Wave bank connections now need Pro: what changed and what to do

What changed in Wave on June 1, 2026

Wave launched its current plans, Starter and Pro, on February 5, 2024 in the United States (January 29, 2024 in Canada). Businesses created before those dates are what Wave calls Legacy businesses, and many of them kept free bank connections for two more years.

That ended on June 1, 2026. Wave moved Legacy businesses onto the free Starter plan unless the account had a business using Wave's payments feature, an active payroll subscription or another paid Wave service. Affected businesses got an email on April 30, 2026. Wave's stated reason is that it is "re-aligning its free plan to its core manual features."

Two things stopped for those businesses:

• Bank connections that import transactions. Wave's help center now says it plainly: "Automatic bank transaction imports are part of Wave's Pro Plan."
• Collaborators. As of June 1, 2026, invited users on a migrated business lost access. Only Pro subscribers can invite admins, editors and viewers.

Bank connections on your Wave Personal profile were not affected. Neither were accounts with a business on Wave payments, payroll or another paid Wave service.

What still works on Wave Starter

Starter is still free, and it is still a full set of books. Here is the split, from Wave's own pricing and help pages:

Nothing in your books is locked away. What you lose is the automatic part: transactions no longer arrive on their own, and your bookkeeper cannot sign in as a user on your business.

What Wave Pro costs per year

Wave lists Pro in the US at $19 a month billed monthly, or $190 a year billed annually (CA$25 or CA$250 in Canada). There is no free trial. You can cancel anytime, keep Pro until the end of the period you paid for, and then drop back to Starter. Wave's pricing page adds that the listed Pro price applies to new subscriptions only.

The catch for anyone with more than one business: Pro is per business. In Wave's words, "Pro Plan features are only available on the business you upgrade."

A worked example

Say a mobile dog groomer has one Wave business with one checking account and one credit card, and used the free bank feed for years.

• Pro, billed monthly: $19 × 12 = $228 a year.
• Pro, billed yearly: $190 a year, which is $38 less than paying monthly.
• Starter: $0. She downloads two statement files each month and uploads them, which is 24 uploads a year on top of the categorizing she already does.

If she also keeps a second Wave business for a rental property and wants both connected, yearly billing is $190 × 2 = $380.

Whether $190 is worth it comes down to one question: would you rather pay that, or download and upload two files every month and never skip one?

What this means if you relied on the free bank feed

For a sole proprietor, the risk is that the gap is easy to miss. New transactions simply stop arriving, and every report after that looks quieter than the business really was.

For your bookkeeper or accountant, the change is access. If they worked inside your Wave business as an invited admin, editor or viewer, they were locked out on June 1 unless you upgraded.

Your three options: pay for Pro, upload statements, or move

1. Pay for Pro. Upgrade the business from the "Upgrade now" button on your dashboard, then reconnect the bank. Wave says that when you connect, you can choose how far back to import, and depending on your bank that can reach up to 18 months. That may fill the gap since June. Check the result against your statements, and if you uploaded statements for some of those months in the meantime, look for duplicates before you rely on the numbers.

2. Stay on Starter and upload statements. Each month, download each account's statement file from your bank. Wave recommends OFX, QFX, QBO or ASO over CSV, which it calls the more complex option. Upload it under Accounting > Transactions > More > Upload transactions. Put a reminder on your calendar for the week after statements close. This route costs nothing but time.

3. Move to other software. If you are going to pay for a bank feed anyway, compare what that money buys elsewhere. Whatever you choose should accept Wave's export and prove the opening numbers match before you work in it. BooksGPT, for example, imports a Wave export and checks that the imported books tie out (how the import works).

How to export everything from Wave before you decide

Do this whichever option you pick. Wave says viewer and editor roles cannot export data, so sign in as the owner. Exports cover only the business you are in, so repeat the steps for each business.

1. Accounting data. Click your business name at the top right, then Business settings > Data Export, and choose Accounting. Wave emails a download link to the account's primary email, and the link works for 24 hours. You get four files in XLS or CSV: the accounting file (journal entries and transactions), bill items, customers, and vendors (including independent contractors).
2. Receipts. On the same page, choose Receipts. You get a ZIP of every uploaded receipt in its original file type.
3. Reports, year by year. Under Reports, open each report, set the dates, click Export and choose CSV or PDF. For every year you have, keep the Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, Trial Balance and Account Transactions (General Ledger). At your cutoff date, add aged receivables and aged payables so you know which invoices and bills are still open.
4. Invoices. Wave cannot export invoices in bulk. Save the ones you need one at a time with More Actions > Export as PDF, or pull invoice and customer details into a spreadsheet with Wave Connect, Wave's Google Sheets integration.
5. Payroll. Wave's payroll data export is for Canadian businesses only. Payroll tax forms are a separate download.

The mistake people make

The common mistake is reading a quiet summer as a slow summer. Open Accounting > Transactions in each Wave business and look at the date of the newest transaction that came from the bank. If nothing arrived after late May 2026, your books are missing every month since June. That throws off your fourth-quarter estimated payment and your 2026 return, and the longer it runs, the bigger the cleanup. If the gap is several months, the catch-up bookkeeping steps apply.

The second mistake is paying for Pro on one business and assuming the others are covered. They are not.

What to do next, in order

1. Check the date of the newest imported bank transaction in each Wave business.
2. Export your accounting data, receipts and yearly reports from each business, even if you plan to stay.
3. Decide per business: Pro at $190 a year billed yearly, Starter with monthly uploads, or a move.
4. Fill the gap since June, with Pro's look-back or with statement uploads, and reconcile each account to its statement.
5. If your bookkeeper lost access, either upgrade or send them the exports and statements each month.