What Amex lets you download
| Download | Formats | How far back |
|---|---|---|
| Recent activity and statements | Quicken, QuickBooks or CSV | Your recent activity and your past six billing statements |
| Transaction history | CSV, Excel or PDF | The previous two years, which you can sort and filter first |
| Year-End Summary | Quicken, QuickBooks, Excel, CSV or PDF | The year it summarizes |
All three are in your online account at americanexpress.com. Amex's help pages describe downloading there; they don't mention the Amex app.
Download your Amex transactions
- Log in at americanexpress.com. Use a browser on a computer, and pick the card if you have more than one.
- Open Statements & Activity. That's the tab with your billing statements and recent activity.
- Pick the period. Choose your recent activity or one of the last six billing statements.
- Download it as Quicken. Use the download option, choose Quicken (QFX) and save the file.
Do this for each card. Amex's help pages give the formats and limits but don't name every button, and the account pages change from time to time.
Which file to choose
Choose Quicken (QFX) for anything in your recent activity or last six statements:
- Charges come in as money out, and payments and refunds as money in, which is what a credit card account in your budget expects.
- Each transaction carries an ID from Amex, so downloading overlapping periods never adds a charge twice.
QuickBooks files are for QuickBooks, and UrBudget doesn't open them. It doesn't open Excel workbooks (.xls or .xlsx) either.
Older than six statements: the CSV
For activity before your last six statements, the two-year history downloads as CSV, Excel or PDF, but not as a Quicken file. A CSV can work. Amex doesn't publish the CSV's columns, so look at the preview before you import: card files often list charges as positive amounts, which would read as money coming in.
If the preview shows your purchases as money in, tick Purchases are positive (in UrBudget 1.0.3 and later) and preview again. Charges then come in as money out and payments as money in.
Import it into UrBudget
- Open the card's account. Select your Amex account in UrBudget (add it as a credit card account first if it isn't there) and choose Import file above its transactions.
- Choose the file. Click Choose a file, or drag the .qfx or .csv onto the box. UrBudget picks the format from the extension.
- Set the date order for a CSV. For a CSV, set Dates in the file to Month/day/year if the dates look like 10/31/2026. A QFX file has no setting to change.
- Preview and review. Choose Preview transactions. Charges you already imported are marked and skipped. A charge you typed in yourself, with the same amount within 10 days, is offered as a match, so it isn't counted twice.
- Import. Choose Import, then approve the charges in the register.
When you give each charge a category, the money moves from that category into the card's payment category, so the money for your Amex bill is set aside as you spend.
If something looks wrong
- Purchases show up as money coming in. You're importing a CSV that lists charges as positive amounts. Tick Purchases are positive and preview again, or use the Quicken file.
- The Quicken option doesn't reach far enough back. Amex's Quicken and QuickBooks downloads cover recent activity and the last six billing statements. For older months, use the CSV from the two-year history.
- UrBudget can't read a date. Dates in the file starts at Year-month-day. Choose Month/day/year and preview again.
- The same charges appear in two files. That's expected when periods overlap. The ones already in UrBudget are marked as already imported and skipped.
Budget with your Amex file
UrBudget is free for 30 days on Windows and macOS, then $9 once. No account, no card and no bank login.