Importing an Interactive Brokers activity statement

Export the widest period, not the last month

This is the one decision that changes what you get. A multi-month Activity Statement is the fastest way to start: a single January-to-August export produces both current holdings and the contribution history behind them, so the portfolio arrives with months of record instead of starting from today.

That matters more here than with most trackers, because the whole point is separating what you contributed from what the market did. A tracker that begins at today's balance can never answer that question about the past — and a valuation nobody recorded cannot be reconstructed later.

What gets extracted

• Positions — ticker, quantity and average price, including fractional quantities. Positions closed during the statement period are not resurrected as holdings.
• Purchases — each buy becomes a contribution, dated, with quantity, price per share and the commission charged on that trade.
• Dividends — payments received during the period, per instrument.
• Statement metadata — broker, period covered and file name, kept so a later upload can be compared against what was already applied.

Anything the extractor reads incorrectly can be edited in review, and holdings can always be added by hand instead — including without uploading a statement at all, if you'd rather keep the document to yourself.

Uploading the same period twice is safe

Overlapping periods are the normal case — most people re-export the whole year rather than trimming to what is new. Two rules keep that safe:

• Transactions already imported are matched and listed as skipped duplicates in the review, with counts shown before you confirm. Re-uploading the same file adds nothing.
• A statement whose period ends earlier than the last one applied does not silently replace newer position quantities — an older document cannot rewind the portfolio.

Why a document rather than an API connection

There is no supported-broker list to check against, because the extractor reads the document rather than talking to an API. (The one exception in the product is Freedom24, which can optionally be connected with read-only API keys — IBKR is not it.) That is a deliberate trade with two sides, and both are worth stating.

What you gain: nobody holds your broker credentials, including us, and there is no integration to break when a broker changes something. What you give up: the portfolio does not update itself, so you upload something roughly once a month rather than watching it refresh.

What the import does not do

• It does not connect to your IBKR account. Only the file you upload is read.
• It does not invent missing history. A period no statement covers is a hole, and the honest response to a hole is to show it rather than interpolate over it.
• It does not reconstruct valuations nobody recorded. Time-weighted return needs a valuation around every external cash flow; where one is missing the figure is labelled an approximation rather than blended into a headline number.
• It is not a tax document. Withholding shown on a statement is used as recorded; the cross-border estimates are informational and are explained in the withholding methodology.

Common questions

Can I import an Interactive Brokers statement without connecting my account?

Yes. BorderFolio reads an uploaded IBKR Activity Statement in PDF or CSV form. There is no API connection, no broker credentials and no permanent link to the account — the document is the only thing that is read.

Which IBKR statement should I export?

An Activity Statement covering the whole period you want on record. A multi-month export is the fastest way to start, because a single January-to-August statement produces current holdings and the contribution history behind them, so the portfolio arrives with months of record rather than starting from today.

What happens if I upload overlapping IBKR statements?

Overlapping periods are the normal case, because most people re-export the whole year rather than trimming to what is new. Transactions already imported are matched and listed as skipped duplicates in the review, with counts shown before confirmation, so re-uploading the same file adds nothing. A statement whose period ends earlier than the last one applied cannot silently rewind newer position quantities.

What is extracted from an IBKR activity statement?

Positions with ticker, quantity and average price including fractional quantities; purchases, each becoming a dated contribution with quantity, price per share and the commission charged on that trade; dividends received during the period per instrument; and statement metadata such as broker, period covered and file name, kept so a later upload can be compared against what was already applied.