Your broker’s transaction history is the raw material for your CGT calculation. Every broker formats it differently \u2014 different column names, different date formats, different ways of handling fees. Here’s a decoder for the major UK platforms.<\/p>\n
Trade date:<\/strong> The date the trade executed (not the settlement date). CGT is triggered on the trade date. Some brokers show both \u2014 always use the earlier one. The Capital Gains Manual at CG14250<\/a> confirms this.<\/p>\n Buy or sell:<\/strong> The direction. Some brokers use “Market Buy” or “Limit Sell” \u2014 the order type doesn’t matter for tax, just whether it’s a purchase or disposal.<\/p>\n Quantity:<\/strong> Number of shares or contracts. Watch for negative numbers (some brokers represent sells as negative quantities) and fractional shares.<\/p>\n Price per share:<\/strong> Check the currency. GBP or USD? If USD, you’ll need HMRC exchange rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fees:<\/strong> Commission, stamp duty, FX spread. These are allowable costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Total amount:<\/strong> Net cost (buy) or net proceeds (sell). For buys: price \u00d7 quantity + fees. For sells: price \u00d7 quantity \u2212 fees.<\/p>\n Robinhood UK<\/a>:<\/strong> US date format (MM\/DD\/YYYY \u2014 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 \u2014 not shown separately.<\/p>\n Trading 212<\/a>:<\/strong> GBP amounts if your account is GBP-denominated. Export limited to 1-year periods \u2014 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<\/a>, Trading 212 is one of the most popular UK platforms \u2014 meaning their CSV format issues affect the most people.<\/p>\n Freetrade<\/a>:<\/strong> Account column distinguishes ISA from GIA \u2014 critical for filtering. FX fee (0.99% or 0.59%) is baked into the execution price, not shown separately. Fractional shares are common.<\/p>\n Tastytrade<\/a>:<\/strong> Most detailed CSV of any broker. Option fields (call\/put, strike, expiry) in separate columns. “Receive Deliver” rows indicate assignment\/exercise \u2014 these link to option premium treatment under TCGA s.144<\/a>.<\/p>\n Interactive Brokers:<\/strong> Extremely comprehensive but complex. Multiple report types \u2014 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.<\/p>\n Not every row in your CSV is a CGT event. Common non-trade rows:<\/p>\n Deposits and withdrawals (cash movements, not disposals). A contract note is the formal confirmation of each individual trade \u2014 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<\/a> for every transaction.<\/p>\n Save both. CSVs for calculation, contract notes for evidence. See our record-keeping guide<\/a> for retention periods.<\/p>\n Upload your broker CSVs to TaxBull<\/a> \u2014 it auto-detects the broker format, filters out non-trade rows, handles the quirks listed above, and applies HMRC matching rules<\/a> across all your trades.<\/p>\n This is general information only.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How to read and interpret your broker’s transaction history for UK Capital Gains Tax. What each column means, which rows matter, and which to ignore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[163,83,164,14,96,15],"class_list":["post-318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-broker-guides","tag-broker-statement","tag-cgt","tag-contract-note","tag-csv-export","tag-tax-records","tag-transaction-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363,"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxbull.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Broker-by-broker quirks<\/h2>\n
Rows to ignore<\/h2>\n
\nDividends (income tax, not CGT \u2014 see our dividend guide<\/a>).
\nInterest payments.
\nFX conversions (converting your GBP to USD to fund trades isn’t a disposal of a chargeable asset in most cases).
\nFee adjustments and rebates.<\/p>\nContract notes vs CSV exports<\/h2>\n