Best Free Expense Tracker & Expense Report Templates (2026)

Tracking your expenses does not need to be complicated. But finding a template that is actually worth using — one you will open every day and not abandon after a week — takes more effort than it should.

This post saves you the time. Here are the best free expense tracker templates available in 2026.

What makes a good expense tracker template?

Simple to update. If adding an expense takes more than 30 seconds, you will stop doing it.

Categories that make sense. Sensible defaults (Software, Travel, Office, Meals) with the ability to customise.

Automatic totals. Totals by category, by month, and overall should update automatically.

Visual summary. A chart showing where your money is going is more useful than a wall of numbers.

Tax-deductible flag. For freelancers and business owners, knowing which expenses are deductible is critical.

1. Expense Tracker — Get Premium Templates (Excel / Google Sheets)

The most complete free option on this list. 11 expense categories with dropdown selectors, a summary dashboard with automatic totals, horizontal bar chart comparing categories, doughnut chart showing spending breakdown, and a tax-deductible column on every row. 200 pre-formatted transaction rows.

Works in both Excel and Google Sheets. Free.

Best for: Freelancers, small business owners, and anyone who wants a complete expense tracking system.

Get it free →

2. Google Sheets Monthly Budget Template

Google offers a basic budget and expense template. It covers income and expenses with simple category totals. Free, no setup required.

Limitations: no tax-deductible flag, limited categories, no visual summary beyond a basic total.

Best for: Personal expense tracking for individuals on a tight budget.

3. Microsoft Excel Expense Report Template

Excel's built-in expense report templates are designed for employees submitting reimbursements. Professional-looking and print-ready.

For ongoing daily tracking, they are less useful — built for one-off reports, not continuous logging.

Best for: Employees submitting expense reports for reimbursement.

4. Notion expense tracker

Notion-based trackers connect expenses to the rest of your financial system. If you already use Notion for project management or client tracking, having expenses in the same workspace means you can link costs to specific projects or clients and see profitability per client, not just totals.

The downside: Notion does not handle charts and calculations as elegantly as a spreadsheet. It is more powerful for context (notes, project links, client relations) and less powerful for number-crunching.

Best for: Notion users who want expenses connected to their wider workspace — particularly freelancers tracking costs by client.

5. Daily expense tracker — Google Sheets

If you want to log every purchase as it happens — at the coffee shop, on the way home, at the supermarket — a daily expense tracker built specifically for on-the-go logging gives you a simpler row format and a running daily total that updates automatically. The difference from a standard tracker is the design: fewer columns, faster entry, a running balance visible at all times.

Best for: People who want real-time visibility into daily spending, or who find end-of-week catch-up sessions too inaccurate.

Full guide: Daily Expense Tracker Google Sheets →

6. Personal expense tracker — Google Sheets

A personal tracker differs from a household tracker in its category structure. Instead of broad shared categories (Groceries, Utilities, Mortgage), a personal tracker uses individual spending categories: Coffee, Subscriptions, Clothing, Eating Out, Personal Care. Finer-grained categories give individuals better insight into discretionary spending patterns.

Best for: Individuals tracking their own spending separately from household costs — particularly useful for people in shared households where finances are partially separate.

Full guide: Personal Expense Tracker Google Sheets →

7. Business expense tracker — for freelancers

A business expense tracker for freelancers adds two columns a personal tracker does not need: a Tax-Deductible flag and a Client or Project field. The deductible flag lets you filter at tax time and instantly see your total deductible spend. The client/project field lets you see the cost of serving each client — and whether the margins are actually worth it.

Best for: Freelancers and sole traders who need to separate personal and business spending and track deductible expenses throughout the year.

Full guide: How to Track Business Expenses as a Freelancer →

Head to head

Expense tracker vs expense report — they are not the same thing

These two get used interchangeably and they should not be. Picking the wrong one is the most common reason a template gets abandoned in week two.

An expense tracker is an ongoing ledger. You keep it running month after month, it totals by category, and nobody else ever sees it. It exists to tell you where the money went.

An expense report is a submission document. It covers one trip or one pay period, it gets printed or exported to PDF, and it goes to somebody who owes you money — an employer, a client, or an accountant. It exists to get reimbursed. It needs fields a tracker does not: employee or contractor name, a purpose line, receipt references, an approval signature block, and a single total at the bottom that somebody signs off on.

If you are being paid back for something, you want an expense report. If you are trying to stop overspending, you want a tracker. If you are a freelancer, you probably want both — a report per client invoice, and a tracker running underneath it for your own tax position.

Free expense report templates compared

Expense report templates are a much narrower field than trackers, because the format is essentially fixed — the document has to satisfy whoever is approving it. What actually differs between them is the file format, whether there is a mileage rate built in, and whether you have to hand over an email address to download.

The honest summary: for a one-off reimbursement claim, the Microsoft Create or Google Sheets gallery template is the fastest route and costs nothing. Neither needs improving for the job. Notion is the wrong tool for an expense report specifically — it has no clean print output and no signature handling, which is the one thing this document exists to do. Use Notion for the tracker underneath, not the claim on top.

Where to get free expense report templates

Four sources are worth knowing, and the differences between them are practical rather than about quality:

• Microsoft Create — the built-in Excel and Word expense report templates. Free, no account, opens straight into Excel or Word Online. The default answer for most people.
• Google Sheets template gallery — File → New → From template gallery inside any Sheet. Free with a Google account, and the best option if the person approving it wants a link rather than an attachment.
• Vertex42 — free Excel downloads, no email wall. Templates are plain and functional; the free versions carry a small attribution line you can usually leave in.
• Smartsheet — a large free library across Excel, Word and PDF, including per-trip and monthly variants. Everything is free to download, but expect the site to push you toward its paid product throughout.

What none of these do is track your spending over time — that is the tracker's job, and it is what the rest of this page covers.

Which expense tracker template should you use?

For personal budgeting: Start with the Google Sheets expense tracker — simple, free, works immediately.

For daily on-the-go logging: The daily expense tracker is built for speed — fewer columns, faster entry.

For submitting expenses to an employer: Excel expense report template is the right format.

For freelancers and business owners who want ongoing tracking, deductible flags, and visual summaries: the full freelance business expense tracker.

For Notion users: Connect expenses to your client and project records with a Notion-based tracker — see profitability per client, not just raw totals.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an expense tracker and an expense report?
An expense tracker is an ongoing ledger you keep for yourself, month after month, to see where your money goes. An expense report is a one-off submission document covering a single trip or pay period that you send to an employer, client or accountant to get reimbursed. The report needs receipt references, a purpose line and an approval signature block; the tracker needs categories, totals and charts. If you are being paid back for something you want a report; if you are trying to stop overspending you want a tracker.

What are the best free expense report templates?
For a one-off reimbursement claim, the Microsoft Create expense report template (Excel or Word) and the Google Sheets template gallery expense report are the fastest free options and neither needs improving for the job. Vertex42 offers free Excel downloads with no email wall, and Smartsheet has a large free library across Excel, Word and PDF including per-trip and monthly variants. Notion is the wrong tool for an expense report specifically, because it has no clean print output and no signature handling.

Where can I get a free expense report template without signing up?
Microsoft Create and Vertex42 both let you download expense report templates without an account or an email address. The Google Sheets template gallery is free but requires a Google account. Smartsheet templates are free to download without signup, though the site pushes its paid product throughout.

What is the best free expense tracker template?
It depends on your situation. For personal budgeting, the Google Sheets expense tracker covers everything most people need. For freelancers, a tracker with a tax-deductible flag and client/project field adds meaningful value at tax time. For daily logging, a streamlined single-page tracker with fewer columns reduces friction enough to make the daily habit stick.

Should I use Google Sheets or Excel for expense tracking?
Google Sheets for most people — it is accessible on any device, shareable, and free. Excel is better if you work in a corporate environment where Excel files are the standard, or if you need advanced pivot table features not available in Sheets.

Is Notion or Google Sheets better for tracking expenses?
Google Sheets is better for pure number-crunching — formulas, charts, and automatic totals are more powerful. Notion is better for connecting expenses to a wider system — linking costs to projects, clients, and notes in one workspace. Freelancers often use both: Sheets for the actual tracking, Notion for the broader financial and project context.

How often should I update my expense tracker?
Weekly is the practical sweet spot. Open your bank statement once a week, log the transactions, and update category totals. Daily logging is more accurate but harder to sustain. Monthly catch-ups rely too heavily on memory and tend to miss small purchases entirely.

Browse all templates →

Related: How to Track Business Expenses | Google Sheets Expense Tracker | All Google Sheets Templates