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The best business account for startups is Tide. It’s used by 10% of all small and medium sized businesses in the UK. It’s easy to use, packed with features to help you manage your business finances and admin, such as invoice management, expense cards, accounting integrations, admin tools and more. There’s a free plan so you can see how you like it first too.
Launching and running a startup can be very time consuming, and incredibly difficult. It’s also crazy exciting and a wild ride. Picking the right business account for your startup could save you a lot of time and money – so your business can grow even quicker.
Let’s get straight to it. Here’s the best business accounts for startups:
With Tide, get £75 with a business account (deposit £100) and £100 with a saver account (deposit £5,000).
Get £175 for free
Tide is a super popular business account – with over 10% of all small and medium sized businesses in the UK with accounts, including tonnes of freelancers and contractors (and there’s over 1 million businesses using Tide globally).
It’s an easy to use and straightforward account that is free to open. You simply pay as and when you use it (e.g. a small fee per transaction), and the fees are low overall.
The app itself is great, and although it’s easy to use, it’s packed with features to help you manage your business finances and admin, such as invoice management, expense cards, accounting integrations, admin tools and more.
You can even find loans suitable for your business, and if you’re an in-person business Tide has a range of payment solutions available such as card reader terminals, tap to pay and payment links to take payments.
You'll also get a business savings account with one of the highest savings rates out there, perfect for any extra cash you might have lying around, and you can send money to and from your Tide current account and savings account in seconds whenever you need it.
*Get £75 for free after spending £100 within 30 days, and an extra £100 when depositing at least £5,000 into the savings account and keeping it there for at least 2 months. Use the code NUTSABOUTMONEY when registering to claim your cashback.
• Low cost overall
• High interest rate on savings
• Apply in minutes
• Free debit card
• Great mobile app
• Accounting integrations
• Take payments in-person
• Often quick to open
• 24/7 in-app support
• £1 ATM withdrawal cost
• Can’t receive or hold multiple currencies
• £2.50 fee for cash deposits (or up to 3% through PayPoint)
ANNA is a business account with a few extras. If you’ve got a simple business, this might be the only account you’ll need to manage everything.
You’ll get tools to manage your business finances, such as creating and sending invoices (and they’ll send chasers automatically too), expense tracking and sorting your tax.
Love it, or hate it, the card even makes a Meow sound when you use it. Yes really!
Overall cost: low
Account cost: free to £49.90 (plus VAT) per month
Bank transfer cost: 20p (free on paid plans)
ATM withdrawal cost: £1 (free on paid plans)
Multiple currencies: no
Debit card: yes
Cash deposits: no
Accounting integrations: yes
Save or invest cash: no
With Tide, get £75 with a business account (deposit £100) and £100 with a saver account (deposit £5,000).
With Tide, get £75 with a business account (deposit £100) and £100 with a saver account (deposit £5,000).
Get $100 cashback
Airwallex is a business account for global payments – within one Airwallex account you can send and receive over 20 different local currencies across over 150 countries.
Essentially, you can act like a local business, without having to open an account in every different country you operate in (or receive payments from) – you simply use your Airwallex account, and you’ll have local account details to use for each country.
It’s low cost, and you’ll avoid a range of fees (e.g. currency conversion fees), and transfers are typically the same day, or shortly after.
If your business runs internationally, Airwallex is a great option to manage all your payments.
Overall cost: low
Multiple currencies: Accept in 20+ currencies and pay out in 60+ currencies
Debit card: yes
Cash deposits: no
Accounting integrations: yes
Save or invest cash: no
Get $100 cashback
WorldFirst is well established, and a popular choice for online sellers and importers.
WorldFirst is an excellent business account for businesses operating globally, especially if you’re dealing with suppliers in China, where WorldFirst is a very established option, and used by a lot of businesses – meaning a trusted network where you can benefit from an escrow service and reduce costs by dealing directly with suppliers (which also reduces fraud).
It’s also a very common option for online sellers, as it partners with pretty much every marketplace (e.g. Amazon and eBay), and provides everything you need to receive your money from your sales – which means you could expand into new markets (countries) quickly and easily.
Having said that, it's really suited to all types of businesses, and if you’re looking to send or receive money in a different currency, it’s a top option – especially as there’s no ongoing monthly fees. Instead, you pay a fee per transfer (or sometimes no fee at all).
The website and app is easy to use, and you can benefit from team management features, alongside issuing cards for spending.
There’s also advanced features to help you reduce the fluctuation of multiple currencies, with their forward contracts options (setting a fixed exchange rate in the future).
The customer service is also excellent, and operates over the phone (and email too).
Wise business is the best option for multiple currencies. Send and receive money in over 40 different currencies, including Euros and US Dollars, all for a low cost (it’s the cheapest option).
You can even store multiple currencies in one account, meaning you don't have to keep swapping currencies and paying exchange fees.
Another great feature, is being able to save and invest your business money, so instead of your money sitting in your account doing nothing, you can invest it to grow more over time (with the help of experts) – adding a whole new revenue stream to your business – and still allowing you to spend it whenever you need to.
Overall cost: low
Account cost: £45 set up fee
Bank transfer cost: From 0.43% to send. Free to receive
ATM withdrawal cost: free up to a limit (£200)
Multiple currencies: 40+
Debit card: yes
Cash deposits: no
Accounting integrations: yes
Save or invest cash: yes, 4.49% after fees
With Tide, get £75 with a business account (deposit £100) and £100 with a saver account (deposit £5,000).
There’s lots of accounts for businesses out there, but we’ve done the hard work to narrow it down to the very best for startups. We’ve focused on modern business accounts, those that allow you to manage everything online, either on their website or phone app. They’re typically easier to use, cheaper, and have great features to help grow your business, and save time.
The criteria we used to assess business accounts for startups were:
The best accounts we’ve listed above are all ones we’re happy to recommend to our friends and family, and we also use some of them ourselves here at Nuts About Money.
So, whichever business account you opt for, you can be confident you’ll be using one of the best business bank accounts out there in the UK for startups. One that’s low cost, easy to use, popular, and has a range of features to help you save time and scale your business.
Let’s get on the same page quickly with what a startup is. We’re defining it as a new business that has the potential to be much bigger over time. So, typically these could be technology businesses, but don’t need to be!
Businesses like a restaurant, or a cafe, aren’t typically called startups, as they have limited potential to grow, but can still be highly successful. These are more commonly known as small businesses – if you’re running one of these, we’ve still got you covered. Check out our guide to the best small business bank account, and we’ve got our recommendations below too.
If you’re just starting out as a business, you’ll probably not have many processes set up yet, such as invoicing and expense management. So, it’s a good opportunity to start from scratch with the best options.
We’d recommend opting for a business account that has everything you need (and more), for instance Tide¹. There’s so many tools to help you manage your business finances, and save time. Plus, there’s a free plan, and it’s low cost overall. It’s currently one of the most popular business accounts for startups and growing rapidly.
Looking for free business banking? You can get business accounts with no monthly fees (such as all of our recommended options), but nothing in this world is truly free. Business accounts typically have fees somewhere, such as to make transactions, depositing cash, or withdrawing from an ATM. Plus using lots of other features.
The best account with no monthly fees is Tide¹, there's lots of free features to save you time and grow your business (there’s paid plans and fees for extra features).
If you just want a basic account, check out Anna¹, it’s simple, and easy to use. Features include, creating and sending invoices (and they’ll send chasers automatically too), expense tracking and it has no monthly fee.
If you’re starting out as a sole trader, you’ve actually got a wide range of options, as you can choose a personal account too (e.g. a bank account in your own name).
However, it’s often a good idea to keep your business and personal finances separate, or you could run into issues in future – you’ll need to know every business transaction in order to produce the right financial reports at the end of the financial year, or when you need it (e.g. a profit and loss statement (how much your business has made)).
As you're doing everything yourself, you’ll likely want a business account to save you a lot of time. One with all the features that can handle everything for you, such as producing invoices, track expenses and budgeting features.
Again, the best accounts to manage your business finances are Tide¹, or ANNA¹. They’ve both got great features to manage everything you need to. And, there’s no monthly fee.
If you’re running a small business, you’ll likely want a business account rather than using your personal account, even if you haven’t registered it as a limited company (officially registering the business with the Government).
Some modern business bank accounts will give you all the tools you need to run your business, all in one place. You can send invoices, track your expenses and lots more money management features. Giving you more time to run and grow your business.
The best business account for small businesses is Tide¹, it’s got everything you need, low cost, and you can even collect payments from customers in-person, over email or text message without needing any other equipment or software. Pretty great right?
A business account is an account to manage your business money, rather than using your personal bank account. Typically, businesses have separate finances from their owners personal accounts, and should have their own business account to manage their finances – otherwise things get a bit confusing!
Everything works pretty much the same as a personal account, you can make payments in and out, and set up recurring payments such as direct debits. You’ll typically get a debit card too, and can have a card for your employees too.
With modern business account providers, you can also get features to help manage your business finances, such as invoicing, and expense tracking. Plus, they typically link with accounting software (like Xero or Quickbooks) to help manage your financial reporting.
Accounting software helps you get an understanding of your business, for instance you can produce profit and loss statements (how much money your business made), and lots more insights into your business. Business accounts can link directly to this software, meaning lots of things can be automated. It’s very useful.
It is possible to use your personal account if you are running a business in your name (called a sole trader), rather than the business name (a limited company), however it can complicate things a lot, especially when you need to work out how much tax to pay. It’s best to keep your business and personal finances separate.
If you’re running a startup, you’ll definitely want to set up a business account – you wouldn’t want investors sending money to your personal account (if you have them), and you can benefit from all the time saving tools that business bank accounts have.
Accounting software can be a huge time saver for businesses of any size. All of your financial reports can be completely automated if the software is linked to a business account.
So, you can produce your end of year statements, such as a profit and loss account (how much your business made), and a balance sheet (how much assets your business has), all automatically from your bank account transactions.
You can also manage things like paying your staff (payroll), and send this information to HMRC automatically. It’s all pretty great.
Yep. Business accounts are very safe to use. Business accounts are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – they’re the people who make sure financial services companies are looking after their customers and their money.
They’ll approve the business account provider, and will continually check to make sure they are operating properly.
With business accounts, some are technically banks, and some are e-money accounts.
However, with a bank, your money is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). That means that should the bank go out of business, you’ll be compensated by up to £85,000.
With an e-money account, you won’t get this protection, but your money is also safe. Your money will actually be held in a completely separate bank account, with a large bank, such as HSBC, all in your name, separate to the e-money account provider's own money.
Your money can only be returned to you if the e-money provider were to go out of business (and you’d get back more than £85,000 if you had more). This is called safeguarding.
That’s it for the best bank accounts for startups. We hope it was useful.
As a quick summary, modern business accounts can provide a great way to not just to send and receive money, but also to manage your business finances too – our recommendations have got a great range of tools and features to help you manage things, and save yourself a lot of time.
To make the right decision for you, have a think about what you need from a business bank account first, do you want the full range of features? Such as invoicing and integrating with accounting software. Do you need to send and receive multiple currencies? Or, do you just want the basics?
For a reminder of our recommendations, scroll up to the top or click the best business accounts for start ups.
And if your startup is, or will be using other currencies (like Dollars or Euros), click the best business account for international payments.
Finally, if you've got a question about banking, visit our banking home page.
That's it! Good luck growing the startup!
Christopher Dowling combines a communications degree with over 10 years experience in the financial services industry in London – with focus on educating people on a wide range of money topics in an easy to understand way. He writes about savings, investing, pensions, mortgages, insurance, banking, loans, business finance and other money topics.
This article was written, reviewed and fact checked by the expert team at Nuts About Money. You’re in safe hands. Learn more.
We're experts in all things banking, cards, and spending and receiving money, for both individuals and businesses – with many years of combined experience writing about it. Some of our team were top financial advisors. We know how to save a small fortune in fees, and how to find the right card and account for you.
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With Tide, get £75 with a business account (deposit £100) and £100 with a saver account (deposit £5,000).