if you prefer the accounting format.
7. Confirm the download and note where your browser saved the file.
8. Repeat for each account. Credit cards export separately from chequing.

TD Canada Trust

TD splits things between EasyWeb on desktop and the mobile app, and the export controls live on desktop. Each account is downloaded on its own, and TD offers both spreadsheet and accounting formats.

1. Sign in to TD EasyWeb in a browser.
2. Select the account you want from your accounts list.
3. Open the transaction or account activity view.
4. Find the download or export option on the activity page.
5. Select the date range you want. Check the earliest date the picker will accept before you commit — it may be shorter than you expect.
6. Choose CSV, Excel, or OFX/QFX depending on what you plan to do with the file.
7. Download, then confirm the file opened with the right account’s transactions in it.
8. Repeat per account, including each credit card.

Scotiabank

Scotiabank’s download is reached through the account details view. As with the others, the desktop site gives you the full set of format options while the app is mostly read-only.

1. Sign in to Scotiabank online banking on desktop.
2. Click into the account you want from your accounts overview.
3. Open the transaction history or account activity for that account.
4. Locate the download or export control.
5. Set the from and to dates for the period you need.
6. Choose CSV, Excel, or OFX/QFX.
7. Save the file.
8. Repeat for any other chequing, savings or credit card accounts.

BMO Bank of Montreal

BMO groups downloads under its own section of online banking rather than only on the account page, so you may be able to select the account and the range in one place. If you cannot find it there, the per-account activity view has the same option.

1. Sign in to BMO Online Banking on desktop.
2. Look for a transaction download or export area in the account services or account activity navigation.
3. Select the account you want to export.
4. Choose the date range. BMO’s available window varies by account type, so check the earliest selectable date.
5. Choose CSV, Excel, or OFX/QFX.
6. Download the file.
7. Repeat for each remaining account.

CIBC

CIBC exposes downloads from the account activity page, one account at a time. The spreadsheet option is the simplest if you plan to open the file yourself first.

1. Sign in to CIBC Online Banking in a browser.
2. Select the account you want from your accounts list.
3. Open the account details or transaction history view.
4. Find the download or export transactions option on that page.
5. Set the date range.
6. Choose CSV, or OFX/QFX if you want the accounting format.
7. Save the file and check that the date range in it matches what you asked for.
8. Repeat for other accounts and credit cards.

National Bank of Canada

National Bank’s online banking is available in French and English, and the export control may be labelled with the French term depending on your language setting. The route is the same either way: account, then history, then download.

1. Sign in to National Bank online banking on desktop.
2. Select the account you want.
3. Open the transaction history or account statement view.
4. Find the download or export option on that page.
5. Choose the date range you need.
6. Choose CSV, Excel, or OFX/QFX.
7. Download and confirm the file contents.
8. Repeat for each account.

Which format to pick

If you are only going to hand the file to a tool, any of the three works. If you want to open it yourself and look at it first, take CSV — it opens in any spreadsheet application and in a plain text editor, and you can see immediately whether the dates, descriptions and amounts came through the way you expected.

OFX/QFX carries a little more structure, including account identifiers and cleaner transaction typing, which can help when you are merging several accounts. Some banks label this option after the accounting software it was originally designed for rather than after the format. It is the same file.

Excel files are fine too, but they occasionally arrive with header rows, logos or summary blocks above the actual transaction table. That is not a problem for import, just something to be aware of if you open one and wonder why row one is blank.

Once you have the file

Drop it into PennySlice. There is no template to choose and no column-mapping step — the AI reads the file, works out which column is the date, which is the description and which is the amount, and handles the rest. CSV, Excel, OFX and PDF all go through the same path, as do forwarded emails and a photo of a paper receipt.

If you exported six files from six accounts, import all six. PennySlice treats them as one picture rather than six silos, which matters if your groceries land on a credit card and your rent leaves a chequing account.

What happens next is where the file stops being a spreadsheet. Categorization runs at the line-item level, so a single warehouse-store trip can split across groceries, clothing and household rather than being flattened into one category that is wrong for most of the total. Penny Spotter runs seven background detectors over the imported history — budget pace, category anomalies, recurring cost creep, predicted expenses, savings opportunities, income changes and merchant concentration — and surfaces what it finds without being asked.

Then you can just ask. Plain English, across transactions, accounts, categories, budgets, imports, receipts, predictions and what-if scenarios. “What did I spend at restaurants in Q1?” returns a figure from your own data, not a general observation about restaurant spending.

Importing a file requires no standing connection to your bank. If you would rather not repeat the export every month, linking is available on paid tiers in Canada and the US through Plaid — you enter your login at your own bank, and PennySlice receives a read-only token you can revoke at any time from either side. You can mix both: link one account, import the rest.

The Track tier is free forever and handles imports. Paid plans include a 30-day trial with no card required. Either way, start with one file — export a single account for the last three months and ask it one question. That is a two-minute test of whether the data tells you anything you did not already know.

PennySlice provides spending information, not financial advice.