Use csv.reader() and next() if you are not using any library. Lets code to understand. Let us consider the following sample.csv file to understand. sample.csv fruit,count apple,1 banana,2 file = open('sample.csv') csv_reader = csv.reader(file) next(csv_reader) for row in csv_reader: print(row) OUTPUT:- ['apple', '1'] ['banana', '2'] As you can see the first line which had fruit, count is eliminated.