The Problem Every Fintech Developer Knows
You're building an accounting integration, a portfolio tracker, or a tax prep workflow. Somewhere in that pipeline, a user hands you a CSV from Coinbase or a PDF statement from Chase.
The CSV has mangled dates, missing columns, and duplicate rows. The PDF is a scanned image with wrapped transaction descriptions. Your code breaks. Your users complain.
You could write a custom parser for every exchange and every bank. Or you could send one API call and get clean, structured JSON back.
That's what the TaxFormatter API does.
What the API Returns
Send a file. Get transactions.
The /v1/parse endpoint accepts a base64-encoded CSV or PDF and returns a JSON response with normalized transactions, metadata about the source, and any warnings the engine detected during processing.
Each transaction in the response includes a standardized date, transaction type (buy, sell, transfer, deposit, withdrawal), amount, currency, and the original description from the source file. For crypto files, you also get cost basis fields and exchange-specific metadata.
The engine handles the ugly work: date normalization across formats, duplicate detection, column mapping for 14 crypto exchanges, OCR extraction for scanned bank PDFs, and multi-line description merging.
Quick Start
1. Get Your API Key
Sign up at taxformatter.com/dashboard/developer and create an API key. Keys use the tf_live_ prefix and are hashed with SHA-256 on our side — we never store the raw key after creation.
2. Parse a Crypto CSV
curl -X POST https://api.taxformatter.com/v1/parse \
-H "X-API-Key: tf_live_your_key_here" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"file": "'$(base64 -w 0 coinbase_2025.csv)'",
"filename": "coinbase_2025.csv"
}'
The response includes a transactions array with every row cleaned and normalized, a source field identifying the detected exchange, and a warnings array flagging anything the engine corrected automatically (like removed duplicates or inferred dates).
3. Parse a Bank Statement PDF
Same endpoint, different file:
curl -X POST https://api.taxformatter.com/v1/parse \
-H "X-API-Key: tf_live_your_key_here" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"file": "'$(base64 -w 0 chase_statement.pdf)'",
"filename": "chase_statement.pdf"
}'
The API detects file type from the extension and routes PDFs through the BankStatementProcessor with OCR support. CSVs go through the core engine.py parser.
Supported Sources
Crypto Exchanges (14)
Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, KuCoin, Bybit, Cash App, Robinhood, PayPal, Venmo, Crypto.com, Gemini, FTX, Bitfinex, and OKX. All but Venmo are verified by a fixture-backed parse test in CI; Venmo is beta.
Banks (6)
Chase, Mercury and Navy Federal are verified against real statements. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citi are beta — configured, not yet verified. Anything else falls through to a generic best-effort parser and the response says so; we don't claim support for banks we haven't tested.
Check the full list anytime:
curl https://api.taxformatter.com/v1/sources \
-H "X-API-Key: tf_live_your_key_here"
API Tiers and Rate Limits
The free tier gives you 10 files per month and 10 requests per minute — enough to prototype and test your integration. Paid tiers scale from there:
- Starter ($29/mo): 100 files/month, 30 RPM
- Growth ($99/mo): 500 files/month, 60 RPM
- Business ($249/mo): 2,000 files/month, 120 RPM
Every tier includes both crypto CSV and bank PDF parsing. Usage tracking is available via the /v1/usage endpoint or the developer dashboard.
Error Handling
The API returns standard HTTP status codes. A 400 means the file couldn't be parsed (unsupported format, corrupted data). A 429 means you've hit your rate limit or monthly quota. A 401 means the API key is invalid or revoked.
Every error response includes a message field with a human-readable explanation and an error_code for programmatic handling. Rate limit responses include Retry-After headers.
Integration Patterns
Accounting Platforms
Accept user-uploaded CSVs, send them to /v1/parse, map the returned transactions to your internal schema. No more writing per-exchange parsers.
Tax Prep Software
Ingest a user's full transaction history across exchanges and bank accounts. The API normalizes everything into a consistent format, making cost basis calculation and gain/loss reporting straightforward.
Portfolio Trackers
Parse historical CSV exports to backfill transaction data. The API handles the messy reality of exchange-specific formats so your import flow just works.
What's Next
The API documentation lives at taxformatter.com/docs/api with full endpoint references, response schemas, and language-specific examples for Python, Node.js, and Go.
If you're building with AI agents, check out the TaxFormatter MCP Server — it wraps the same API for use with Claude, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible client.
Questions about the API? Reach out at support@taxformatter.com or open an issue on GitHub.