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What is an OFX file?

By the FileInto team · Updated November 12, 2026

Quick answer

An OFX (Open Financial Exchange) file is the standard format banks use to send transactions to finance apps such as Xero, GnuCash and Moneydance. It's plain text with one tag per value. QFX and QBO files are OFX files made for Quicken and QuickBooks.

OFX and the files built on itOne OFX statement, the Open Financial Exchange standard, is saved as .ofx for Xero, GnuCash and Moneydance, as .qfx for Quicken, or as .qbo for QuickBooks. OFX 1 files are SGML; OFX 2 files are XML.ONE STANDARDOFX statementOpen Financial Exchange.ofxXero, GnuCash,Moneydance.qfxQuicken.qboQuickBooksTWO GENERATIONSOFX 1 · SGML<NAME>Coffeeno closing tagsOFX 2 · XML<NAME>Coffee</NAME>every tag closes
One OFX statement, three file extensions. OFX 1 files are SGML and OFX 2 files are XML; most apps read both.

What OFX is

OFX stands for Open Financial Exchange. It’s a standard for moving financial data between banks and software, first published in 1997 from work by Intuit, Microsoft and CheckFree. Today it’s maintained by the OFX Work Group at the Financial Data Exchange (FDX).

When your bank offers a download for Money, Xero, GnuCash, Moneydance or “other software”, that file is usually OFX.

What’s inside an OFX file

An OFX file holds a statement for one account: who the bank is, the account number and type, and a list of transactions. Each transaction is a block of tags:

<STMTTRN>
<TRNTYPE>DEBIT
<DTPOSTED>20261003120000
<TRNAMT>-5.75
<FITID>SB2026100301
<NAME>CORNER COFFEE CO
</STMTTRN>

DTPOSTED is the date (year, month, day), TRNAMT the signed amount, NAME the payee and FITID the bank’s own ID for the transaction. Apps use the FITID to skip transactions they’ve already imported.

OFX 1 and OFX 2

There are two generations of the format, and banks still send both.

  • OFX 1.x is SGML. Values have no closing tags, as in the example above, and the file starts with a few header lines such as OFXHEADER:100.
  • OFX 2.x is XML. Every tag closes (<NAME>Corner Coffee Co</NAME>), and the file starts with an XML declaration.

Most apps read both. The current version from FDX is OFX Banking 2.3.

OFX, QFX and QBO

Format Made for What’s different
.ofx Xero, GnuCash, Moneydance and others The plain standard
.qfx Quicken OFX with the bank’s Quicken details. See what is a QFX file
.qbo QuickBooks OFX with the bank’s QuickBooks details. See what is a QBO file

Because the transactions inside are the same, one can be rewritten as another. QuickBooks Desktop, for example, accepts only .qbo files, so an .ofx download has to be converted first: FileInto’s OFX to QBO converter does that and keeps the bank’s transaction IDs.

How to open an OFX file

Any text editor opens it, since it’s plain text. Excel opens it too, but as a column of tags rather than a table. To read the transactions as rows, convert it with FileInto’s OFX to CSV converter, or see how to open a QBO, QFX or OFX file.

Tip: If your bank offers only CSV and your app wants OFX, FileInto’s CSV to OFX converter makes one in your browser, without uploading the file.

Sources

  1. OFX Work Group (Financial Data Exchange)

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