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The Actual importer reads your Actual Budget export and rebuilds it as a new budget: accounts, categories, transactions, and the amounts you budgeted each month.
This import creates a brand-new budget. It never overwrites or merges into a budget you already have.

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Export from Actual

In Actual Budget, export your budget. Actual produces a .zip file that contains the budget database (db.sqlite) and a metadata.json file. Keep the .zip intact — do not unzip it.

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Import into Budget Bandit

1

Open the Actual importer

Go to Import, then Import from Actual Budget.
2

Upload the .zip

Drag the .zip onto the drop zone, or click to browse. Budget Bandit reads the budget file in your browser.
3

Review the preview

You see counts for accounts, categories, transactions, and budget months. Confirm the budget name.
4

Import everything

Choose to import. Budget Bandit creates the new budget, switches to it, and loads your data.

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What comes across

  • Accounts with their balances.
  • Category groups and categories as you had them in Actual.
  • Transactions, including split transactions, with their cross-links preserved.
  • Monthly assignments — what you budgeted per category per month.
If the export is missing metadata.json or db.sqlite, Budget Bandit cannot read it. Upload the full .zip from Actual rather than a file you extracted from it.

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After importing

Open the budget to see your assignments, and review categorization in To Review.

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If something looks off

See Why rows did not import or import troubleshooting.

Import overview

All five importers and the new-budget rule.

Splits

How split transactions behave after the move.