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The YNAB importer reads your YNAB export and rebuilds it as a new budget in Budget Bandit: accounts, category groups and categories, transactions, and the amounts you assigned each month.
This import creates a brand-new budget. It never overwrites or merges into a budget you already have. After it finishes you can switch between budgets; nothing existing is touched.

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Export from YNAB

1

Open YNAB settings

In YNAB, open Settings (the gear icon).
2

Export the budget

Choose Export Budget.
3

Download the file

YNAB gives you a .zip file. Save it where you can find it. The zip contains a Register CSV (your transactions) and a Plan CSV (your monthly assignments).

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Import into Budget Bandit

1

Open the YNAB importer

Go to Import, then Import from YNAB.
2

Upload the .zip

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

Review the preview

You see counts for accounts, categories, transactions, and budget entries. Confirm the budget name, which is taken from your YNAB export.
4

Import everything

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

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What comes across

  • Accounts — every account that appears in your register.
  • Category groups and categories — YNAB’s structure, minus internal groups (the hidden “Internal Master Category” and “Hidden Categories” groups are not brought over). The Inflow group is treated as income.
  • Transactions — with payee, memo, and cleared status. Transfers between accounts are recognized and linked rather than double-counted, and YNAB’s “Starting Balance” rows are handled as account starting balances.
  • Monthly assignments — the amounts you budgeted per category per month, from the Plan CSV, so your history of assignments comes with you.
If the export is missing its Register CSV, Budget Bandit cannot read it. Make sure you uploaded the full .zip straight from YNAB rather than a single extracted file.

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After importing

Your transactions are in the new budget. Open the budget to see assignments, and review categorization in To Review. Set up rules to keep future transactions tidy.

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If something looks off

See Why rows did not import for skipped rows, or import troubleshooting.

Import overview

All five importers and the new-budget rule.

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