Monarch Money Not Syncing? Complete Troubleshooting Guide (2026 Verified)

If your Monarch Money is not syncing transactions, showing connection errors, or missing recent activity — this guide walks through every documented fix from Monarch’s Help Center, in the order most likely to resolve your specific issue. Most problems are fixable in 5 minutes.

Don’t cancel your subscription before trying these — connection issues are usually bank-side (out of Monarch’s control) or fixable with a data-provider switch (which Monarch supports natively).

First, identify which problem you have

The fixes differ depending on the symptom. Common Monarch sync issues:

If your specific issue isn’t listed, it’s likely a variation of one of these — start with the most similar symptom.

Issue 1: Transactions are delayed (most common)

Per Monarch’s documentation: “Allow 24-48 hours for transactions to appear in Monarch. Some institutions will not send pending transactions, and only share the transaction once it has posted.”

The expected timing:

• Posted transactions: typically appear in Monarch within 4-24 hours
• Pending transactions: vary by bank — some banks expose pending; some only post-completed
• Weekend/holiday transactions: may take 24-72 hours because banks don’t post over weekends

Before assuming there’s a problem:

1. Check your bank’s website directly — has the transaction posted there yet?
2. If yes on bank, wait 24 hours from when it appeared on the bank
3. If still not in Monarch after 48 hours, proceed to manual refresh

Manual refresh:

1. Go to Accounts in Monarch
2. Click the institution name
3. Click the refresh icon (or … → Sync now)
4. Wait 1-2 minutes for the sync to complete

If the manual refresh shows an error, jump to the “Connection error” section.

Issue 2: Missing transactions

Per Monarch’s documentation: “If it’s just one or two missing transactions, we recommend simply adding the missing transaction manually. For persistent issues, try adding the institution through another available data provider, or import a CSV of your transactions to keep your account up to date.”

For one or two missing transactions:

1. Open Transactions in Monarch
2. Click + Add transaction (top right)
3. Manually add the missing one — date, merchant, amount, category, account
4. Save

This is the fastest fix for occasional gaps.

For persistent missing transactions (10+ over the past month):

1. Check the connection-status dashboard at monarch.com/connection-status for your institution
2. If your institution is listed as having reduced connectivity, it’s a known issue — Monarch is working on it
3. Try switching data providers (covered in Issue 3 below)
4. If your bank changed its login flow recently, you may need to re-add the connection from scratch

Bulk import as a workaround:

If transactions are persistently missing, use Monarch’s CSV import to backfill:

1. Export the missing date range from your bank’s website (most banks support CSV download)
2. Format the CSV with columns: Date, Description, Amount, Category, Account
3. In Monarch, go to Accounts → click your account → Import CSV
4. Pick Prioritize Monarch if you want to keep existing transactions and only fill gaps
5. Confirm

The full CSV import workflow is in Mint to Monarch Migration (the same flow works for any CSV, not just Mint exports).

Issue 3: Connection error

Per Monarch’s documentation, the diagnostic flow:

Step 1 — Verify your bank’s website is up. Go to your bank’s website and try to log in directly. If the bank’s own login is broken, Monarch can’t authenticate either — wait until the bank is back up.

Step 2 — Confirm you’re picking the right institution. Per Monarch: “Try searching for it by typing in the website for that institution, like chase.com, to verify.” Search by URL rather than name.

Step 3 — Update login settings. Per Monarch: “Try re-adding your login information by going to your account settings and clicking the three dots to the far right of the account name and selecting ‘Update login settings.’”

How to do it:

1. Go to Accounts in Monarch
2. Click your institution
3. Click ”…” (three dots) → Update login settings
4. Re-enter your bank credentials when prompted
5. Step through MFA again

Step 4 — Wait 24 hours. Per Monarch: “Sometimes the financial institution has a temporary error, and waiting 24 hours can help.”

Step 5 — Switch data providers. This is the fix that resolves about 30% of persistent connection issues. Per Monarch’s documentation, you can manually choose a different provider for an institution.

Issue 4: Switching data providers (the most underused fix)

Monarch supports three data providers: Plaid, Finicity (owned by Mastercard), and MX. The default provider is auto-selected based on which has the strongest connection track record at your specific bank — but you can override.

When to switch:

• Connection has been broken for more than 48 hours despite trying Update Login Settings
• You’re being prompted to re-authenticate every few days (a bank-side issue with one provider that another may handle better)
• You’ve used Plaid for a year and it’s getting flaky
• A new account you’re trying to add fails with the default provider

How to switch:

1. Go to Accounts → click the affected institution
2. Click ”…” (three dots) → Choose a different data provider
3. Pick from the available providers (Plaid, Finicity, MX) for that institution
4. Re-authenticate with the new provider
5. Confirm the connection works

Caveat: Per Monarch’s documentation, “If your financial institution is connected via Plaid and the username for the bank has changed, you will need to add the bank as a new connection. Unfortunately, you cannot update bank usernames in Plaid. As this will result in duplicate accounts, you can use the transfer tool to transfer data from the old connection to the new connection.”

In other words, if you change your username at the bank itself (not just password), the Plaid token can’t be updated — you’ll need to disconnect and re-add. Monarch’s transfer tool merges history from the old connection into the new one.

Issue 5: Frequent re-authentication

Per Monarch’s documentation: “Some institutions require frequent authorizations to maintain connections due to security settings at the bank level. This can also be due to maintenance or issues with the institution, including their own choice to disconnect to discourage users from accessing account information with a third party.”

In other words, this is usually the bank’s choice, not Monarch’s bug.

Banks notorious for frequent re-auth:

• Chase — typically every 60-90 days, sometimes more often during security policy reviews
• Bank of America — variable; some users get prompted weekly, others rarely
• Wells Fargo — periodic re-auth, especially after profile changes
• Some credit unions — every 30-60 days

What you can do:

1. Switch data providers — sometimes one provider handles re-auth more gracefully than another
2. Update your bank’s third-party access settings — many banks have an “approved apps” list; explicitly approve Monarch’s data provider
3. Use the bank’s web sign-in once after each re-auth prompt — sometimes accessing your bank directly clears the flag
4. Accept the friction — some banks just require frequent re-auth and there’s no fix

If your bank’s specific re-auth frequency is intolerable, you may need to switch banks (more work than it sounds — but a real option for chronic offenders).

Issue 6: MFA codes not arriving

Per Monarch’s documentation: “Try logging into your bank website to ensure that you receive the security code if they send it to you directly. If not, you may need to contact your bank or update your settings.”

Diagnostic:

1. Try logging into your bank directly. Did the MFA code arrive there?
   • If yes at bank but not via Monarch: data provider issue. Try switching data providers.
   • If no at bank either: your bank’s communication is broken. Update your phone number or email at the bank.

Common fix:

1. Update phone number / email at your bank’s website
2. Wait 1 hour for the change to propagate
3. Retry the Monarch connection — Update Login Settings → MFA flow

For SMS-specific issues:

• Make sure your phone’s not silenced or blocking unknown senders
• Some banks use “VoIP” numbers that international users may not receive
• Some banks have moved entirely to authenticator apps and only fall back to SMS if you don’t have an authenticator configured

If your bank uses an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Authy, etc.) for MFA, the data provider connection generally requires you to manually approve in your bank’s authenticator app at re-auth time. There’s no shortcut.

Issue 7: Bank uses MFA + third-party access blocking

Per Monarch’s documentation: “Some institutions will have a settings or preference to disable access to all 3rd party apps like Monarch. If you have configured multi-factor authentication, the settings for enabling access to other apps is usually in the same part of the institution’s website.”

The fix:

1. Log into your bank’s website directly
2. Find the third-party access or app permissions section (often under “Security” or “Settings”)
3. Look for a toggle disabling third-party app access — turn it OFF (i.e., allow third-party access)
4. Save changes
5. Retry Monarch connection

Banks where this is a common gotcha: Schwab, some credit unions, Apple Card (which has a special connection flow — see Monarch’s “Syncing Your Apple Card, Cash, and Savings” article).

Issue 8: Account balance is wrong

Two common causes:

Cause A — Pending transactions not yet posted. If you just made a purchase, your bank may show “available balance” (which excludes pending) vs “current balance” (which is everything posted). Monarch typically shows the cleaner posted-only balance, which lags real-time.

Wait 24-48 hours and recheck.

Cause B — Sync gap during a recent connection issue. If your connection was broken last week and you reconnected today, Monarch may have missed transactions during the gap. Compare to your bank statement directly.

If gap-fill needed:

1. Export the missing date range from your bank as CSV
2. Import to Monarch via the CSV import flow
3. Choose “Prioritize CSV” to fill in missing transactions

Issue 9: Duplicate transactions

Per Monarch’s documentation: “You can delete duplicate transactions from your account using the ‘edit multiple’ option.”

Common causes:

• You imported a CSV that overlapped with bank-synced transactions
• You re-added an account that previously existed (Plaid username change)
• A bank temporarily had two parallel connections

Cleanup:

1. Open Transactions in Monarch
2. Filter by date and account where duplicates exist
3. Sort by amount or merchant to identify duplicates
4. Select all duplicates (use the bulk-select checkboxes)
5. Click Edit multiple → Delete
6. Confirm

If you have systematic duplicates from an account migration, the transfer history tool (Monarch’s article: “Transfer Balance and/or Transaction History to Another Account”) merges old + new connections cleanly without manual deduplication.

Issue 10: Account fully disconnected

If an account shows as fully disconnected with no recovery option:

First, check why:

1. Go to Accounts → the disconnected account
2. Look at the error message
3. Common reasons: bank ended support for the data provider, account was closed at the bank, your auth permissions were revoked at the bank

Possible fixes:

1. Revoke and re-add at the bank. Go to your bank’s website, revoke any existing Monarch / data provider authorizations, then re-add the connection in Monarch.
2. Try a different data provider. If Plaid lost support, MX or Finicity may still work.
3. Convert to manual account. If the bank no longer supports any aggregator, Monarch’s manual account lets you continue tracking with manual balance updates.

For accounts that have been closed (you closed the credit card, the brokerage was acquired, etc.), you can either:

• Mark the account as “closed” in Monarch (preserves historical transactions but stops trying to sync)
• Delete the account entirely (loses historical transactions — usually not what you want)

When to contact Monarch support

After you’ve tried the above:

• For institution-specific issues (a major bank’s connection has been broken for 1+ week), email support@monarchmoney.com with:
  • Your institution name
  • Specific error message
  • When the issue started
  • What troubleshooting you’ve already tried
• For account-specific issues (your specific connection is broken in a unique way), include the account name and the data provider currently in use

Monarch support is genuinely responsive — typically same-day or next-day for non-trivial issues. They can escalate to the data provider on your behalf, which often gets results faster than you contacting Plaid/Finicity/MX directly.

How Monarch’s connection reliability compares

Honest comparison:

Monarch’s three-provider redundancy is genuinely an advantage. When Plaid loses a connection, MX or Finicity often still works. Single-provider apps don’t have that fallback.

Common questions

Why does my account keep disconnecting weekly?

Bank-side security policy. Switch data providers (Update Login Settings → Choose different provider). If frequent re-auth persists across all three providers, the bank is the problem — not Monarch.

Should I cancel Monarch if connections are broken?

Generally no. Connection issues are usually fixable. Cancellation is appropriate if (a) you’ve genuinely tried all troubleshooting steps and (b) Monarch support hasn’t been able to resolve in 1-2 weeks.

Does Monarch’s mobile app have separate sync issues from web?

Sync happens server-side, so the same issues affect both. The mobile app and web app are different views of the same synced data.

Will my data be safe during connection issues?

Yes. Per Monarch’s documentation, your historical data is preserved during connection outages. Only new transactions don’t sync until the connection is restored.

What if my bank is on Monarch’s “limited connectivity” list permanently?

Some banks (smaller credit unions, foreign banks, some store-brand cards) have ongoing connection issues. Monarch’s manual account is the fallback — you update balances and transactions yourself.

Can connection issues affect my budget calculations?

Yes — missing transactions mean missing expenses, which can make your budget look better than it actually is. After fixing a sync issue, run the budget recalculation (Settings → Budget → Recalculate) to update with the now-complete data.

Is Monarch’s connection reliability getting better or worse over time?

Subjectively: about the same. Plaid, Finicity, and MX all maintain their connections proactively, but bank-side policy changes (which they don’t control) cause periodic disruptions. Monarch’s three-provider strategy means total connection reliability is among the highest in the category.

If after exhausting all troubleshooting paths you decide Monarch isn’t right, our How to Cancel Monarch Subscription walkthrough covers the cancellation flow, money-back guarantee, and migration paths to alternatives.

Related reading:

• How to Connect Bank Accounts to Monarch
• Is Monarch Money Safe?
• How to Cancel Monarch Subscription
• How to Export Transactions from Monarch
• Mint to Monarch Migration
• Monarch Money Promo Code 2026
• Monarch Money Review 2026
• Best Mint Alternatives in 2026

Not financial, legal, or tax advice. We earn a commission if you sign up for Monarch through a link on this page; the price is the same. Every troubleshooting step verified against Monarch’s official Help Center documentation as of May 7, 2026.