UK banks criticised over Making Tax Digital exports

DocFig has published a review of UK banks' public guidance on transaction exports for sole traders using Making Tax Digital. It found that 15 of 35 banks do not publicly say whether customers can download transactions as CSV or Excel files.

The findings come as sole traders prepare for quarterly updates under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. HMRC is due to bring about 1,077,000 more sole traders and landlords into the scheme from April 2027. DocFig said bank transaction data underpins digital record-keeping for many users.

Only 12 of 35 banks and similar providers say on public pages how far back a transaction download goes, the review found. Just six publicly offer a machine-readable download covering five years or more: NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank at seven years; Coutts at six years; Zempler Bank at five years; and Revolut Business back to account opening.

Several banks say older account history is available only in PDF format. According to the review, this applies at Starling, HSBC UK, Nationwide, First Direct and Zopa, while Starling's help page limits CSV exports to the past 12 months.

DocFig said this matters because HMRC guidance says Making Tax Digital users must keep digital records for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline for a tax year. Among the 35 ranked providers, only six publicly document access to a machine-readable transaction history covering that period.

"Making Tax Digital assumes your transactions are already digital. For a lot of sole traders, the first real obstacle is not the tax software, it's the bank," said Sourav Singla, founder of DocFig.

"We read every public help page we could find for 41 providers, and for almost half the questions a sole trader would ask, the bank simply doesn't say," Singla said.

Five-year record

The review also examined links between bank accounts and accounting software. It found that 22 of 35 providers say they connect to accounting software, but noted that bank feeds often do not go back far enough to cover older records.

Metro Bank and Cumberland Building Society say transactions from before a feed started are not sent, the findings show. Triodos and Unity Trust Bank cap backfill at 12 months.

HMRC guidance says some transactions may not appear in full in a bank feed and may need to be created separately as a digital record in software. It also says that once a record has been sent in a quarterly update, it must not be moved by cut and paste or copy and paste, while CSV importing and exporting count as a digital link.

"Five years is the number that matters, and only six banks publicly say they can give you five years of transactions in a format software can read," Singla said.

"Everyone else either stops at 12 months, falls back to PDF statements, or doesn't say. Most people find out the limit when they log in to download a year they actually need," he said.

Missing detail

Across all 35 ranked institutions, 197 of 408 applicable facts, or 48%, were not stated on any public page reviewed, according to DocFig. It also found that none of the providers says whether PDF statements contain real text or scanned images, a distinction that affects whether a statement can be converted into spreadsheet data.

Where charges were listed, the cost of a copy statement ranged from £2.50 to £8, the study found. It added that 24 of 35 providers publish no figure for that service.

NatWest and Revolut scored highest in the review for what they document publicly, each with 10 out of 10. Royal Bank of Scotland, the Co-operative Bank, Ulster Bank, Unity Trust Bank and Zempler Bank followed on 9.

Seven providers scored zero because none of the measured facts appeared on their public pages: Card One Money, Cater Allen, Handelsbanken UK, Kroo, Triodos Bank UK, TSB and Zopa. DocFig said a low score does not mean a feature is unavailable, only that it is not publicly documented.

The methodology covered 41 providers commonly used by sole traders and landlords, based only on public sources including help centres, frequently asked questions, tariffs and official app store listings. No accounts were accessed, and no provider was contacted during the review. Two providers were excluded because they do not offer a current account to sole traders, while Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and AIB (NI) were not ranked because they blocked automated access.

"The rules are clear that a CSV import is fine and copy and paste is not. So the format your bank gives you is not a technical detail, it decides how much manual work a sole trader faces every quarter," Singla said.