Import a bank statement into Xero in the UK

A UK organisation in Xero can take bank lines from a feed or from a file, and for a PDF the file route is closed: Xero Central limits PDF imports to two other countries. Xero can load a CSV, which ExtractPro writes from the PDF. This guide covers that limit, what Xero says about its UK feeds, the shape Xero asks of a CSV, and the ExtractPro options that give it.

Where Xero stops at the PDF

Xero’s article on importing a PDF statement says: “PDF bank statement imports are currently only available in Xero organizations in Canada and the United States.” The same article adds a preference: “If your bank has the option to export statements in OFX format, we recommend using this format over PDF.” Source: Xero Central, Import a PDF bank statement, central.xero.com/s/article/Import-a-PDF-bank-statement, accessed 10 October 2026.

What Xero says about its UK bank feeds

Xero’s open banking page for the UK describes what a feed brings in, “Import up to 12 months of historic transaction data”, and what it asks of you in return: “You’ll need to re-authenticate your bank connection every 90 days – this is a new standard required with open banking”. Source: Xero UK, open banking, www.xero.com/uk/programme/open-banking/, accessed 10 October 2026.

Reconnecting limits the history: “You can only import 90 days of historical transactions when re-authenticating your bank feed. If you need more historic data you’ll need to manually import transactions into Xero.” A feed also has an authoriser: “the new Xero feeds can only be authorised by the bank account holder or someone with authorised access to online banking.” For a period a feed does not cover, the manual import is the route Xero names, and a CSV written from the statement is one way to carry it out. Source: Xero UK, open banking, www.xero.com/uk/programme/open-banking/, accessed 10 October 2026.

What Xero requires of the CSV file

• Date and amount: “You only need the Date and Amount fields to create bank statement lines, but reconciling your transactions is easier if you include more detail.”
• Sign: “Show income as positive amounts and expenses as negative amounts using a negative sign in front of the amount or with brackets, for example -30.00 or (30.00). Don't use commas to show decimal places.”
• Date format: the example Xero gives is “DD/MM/YYYY (eg 15/01/2023)”.
• Balances: “Columns containing opening and closing balances, as Xero calculates the bank balance from the transactions” are among the columns Xero says to delete.
• Size: “You can’t import a CSV file with more than 100,000 rows.”

Source: Xero Central, Import a CSV bank statement, central.xero.com/s/article/Import-a-CSV-bank-statement, accessed 10 October 2026.

Choosing the ExtractPro options

Begin with a statement that has already been converted, and work through the panel in this order:

1. 1Open Output format, then See more formats or customise, and choose Custom.
2. 2Set File type to CSV.
3. 3Set Date format to DD/MM/YYYY (15/01/2026), the order in Xero’s own example.
4. 4Under Amounts, choose Single column (signed), which writes money out as negative and money in as positive in one column.
5. 5Under Include balance, untick Add Balance column, and leave Categories unticked, so that each line is a date, a description and an amount.
6. 6Set CSV separator to Comma (,) and Number format to Decimal point, no separator (1234.56), so an amount is written 1234.56 with no comma inside it.
7. 7Click Apply format and download the CSV.

Loading it into Xero

The import is set out in Xero’s CSV article. You begin in the Accounting menu: “In the Accounting menu, select Bank accounts.” Then, for the account, “click the menu icon, then select Import a Statement.” A date prompt may follow: “If prompted, select the date format used in your bank statement”. Pick DD/MM/YYYY there, as in the ExtractPro panel, and the two agree. The article closes the sequence with “Click Complete import.” Source: Xero Central, Import a CSV bank statement, central.xero.com/s/article/Import-a-CSV-bank-statement, accessed 10 October 2026.

Read the CSV against the statement before you import it, looking for the same transactions and a total that matches the period’s movement; then put the lines Xero shows next to the statement once more.

Frequently asked questions

The questions that come up most: