How to move your budget
- Install UrBudget. It's free for 30 days on Windows and macOS, with no account and no card. Download it here.
- Make a token in YNAB. Sign in to YNAB on the web and open Account Settings. Under Developer Settings, choose New Token, enter your password and choose Generate. Copy the token: YNAB shows it only once.
- Paste it and import. In UrBudget, choose I'm coming from YNAB on the first screen (or Settings → Import later), paste the token and choose Import & save. The plan you last opened in YNAB comes over; for another one, paste its plan ID from YNAB's address bar.
Most budgets come over in seconds. There's nothing to map or set up afterwards.
What comes over
- Accounts, open and closed, with their types and their cleared and reconciled history.
- Every transaction, with splits, transfers, payees, memos, flags and cleared status.
- Your categories and groups, and every month's assigned amounts.
- Targets and notes on your categories and months.
- Scheduled transactions, which post when they're due.
- Loan details such as interest rates, minimum payments and escrow, which the loan planner can load for you to review.
What stays behind
- Payee rules. YNAB's API doesn't share them. Set up rules in Payees & rules; they rename and categorize imported bank rows.
- Bank connections. UrBudget doesn't connect to banks. Download statement files (CSV, OFX, QFX or QIF) from your bank and import them: duplicates are skipped, and rows that match what you entered are paired.
- Sharing a budget with other people. One license covers all your own computers and sync keeps them the same, but there's no shared budget for several people.
- A phone app. UrBudget runs on Windows and macOS.
Checked to the cent
UrBudget doesn't copy YNAB's totals. It works them out again from your transactions and assignments, then compares them with YNAB's: every account's balance, each category's assigned, activity and available amounts in every month, and Ready to Assign. Anything that differs is listed. Nothing is patched over to make the numbers agree.
On a real multi-year budget with 2,656 transactions, that's 48 account balances, 1,107 category months and 27 months of Ready to Assign, all matching.
One number differs on purpose: UrBudget's cash age is its own estimate of how long money waits before you spend it, so it won't match YNAB's Age of Money exactly.
Try it side by side
You don't have to switch on day one. Import again whenever you like: only what changed in YNAB since the last import comes down, and what you changed in UrBudget is kept. If the same thing changed in both places, UrBudget shows you both versions and you choose. Every import backs up your budget first.
To start over from YNAB's copy instead, choose Replace from YNAB; your UrBudget version is backed up before it's replaced.
Your token
UrBudget only reads from YNAB; it never changes anything there. The token is used for the import and then forgotten, unless you choose to keep it in your Keychain (macOS) or Credential Manager (Windows) for next time. It never goes into your budget file, backups, exports or logs.
YNAB's tokens don't expire, so when you've finished importing, you can revoke it in YNAB's Developer Settings.
No token? Use YNAB's export file
In YNAB on the web, open your plan's menu and export it. In UrBudget, choose No token? Use YNAB's export file and pick the .zip YNAB downloaded. The same month-by-month check runs.
The export leaves out targets, notes, split memos, scheduled transactions and which accounts are closed, and a file import can't be refreshed later. Use the token when you can.
If you leave UrBudget later
Your budget is a file on your computer. UrBudget exports the plan and register as CSV in YNAB's column layout, or a full JSON backup, whenever you like.
Questions
Does UrBudget work the way YNAB does?
It uses the same method. You give the money you have a job, spending comes out of categories, you move money to cover overspending, credit-card spending moves money into the card's payment category, and what's left rolls into next month. Targets, Quick assign, scheduled transactions and reports are there too. It isn't a copy of YNAB, so some details differ.
Can I import more than one YNAB plan?
Yes, one at a time. Make a new budget for each from the budget menu, then import the plan into it with its plan ID.
What does UrBudget cost after the trial?
$9 once, on all your own computers, with future updates. Sync between computers is optional, at $2 a month. See pricing.
Bring your budget over
Free for 30 days. No account, no card, and your YNAB budget stays as it is.
YNAB is a trademark of its owner. UrBudget isn't affiliated with YNAB. YNAB's token steps are from its API documentation, checked October 17, 2026.