How to Import Your Splitwise Data (CSV)

To import your Splitwise data, export the group from Splitwise as a CSV (group Settings → Export as spreadsheet → CSV), then upload that file to Split The Bill's Splitwise importer, which parses it, shows you a preview of every member, expense, and per-currency total, and then migrates the history into a real group. Splitwise's CSV holds one row per expense: Date, Description, Category, Cost, Currency, followed by one column per member with each person's share. Because the export is per-group, you migrate one group at a time. The importer never trusts the file blindly: it previews exactly what it read (member names, expense count, totals, and any rows it skipped) so you can confirm the numbers match before anything is created. This guide walks the whole path, with the gotchas that catch people.

Why export instead of re-typing

A Splitwise group that's been running for a couple of years can hold hundreds of expenses: every dinner, every grocery run, every "I covered the Airbnb." Re-entering that by hand is hours of work and a guaranteed source of transcription errors that quietly corrupt your balances.

The CSV export captures all of it in one file: the full expense log plus who paid and each person's share. Migrating from the file means your running balances survive the move. If Bob owed you $128.40 in Splitwise, that same net position carries over instead of resetting to zero.

The other reason: a CSV is your escape hatch regardless of which app you land on. Even if you never migrate, exporting once a year is cheap insurance against losing your history to a paywall change, an account lockout, or an app shutting down. Own your data.

Step 1: Export your group from Splitwise

The export lives inside each individual group, not in a global account setting: Splitwise exports one group per file.

On the web (splitwise.com):

1. Open the group you want to move. 2. Open the group Settings (the gear / options menu on the group page). 3. Choose Export as spreadsheet, then pick CSV (not the PDF option). 4. Save the `.csv` file somewhere you can find it.

On mobile: the export option is more limited depending on app version. If you don't see it, use the web app in a browser. The web export is the reliable path.

Open the file once in any spreadsheet app or text editor to sanity-check it. You should see a header row like `Date,Description,Category,Cost,Currency,Alice,Bob,Charlie` and then one row per expense. If you have several groups, repeat the export for each. You'll migrate them one at a time.

What's actually in the Splitwise CSV

Understanding the shape of the file makes the migration predictable. Each row is one expense, and the columns are fixed at the front, then one column per group member:

`Date,Description,Category,Cost,Currency,<Member 1>,<Member 2>,...`

For example: `2026-01-15,Dinner,Dining,45.50,USD,15.17,15.17,15.17` is a $45.50 dinner split three ways.

The member columns are the part people misread. Each member column holds that person's share of that expense, not the amount they paid. In Splitwise's bookkeeping a positive number means the member owes that share, and a negative number means the member paid (and is owed it back). So a $60 bill Alice paid and split with Bob might show Alice as `-30.00` and Bob as `30.00`.

Splitwise also appends a final "Total balance" summary row at the bottom: that's a net-position recap, not an expense. A good importer recognizes and skips it rather than treating it as a phantom bill.

Step 2: Preview before you migrate

Open Import from Splitwise in Split The Bill (in the app under Import), then either upload the `.csv` file or paste its contents into the box. Hit Preview the import — nothing is created yet.

The preview is the whole point. It shows you, read straight from your file:

- Members: every name pulled from the header columns, as chips. This is your first check: do the names look right, and is anyone missing or duplicated (e.g. "Bob" vs "Bob R.")? - Expenses: the total count of expense rows parsed. - Skipped rows: anything the parser set aside (the "Total balance" summary, or malformed rows) with the reason, so nothing disappears silently. - Totals by currency: the sum of `Cost` per currency, e.g. `1284.50 USD`. Cross-check this against what Splitwise shows for the group. If they match, the parser read your file correctly. - A sample of the first expenses: date, description, category, cost, currency, so you can eyeball that dates and descriptions came through intact.

Treat the preview as a reconciliation step. If the member count, expense count, or per-currency total looks off, stop and inspect the CSV before migrating rather than importing bad data and untangling it later.

Step 3: Migrate the history into a group

Once the preview matches, the importer creates a real group and turns every parsed row into a real expense, mapping Splitwise's per-member shares onto Split The Bill's paid-by and share model. Positive shares become what each person owes; negative shares mark who paid.

A few things to know about the mapping:

Members become participants. Names from the CSV header seed the group's members. People who were on Splitwise but never signed up for the new app can live on as name-only participants: you can invite them to claim their spot later without redoing anything.

Multi-currency is preserved. If your group mixed USD and EUR expenses, each expense keeps its original currency; the preview's per-currency totals show you the split up front.

Categories carry over where they map cleanly; anything unusual lands in a general bucket you can re-tag afterward.

After migration, open the group and spot-check a handful of larger expenses and the resulting balances against Splitwise. This is the moment to catch anything, before you tell everyone to switch.

Common gotchas (and how to handle them)

Duplicate or renamed members. If someone appears under two spellings across the group's life, the header will show both as separate members. Decide on one canonical name and clean it up in the group after import rather than editing the CSV blind.

A "Total balance" row treated as an expense elsewhere. If you ever import the CSV into a generic spreadsheet tool, remember the last row is a summary, not a bill. Deleting it avoids a fake expense. The dedicated importer skips it for you.

Non-numeric or blank cost cells. Rows with a cost the parser can't read are reported under Skipped rows rather than imported as $0. Check the skipped list: if a real expense got skipped, it usually means a stray character in the cost cell you can fix in the CSV.

Encoding quirks. Splitwise sometimes writes a hidden byte-order mark at the very start of the file; a good importer strips it so the first column still reads as `Date`. If you're parsing manually and the header looks slightly off, that's usually why.

One group at a time. There's no single "export everything" button. Plan to export and preview each group separately. For most people that's two or three files, not twenty.

After the migration: what you gain

Once your history is in, you're on features Splitwise gates or lacks. Recurring bills stop being a monthly re-entry chore. Receipt OCR lets you photograph a bill and split it item-by-item, useful the moment a mixed-diet group needs to stop equal-splitting the steak. Multi-currency with locked FX keeps travel groups honest. Settle-up deep links turn "I'll pay you back" into a one-tap Venmo / PayPal / Revolut transfer.

And the history you just migrated feeds the rest of the app: your personal spending ledger, CSV exports for tax or records, and forward-looking tools like the payment planner all draw on the same expense log.

A note on trust: the whole point of the preview-first flow is that you verify the numbers yourself before committing. Nothing about your Splitwise history is guessed at: it's read from your export, shown back to you, and only then created. If a total is a cent off, you'll see it in the preview, not three months later at settle-up.