October 8, 2026

Xero to QuickBooks Online: what moves, what doesn’t, and what to do first

The short answer: Intuit’s own help pages say a Xero-to-QuickBooks Online move brings across your chart of accounts, customer and supplier details, items, balances and up to two years of transactions — and leaves behind attachments, payroll records, budgets, sales orders, templates and, in the UK, your VAT settings and filing history. The route is a third-party tool, Dataswitcher, that Intuit recommends. This guide turns those lists into a checklist you can run in Xero before you pay for anything.

What the Xero to QuickBooks Online route actually is

There is no “import from Xero” button inside QuickBooks Online. For Xero, Intuit’s guides send you to Dataswitcher, its conversion partner: you export from Xero, upload through the Dataswitcher wizard, and it builds the history in a new QuickBooks Online company. Intuit’s Canadian guide is explicit that data cannot be migrated into a QuickBooks Online company that already holds data. If you have already poked around in a trial file, cancel it and start a fresh company.

The two Intuit guides we read for this article (both dated 26 March 2026) differ in detail by country. The UK guide says migrations of up to two years of financial data are free “for a limited time” and most finish in two to four working days once your data is uploaded. The Canadian guide says up to 72 hours and mentions small fees for extras such as more years, classes or company information. Treat your own country’s Intuit page as the final word on price and timing.

What moves

• Chart of accounts, with balances.
• Customer and supplier details. In Intuit’s UK guide, each Xero contact is imported as both a customer and a supplier, so expect to merge or hide the half you do not need.
• Items list and opening balances.
• Historical transactions — up to two years on the route Intuit describes. Some transaction types cannot arrive in their original form: Xero’s receive-money transactions, for example, are brought in as journal entries.
• Tracking categories become Locations in the UK guide, so check which Xero tracking category you most rely on before you migrate.

What does not move

Intuit’s Canadian guide lists the data types that cannot be converted: budgets, memorised transactions, invoice and other templates, sales orders, payroll records, projects, attachments and non-posting entries such as estimates. The UK guide adds departments, and says projects import as sub-customers but UK QuickBooks does not fully support project accounting.

Three of those deserve more than a line:

• Attachments. Receipts and bills attached in Xero do not follow. Export them from Xero separately and keep the archive with your cutover pack.
• Payroll. Intuit tells UK users to back up payroll records separately, such as payslips and year-end statements. Payroll in the new system starts from a fresh setup with year-to-date balances you enter yourself.
• Tax history. For UK Xero users, Intuit says VAT settings and filing history are not transferred, so VAT must be set up manually afterwards. Run and save a VAT report up to the conversion date before you leave Xero. Whatever your country’s equivalent is — GST/BAS in Australia, GST/HST in Canada — archive the final filed returns the same way.

Multi-currency needs a second look too. Intuit’s UK guide says Xero data converts in your home currency only, so foreign-currency accounts need manual revaluation afterwards. If you hold foreign bank accounts or open foreign invoices, list them with their original rates before cutover. Our multi-currency migration notes cover the detail.

Prepare the Xero file first

1. Pick a cutover date at the end of a tax period, so your last return is filed entirely from Xero.
2. Reconcile every bank and card account to that date. Intuit’s guide asks for reconciliation before migrating, and bank reconciliation must be redone in the new file anyway.
3. Clear the parking accounts. Look for balances in suspense or clearing accounts. They convert exactly as they are, which is why we clear these before any migration.
4. Save your control reports. Trial balance, Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, receivables and payables ageing and your tax report at the cutover date, as PDFs as well as spreadsheets. They are what you reconcile the new file against.
5. Export the things the route drops: attachments, payroll history, templates you want to recreate, budgets.
6. Start from an empty QuickBooks Online company, in the correct country and currency.

When the standard route is not enough

The Intuit route suits a clean Xero file with two years of history. It is a poor fit if you need more than two years of searchable transactions for an auditor, lender or tax authority; if you rely on tracking categories in more than one dimension; or if the file carries years of unreconciled items and parking-account balances. In those cases a scoped conversion that rebuilds history and is proved with a reconciled trial balance at the cutover date is the safer choice. Because the standard route only handles two years, the same is true when you want the old file to remain your full archive: keep Xero on a read-only plan for as long as your records rules require.

FAQ

Is there a built-in Xero import inside QuickBooks Online?

Not for a full history. Intuit’s guides recommend Dataswitcher, its third-party conversion partner, for Xero.

How much history can I bring from Xero?

Intuit describes up to two years of transactions on this route. Older history stays in Xero or in your exported reports unless you commission a custom conversion.

Will my Xero attachments and payroll come across?

No. Intuit lists attachments and payroll records as data that cannot be converted. Export them from Xero before you cancel.

Can I migrate into a QuickBooks Online company I have already used?

Intuit’s Canadian guide says data cannot be migrated into a company file that already contains data, so use a new, empty company.

Related service: Xero → QuickBooks