How to redact a bank statement

Published October 27, 2026

When a landlord, lender, agency or court asks for a bank statement, people usually remove all but the last four digits of the account number, and often the routing number and any other account or card numbers printed on it. What usually stays is what the requester is checking: your name, the bank, the dates, the transactions and the balances. The removal has to be real. A statement downloaded from online banking is a text PDF, and a box drawn over a number in a viewer leaves the digits in the file. This is general information, not legal advice.

What people commonly remove

• The account number, down to the last four digits. It is often printed on every page, not just the first.
• The routing number. It identifies the bank rather than you and is printed on every check, but people often remove it with the account number.
• Other account and card numbers. Transfers to savings, card payments and loan payments often show part or all of another account number in the description.
• Check images. The line of numbers along the bottom of a check carries the routing and account numbers.
• Contact details in transfers. Payment-app transfers can show another person's phone number or email address.
• A Social Security number, if one appears anywhere in the set.

What the requester usually needs to see

Mortgage lenders that sell loans to Fannie Mae follow its Selling Guide. It says a bank statement must identify the bank and the borrower as the account holder, "include at least the last four digits of the account number", and show the period covered, all deposits and withdrawals, and the ending balance. A statement with transactions blacked out may not meet that, and the lender may ask for it again. Landlords and agencies vary; asking what they need to see is the quickest way to find out.

For a court, the filing rules set what may remain: the last four digits of an account number under the federal rules and California's rule 1.201, and no portion of a bank account number under Florida's rule 2.425. See redacting SSNs and account numbers in court filings. Statements handed to the other side in discovery are a production rather than a filing; see responding to a request for production.

The hidden-text trap

The usual mistake is a black rectangle drawn with a viewer's markup or shapes tool, or black highlighting. It looks finished. The digits are still underneath, and copying across the box or searching the file shows them. The guide to why black boxes fail has the details.

The second mistake is missing a copy. A statement prints the account number in the header of each page, and sometimes again in a summary box, a footer or a check image. Search the file for the first digits of the number to see how many times it appears. A scanned paper statement is a picture: the number is part of the image, a box drawn on top is a separate layer that another editor can move, and only burning the box into the image removes it.

Metadata and other places a number hides

A PDF carries document properties (Title, Author, Subject, Keywords) and can carry comments, form fields, attachments and bookmarks. None of them shows on the page. Open the file's properties in your viewer before sending it. The file name travels with the file too, so look at it.

Checking before you send

1. Open the finished file, copy across each black box, and paste into a plain text editor. Nothing should paste.
2. Search for the first digits of each number you removed. If you kept the last four, those will still match, as intended.
3. Read the document properties.
4. Or run the free leak check, which extracts the text of every page, searches for account, routing and card numbers, flags text under boxes and reads the metadata.

For one statement, free tools are often enough: Preview on a Mac, letsgoPDF, RedactifyAI's free first page or AI-Redact's 4 free pages. The free redaction guide compares them.

BatesNumbering.app finds account, routing and card numbers in a statement in your browser, keeps the last four digits if you choose, burns the boxes into the pages that have them and removes the metadata; a short statement often fits in the first 10 pages, which are free.

Common questions

What do people black out on a bank statement?

Usually all but the last four digits of the account number, the routing number, other account or card numbers in transfer descriptions, and check images. The name, bank, dates, transactions and balances usually stay, because that is what the requester is checking.

Can I redact a bank statement for a mortgage lender?

Lenders that follow Fannie Mae's Selling Guide need a statement showing at least the last four digits of the account number, the account holder, the bank, the period, all deposits and withdrawals, and the ending balance. Blacking out transactions can mean the lender asks for the statement again.

Does a bank statement PDF have hidden text?

A statement downloaded from online banking usually has real text, so a box drawn over the account number in a viewer leaves the digits in the file. They can be copied out or found by search.

How do I check a redacted bank statement for a leftover account number?

Open the finished file, copy across each black box and paste it into a text editor, then search the file for the first digits of the account number and read the document properties. A free leak check does all three.

Or check a PDF for numbers left in it, free →

More guides: What is Bates numbering · Bates numbering without Acrobat · Bates number format and examples · Bates numbering a discovery response without a lawyer · Exhibit numbers vs Bates numbers · How to redact a PDF for free · Redacting SSNs and account numbers in court filings · Why black box redactions fail · Redacting a PDF on iPhone or Mac · A document production index · Rolling productions · Responding to a request for production · Bates and redaction tools compared · batesstamp.com alternatives · RedactifyAI alternatives · Adobe Acrobat alternatives for Bates and redaction