“YNAB will not accept my bank CSV”
YNAB is unusually strict about CSV shape: it expects particular column headers, and no bank on earth exports them by that name. Almost every "YNAB will not take my file" problem is a header mismatch rather than damaged data.
Symptoms
The import screen shows no transactions, or an error about the file format Columns appear in the preview but the amounts land in the wrong fields The same file imports into other budgeting apps without complaint
What actually causes it
Missing or differently named headers
YNAB looks for Date, Payee, Memo and then either separate Outflow and Inflow columns or a single signed Amount column. Banks name these things "Transaction Date", "Description", "Debit" and "Credit", which do not match.
A signed amount where two columns are expected, or the reverse
Providing both Amount and Outflow/Inflow, or neither, leaves YNAB unable to decide which value is authoritative.
Preamble rows above the header
Many exports begin with account name, address and date-range lines before the real header row. YNAB reads the first line as the header and finds nothing it recognizes.
Semicolon delimiters from a European export
A semicolon-separated file is read as a single column, so no header ever matches.
How to fix it
- Drop the CSV into the checker below: it reports the delimiter, the column count, blank rows and any rows that do not line up with the header.
- Delete any preamble rows so the header row is the very first line of the file.
- Rename the headers to Date, Payee, Memo, Outflow, Inflow — or Date, Payee, Memo, Amount with negative values for spending.
- Re-import. If YNAB still shows nothing, the file most likely has no data rows at all, which the checker reports explicitly.
Related import problems
Skip the manual edit — fix it automatically
The checker converts semicolon delimiters, strips blank rows and pinpoints misaligned lines, which removes every cause on this list except the header names themselves. Free, no signup, no upload.
Open the fixer