# How to export your exchange trade history

Getting the file is the easy half. What the exchange hands over is a ledger in its own terms, and a tax report needs a cost basis it never recorded.

*https://cryptomarkets.tools/how-to/export-exchange-trade-history · next to Crypto Trading Terminals*

**Answer:** Pull it with your own read-only key through CCXT if you want every venue in one shape, or take the exchange's own statement export if one account is the whole job. Ten cards here import an exchange account and hand it back as CSV. None of them can supply what the file is missing: a fiat cost basis for anything that arrived from somewhere else.

## Approaches

*In the author’s order. Paid placement does not affect it.*

1. [CCXT](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/ccxt.md) — A read-only key and fetchMyTrades against 104 venues in one shape — check exchange.has, because supported is per method and not per exchange.
2. [Altrady](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/altrady.md) — Imports an exchange account to backfill a journal and exports trades, balances and a tax file — on the top tier only, 90 days at a time.
3. [Coinigy](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/coinigy.md) — One of the oldest multi-exchange workspaces, with CSV and an API, if the venue you traded on is still on its list.
4. [Talos](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/talos.md) — The institutional shape of the same job — the export is an API and a settlement ledger rather than a download, behind KYC and a sales call.

## The short way

If you want one venue and you are not writing code, use the exchange's own statement export and
skip everything below the next section. It is a form, it is free, and for a single account it is
the complete answer.

If you have several venues, or you want this to run again next quarter, use a read-only key and
[CCXT](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/ccxt):

```python
import ccxt

exchange = ccxt.binance({'apiKey': 'YOUR_API_KEY', 'secret': 'YOUR_API_SECRET'})
if exchange.has['fetchMyTrades']:
    fills = exchange.fetch_my_trades('BTC/USDT', since=None, limit=1000)
```

Two things about that snippet. The key should have trading and withdrawal permissions switched
off at the exchange — reading a history needs neither, and a key that can only read is a key worth
far less to whoever eventually finds it. And the `exchange.has` check is not decoration: support
in CCXT is per method, and the card says so plainly — an exchange can be supported and still not
implement `fetchMyTrades`.

## What the options are

**Your own key.** CCXT, as above, or the venue's API directly. This is the only route that scales
to several exchanges and repeats on a schedule, and your keys stay in your process.

**A workspace that imports the account.** Ten cards in this catalogue read an exchange account and
give you the history back. [Altrady](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/altrady) is the one that goes furthest: it imports
trade history from an exchange to backfill its journal, and exports balances, orders or trades as
CSV, one file or one per account. Read the tier before you plan on it — CSV export and the tax
export are both on the top plan only, and the export is capped at 90 days per run with ten runs
per rolling 30 days, so a year of records is several passes.

**An older workspace with an API.** [Coinigy](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/coinigy) has been doing this longer than
almost anything else here and exports CSV and over an API. Check its venue list against yours
first: it has not been maintained, FTX International is still on it four years after the exchange
collapsed, Coinbase Pro appears under its old `GDAX` code, and there is no Hyperliquid and no
Bitget.

**The institutional version.** At the execution end — [Talos](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/talos),
[Elwood](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/elwood), [Wyden](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/wyden) — the export is not a download at all. It is an API
and a settlement ledger, the record is produced as a by-product of clearing rather than requested
afterwards, and getting to it means KYC, an application and a price nobody publishes. If your
problem is that an auditor is asking, that is what this tier is for; see
[priced on request](https://cryptomarkets.tools/collections/priced-on-request) before you start.

## Where this breaks

**The export is rationed.** Binance serves up to six months immediately with a ceiling of 10,000
data points per export; past six months it becomes a generated statement covering at most one year
from the date you choose, back to 13 July 2017, and you may generate only five statements a month
with the download link kept for seven days. That is a documented constraint, not a throttle you
can retry through, and it means a long history is a plan with dates in it. Doing it through the
API instead trades one limit for another — see [rate limit](https://cryptomarkets.tools/glossary/rate-limit) for what you are
actually spending.

**A ledger is not a list of trades.** Kraken's ledger export carries `txid`, `time` in UTC, a
`type` covering trade, margin, earn, deposit, withdrawal and transfer, a `subtype`, the `asset`,
an `amount` debited or credited, the `fee` in that asset, and the `balance` afterwards. One trade
is therefore two rows in two assets, fees appear as their own debits, and staking rewards and
transfers sit in the same file as fills. Reconciling that into "I sold 0.4 BTC for 24,000 USDT on
this date" is work, and it is work that has to agree with the trade file next to it.

**Fees are in the asset, and they are part of the number.** They are deducted in whatever was
traded, at whatever that was worth at the time, and the IRS's own guidance puts them inside the
figure that matters: your basis is "the amount you spent to acquire the virtual currency,
including fees, commissions and other acquisition costs in U.S. dollars". An export that lists a
fee of 0.00012 BTC has told you the fact and not the number. See
[taker fee](https://cryptomarkets.tools/glossary/taker-fee) for why the rate itself is rarely one figure either.

**Nothing in the file is denominated in money.** This is the gap, and it is structural rather than
anybody's oversight. The exchange recorded what happened on the exchange, in the assets of the
exchange. What a tax return needs is a disposal with a basis and a proceeds figure in fiat — "your
gain or loss will be the difference between your adjusted basis in the virtual currency and the
amount you received in exchange for it, which you should report on your federal income tax return
in U.S. dollars". For a coin you bought there with dollars, the file has enough. For a coin you
deposited, it does not and cannot: the acquisition happened elsewhere, on a date this venue never
saw, and the taxpayer is the one required to "maintain records that are sufficient to establish
the positions taken on tax returns".

**And the venue may not be there.** An exchange that has stopped operating cannot re-issue a
statement, and the one thing every list of supported venues in this catalogue agrees on is that
venues disappear. Export while you still have an account, not when somebody asks.

## If you outgrow this

If the problem is **completeness**, the answer is an export per venue per year, run on a schedule,
stored somewhere that is not the exchange — plus the deposit and withdrawal records, which are the
half people skip and the half that carries the missing basis.

If the problem is **that this has to be a report**, this catalogue is the wrong place to finish.
One card here carries a tax-reporting capability and it is an export from a trading workspace, not
a tax engine; calculating a gain is accounting software, which is outside what this site covers.
Get complete, reconciled records out and hand them to something built for that.

If the problem is **that you needed this for a counterparty rather than for yourself**, the
institutional tier is not an upgrade of the same product, it is a different one: the record is the
point of the system rather than a feature of it, and it comes with a name on the support contract.

## FAQ

### How far back can I export?

Further than most people expect and in smaller pieces than they want. Binance serves up to six months immediately, capped at 10,000 data points per export; anything older is a generated statement covering at most one year from the date you pick, back to 13 July 2017, and you may only generate five statements a month. The download link is kept for seven days. A five-year history is a scheduled task, not an afternoon.

### Does a trade history file contain my cost basis?

No, and this is the gap that costs people weeks. The file records what happened on that exchange in the assets of that exchange. Your basis is what you spent to acquire the asset in fiat, including fees — which for anything you deposited was established somewhere else entirely, on a date the exchange has no record of. A perfect export from every venue still leaves every transferred-in coin without a basis.

### Is a ledger export the same as a trade export?

Not quite, and you usually need both. Kraken's ledger rows carry `txid`, `time` in UTC, a `type` spanning trade, margin, earn, deposit, withdrawal and transfer, plus `asset`, `amount` as a debit or credit, `fee` and the resulting `balance` — so one trade appears as legs in two assets rather than as one row. The trade file tells you what you did; the ledger tells you what moved, including the fees and the transfers the trade file never mentions.

### Does this catalogue list tax software?

No. One card carries a tax-reporting capability, and it is an export from a trading workspace rather than a tax engine. Calculating a gain is accounting rather than market software, which puts it outside what this site covers — so the honest end of this page is getting complete, reconcilable records out, and handing them to something built for the next part.

## Sources

1. [How to Download Spot Trading Transaction History Statement](https://www.binance.com/en/support/faq/how-to-download-spot-trading-transaction-history-statement-e4ff64f2533f4d23a0b3f8f17f510eab) — Binance, read 2026-09-21
2. [How to export ledgers and trades history — ledger field definitions](https://support.kraken.com/articles/360001169383-how-to-export-ledgers-and-trades-history) — Kraken, read 2026-09-21
3. [Frequently asked questions on virtual currency transactions](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/frequently-asked-questions-on-virtual-currency-transactions) — Internal Revenue Service, 2026-06-30

*Last updated 2026-09-21. Corrected in place — an endpoint that moves is a bug here, not a new post.*