How to Read Your Broker Statement for Tax Purposes

Your broker’s transaction history is the raw material for your CGT calculation. Every broker formats it differently — different column names, different date formats, different ways of handling fees. Here’s a decoder for the major UK platforms.

The fields that matter for CGT

Trade date: The date the trade executed (not the settlement date). CGT is triggered on the trade date. Some brokers show both — always use the earlier one. The Capital Gains Manual at CG14250 confirms this.

Buy or sell: The direction. Some brokers use “Market Buy” or “Limit Sell” — the order type doesn’t matter for tax, just whether it’s a purchase or disposal.

Quantity: Number of shares or contracts. Watch for negative numbers (some brokers represent sells as negative quantities) and fractional shares.

Price per share: Check the currency. GBP or USD? If USD, you’ll need HMRC exchange rates.

Fees: Commission, stamp duty, FX spread. These are allowable costs.

Total amount: Net cost (buy) or net proceeds (sell). For buys: price × quantity + fees. For sells: price × quantity − fees.

Broker-by-broker quirks

Robinhood UK: US date format (MM/DD/YYYY — don’t confuse 03/05 with 05/03). All amounts in USD. Multi-line description fields can corrupt CSV parsing. Option codes (BTO, STO, BTC) in the transaction type column. Fees baked into the amount — not shown separately.

Trading 212: GBP amounts if your account is GBP-denominated. Export limited to 1-year periods — download multiple files for a complete history. ISA and GIA transactions may be in the same export (check the “Account” column). As noted by the Which? investment platform reviews, Trading 212 is one of the most popular UK platforms — meaning their CSV format issues affect the most people.

Freetrade: Account column distinguishes ISA from GIA — critical for filtering. FX fee (0.99% or 0.59%) is baked into the execution price, not shown separately. Fractional shares are common.

Tastytrade: Most detailed CSV of any broker. Option fields (call/put, strike, expiry) in separate columns. “Receive Deliver” rows indicate assignment/exercise — these link to option premium treatment under TCGA s.144.

Interactive Brokers: Extremely comprehensive but complex. Multiple report types — the “Activity Statement” in CSV format is what you need. Amounts in the trade currency with a separate FX rate column. Corporate actions appear as distinct transaction types.

Rows to ignore

Not every row in your CSV is a CGT event. Common non-trade rows:

Deposits and withdrawals (cash movements, not disposals).
Dividends (income tax, not CGT — see our dividend guide).
Interest payments.
FX conversions (converting your GBP to USD to fund trades isn’t a disposal of a chargeable asset in most cases).
Fee adjustments and rebates.

Contract notes vs CSV exports

A contract note is the formal confirmation of each individual trade — typically a PDF. Your CSV export is a summary of all trades in a period. For CGT calculation purposes, the CSV is more practical. But contract notes are your legal proof of the trade details if HMRC ever queries your figures. The FCA requires brokers to issue contract notes for every transaction.

Save both. CSVs for calculation, contract notes for evidence. See our record-keeping guide for retention periods.

Upload your broker CSVs to TaxBull — it auto-detects the broker format, filters out non-trade rows, handles the quirks listed above, and applies HMRC matching rules across all your trades.

This is general information only.