Frequently asked questions

What is BorderFolio?

A portfolio tracker built around the money you put in rather than around today's market value. Your broker already shows what the portfolio is worth; BorderFolio records how it was built — every contribution, month by month — and separates that deposited capital from market growth. On top of that history it estimates what cross-border taxation does to your dividends, using the domicile of each fund you hold and the tax residence you configure.

Who is BorderFolio for?

Long-term index and FIRE investors who hold funds domiciled outside the country they live in — typically US-domiciled or Irish UCITS ETFs held from Georgia, the UAE, South Africa, the EU or elsewhere. It assumes you contribute regularly over years and care about pace, consistency and what actually reaches you after tax.

It is not built for day trading, options strategies or stock-picking signals. There are no rankings and no buy lists.

Does BorderFolio connect to my broker?

No. BorderFolio never asks for broker credentials, API keys or read-only logins, and it has no ability to place trades or move money. A portfolio is built by uploading a statement or by entering holdings manually.

A direct Interactive Brokers integration is on the roadmap as an optional convenience — statement import stays the default path, because it works with every broker.

Can BorderFolio import Interactive Brokers statements?

Yes. Upload an Interactive Brokers Activity Statement as PDF or CSV. BorderFolio extracts positions, purchases, dividends and the explicit commissions charged on each trade, shows everything for review, and skips transactions already imported from an earlier statement. Nothing enters the portfolio until you confirm the review.

Details, including what a multi-month statement backfills: how broker statement import works.

Which statement formats are supported?

PDF statements, CSV exports, plain text, and screenshots or photos of a broker app. Free accounts get 3 document imports a month; Pro is unlimited. Anything the extractor reads incorrectly can be corrected by hand during review, and holdings can always be entered manually instead.

Does BorderFolio support US-domiciled and Irish-domiciled (UCITS) ETFs?

Yes, and the difference between them is one of the reasons the product exists. Domicile is resolved per instrument and drives the withholding estimate: a US-domiciled fund is treated under the US rate that applies to your tax residence, an Irish-domiciled UCITS under the 15% treaty rate the fund itself pays on the US dividends inside it. You can compare a fund you hold against its counterpart in the other structure, on your own position sizes.

Method and assumptions: cross-border dividend withholding methodology.

How does BorderFolio separate contributions from market returns?

Every purchase is stored as a contribution with its date, quantity, price and commission, so the capital you added is summed independently of price movement. Market movement is measured on its own, by revaluing the positions you hold over the period, rather than taken as whatever contributions fail to explain — and dividends, broker fees and the tax withheld at source each get their own line. The Performance page shows the whole decomposition for a period you choose, and the parts have to add up to the portfolio value exactly; when they don't, nothing is shown rather than a breakdown with the difference hidden in it. Monthly snapshots keep the same split per month instead of collapsing everything into one lifetime figure.

Formula and limits: true return methodology.

What happens when I upload overlapping statements?

Overlapping periods are expected — most people export a fresh statement without trimming it. Transactions already imported are matched and reported as duplicates in the review screen instead of being added a second time, and a statement whose period ends earlier than the last one applied does not silently overwrite newer position quantities.

How are duplicate transactions handled?

Extracted transactions are matched against what the portfolio already holds for the same period. Matches are listed as skipped duplicates in the review, with counts shown before you confirm. Re-uploading the same file therefore adds nothing.

Are broker credentials required?

No. BorderFolio has no access to any brokerage account. It reads only the statement files you upload and the data you enter.

Does BorderFolio provide financial or tax advice?

No. Every number is an informational estimate computed from your own portfolio data and the tax residence you configure. BorderFolio is not a broker, investment adviser or tax adviser. Estimates show their assumptions so you can check them, and you should confirm anything material with a qualified adviser in your jurisdiction. See the investment & tax disclaimer.

Which exchanges and securities are supported?

Listed equities, ETFs and funds with a public quote receive live market data automatically. A listed instrument whose quote is missing or stale can still be tracked with manually maintained values, so an illiquid holding never blocks the rest of the portfolio.

Individual bonds, notes and treasuries are not supported yet. Statement import skips them and names them among the rows it did not import, rather than reading a bond as if it were shares — their prices are quoted per 100 of face value and they pay coupons, not dividends, so both the holding and the money put in would come out wrong. Supporting them properly means a separate instrument reference, a bond price source and interest treated as interest; it is on the roadmap. Bond funds — an ETF, ETN or mutual fund with its own ticker — are supported today and behave like any other fund.

How are broker fees handled?

A commission stated on a statement line is attached to that purchase, so the contributed amount reflects what the trade actually cost and the per-share price stays honest. Costs that never appear on a statement — a fund's expense ratio, an FX spread — are not estimated and are not silently added.

Can I export or delete my portfolio data?

Contribution history can be exported to CSV on Pro. Holdings, contributions and whole portfolios can be edited or removed in the app at any time. Account deletion can be requested at admin@borderfolio.app under the Privacy Policy.