Privacy policy

Last updated 9 November 2026

In short

Trailbudget works without an account. Signed out, your trips never leave your iPhone.
If you sign in, we store your email address and a copy of your trips so you can restore them, and so you can split costs with travel buddies.
No ads, no analytics, no tracking, and we never sell or share your data for marketing.
You can delete your account and everything on our server from the app at any time.

Who we are

Trailbudget (“we”, “us”) is an independent app made in the United Kingdom. We are the data controller for the personal data described here. Contact us at hello@trailbudget.app about anything in this policy.

Using Trailbudget without an account

Your trips, budgets, expenses, notes, reminders and preferences are saved only on your iPhone, in the app’s private storage. Widgets read a summary from a space shared only with Trailbudget’s own widgets. Evening reminders are scheduled on the phone. We can’t see any of it.

To convert currencies, the app downloads exchange rates from ExchangeRate-API about once a day. That request sends nothing about you or your trip, but like any web request it reveals your IP address to them. Country guide links open the source website in your browser.

If you sign in

Signing in is optional. It turns on backup and travel buddies.

What	Why	Where
Your email address, sign-in method (Apple, Google or email) and an account ID. With Sign in with Apple you can hide your email.	To sign you in and keep your data separate from everyone else’s.	Google Firebase Authentication, and our server
Your trips (budget, route, expenses, notes, costs spread over days) and preferences (guide estimates, currency choices)	Backup, and restoring on another phone	Our server
Up to 30 earlier copies of each trip, and copies of deleted trips	So a mistake, or a choice between two phones, can be undone	Our server
A device identifier and device name (usually just “iPhone”), and when each copy was saved	To tell your phones apart when the same trip changes on two of them	Our server
When you last used the account	Housekeeping and security	Our server

Our legal basis is performance of a contract: you asked for backup and we need this data to provide it.

Travel buddies

If you link up with a travel buddy, the two of you share:

The name you choose for buddies to see.
Each cost you choose to split: what it was, its category, amount, currency, dates, who paid and each person’s share.
Whether they added it to their trip or declined it, and any settlements you record between you.

Your budget, your trips and everything else you spend are never shared with a buddy. An invite link shows your chosen name to whoever opens it while it’s valid (one use, up to a week). Removing a buddy deletes everything shared between you from our server; costs already added to either person’s trip stay on that trip.

Who processes data for us

Google Firebase (Authentication): sign-in. Google may process data in the US under its standard contractual clauses.
Apple and Google: if you choose Sign in with Apple or Google, under their own privacy policies.
Hetzner Online: hosts our server and database in Helsinki, Finland (EU).
Amazon Web Services: stores encrypted nightly database backups in Ireland (EU).
Cloudflare: DNS and email routing for our domain.

We don’t use any advertising, analytics or crash-reporting services.

How long we keep it

Your account and backups: until you delete your account (Settings → Backup → Delete account), or ask us to.
When you delete your account, it’s removed from our database straight away, along with your trips, earlier copies, buddies and shared costs. Copies in our database backups expire within 30 days.
Server logs, which record account IDs and errors: a few days at most.
Data on your iPhone stays until you delete it or the app. Signing out or deleting your account doesn’t remove trips from your phone.

Security

Data travels over HTTPS. The database isn’t reachable from the internet, every request is checked against your Firebase sign-in, and backups are stored encrypted. On your iPhone, the trip file is protected by iOS data protection.

Your rights

Under UK and EU data protection law you can ask to see, correct, export or delete your data, or object to how we use it. Most of this you can do in the app: everything is visible there, and deleting your account deletes it all. For anything else, email hello@trailbudget.app and we’ll reply within a month. You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

Children

Trailbudget isn’t aimed at children. You need to be at least 13 to create an account.

Changes

If we change this policy we’ll update the date above, and for significant changes we’ll tell you in the app before they apply.