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The best business account for small businesses is Revolut. It’s super easy to use, and has a huge range of features to save you time, and help you manage your business finances. You can even receive payments from customers via text messages and email (or in-person). There’s a free plan so you can try it out first too.
Running a small business and looking for the right business account for you? You’re in the right place. We’ve compared a wide range of business accounts to help you decide. And without further, ado, here we are:
Revolut is our top pick for a business bank account – it’s low cost, easy to use, and is packed full of features.
Revolut is a modern business account designed to suit modern day businesses – unlike traditional banks that run on slow and outdated systems and processes.
Revolut have thought of everything, and the app is packed out with many helpful tools and features to help grow your business. And easy to use.
It’s pretty much perfect for every size of business, from a freelancer to large enterprises.
It’s also great for international businesses, and receiving payments in different currencies, such as customers based in Europe, paying in Euros. You can hold over 25 different currencies inside your Revolut business account – you can swap one currency for another in a couple of clicks, for a low exchange rate too!
You can also receive payments from customers in-person without needing a card machine, and online without needing other software, and even via text messages.
And, there’s loads of extra features you wouldn’t expect from other accounts, such as payroll and invoicing features, and team expense management.
It’s got pretty much everything you need, and more. Highly recommended.
Note: it’s not technically a bank, it’s an e-money account. Your money is still just as safe and secure.
Overall cost: low
Account cost: free to £100 per month
Bank transfer cost: free up to a limit
ATM withdrawal cost: free up to a limit
Multiple currencies: 25+
Debit card: yes
Cash deposits: no
Accounting integrations: yes
Save or invest cash: yes (and crypto)
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
Revolut is our top pick for a business bank account – it’s low cost, easy to use, and is packed full of features.
Starling is a popular option for lots of businesses. It’s a modern version of a traditional bank account – e.g. there’s a great app to use, and it links with accounting software.
It’s free to open an account and free to make payments, however for almost every other feature, such as creating invoices, you’ll need to open a paid plan (starting from £7 per month).
You can also open a Euros account (£2 per month), and a US Dollars account (£5 per month).
Although they don’t accept all businesses. So you might find it hard to open an account, depending on the type of your business.
Overall cost: medium
Account cost: free, or £7 per month
Bank transfer cost: free
ATM withdrawal cost: free (£300 per day limit)
Multiple currencies: Euros and Dollars (extra fees)
Debit card: yes
Cash deposits: yes (£3 fee or 0.30%)
Accounting integrations: yes
Save or invest cash: no
Monzo is becoming a popular bank in the UK, it’s a modern business bank account with an app that's easy to use.
You can open a free account where you can send and receive money for free, but for almost all of the other features, such as invoicing, and integrating (linking) with accounting software, you’ll need a paid plan (£5 per month).
Overall cost: medium
Account cost: free or £5 per month
Bank transfer cost: free
ATM withdrawal cost: free up to a limit (£200 per month)
Multiple currencies: no (can receive Euros)
Debit card: yes
Cash deposits: yes (£1 fee)
Accounting integrations: yes
Save or invest cash: yes
Revolut is our top pick for a business bank account – it’s low cost, easy to use, and is packed full of features.
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
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
Revolut is our top pick for a business bank account – it’s low cost, easy to use, and is packed full of features.
Running a small business? We wish you all the best! It’s an exciting thing to do, being your own boss, and having your destiny in your own hands.
Getting the right small business bank account for your business can save you a lot of time. Time you could be building your business – and you could even save a lot of cash too.
There’s a lot of business bank accounts out there, but we’ve done the hard work and compared a wide range of business bank accounts.
We’ve focused on online and digital business accounts – as modern accounts have great features that could help you manage your business finances – where you can manage everything on your phone (via an app), they’re easy to use, and can be cheaper than traditional banks.
The criteria we’ve used to find determine the best business accounts are:
All the business accounts we’ve listed above are ones we recommend to our friends and family running small businesses, and we used some of them ourselves here at Nuts About Money.
Whichever one of our recommendations you pick, you can be confident you’ll be using one of the best business bank accounts out there today, one that's lowest cost, and has all the tools you need to manage your business finances properly.
If you’re a sole trader (running a business in your own name), you’ve got a lot of options, as you can also use a personal account too (rather than a business bank account). Although it’s not recommended, as you’ll be merging personal transactions with business transactions.
It’s often a good idea to keep them separate so everything is clear, and there’s no confusion when it comes to payments and your tax bill. You’ll also need to produce end of year accounts (e.g. profit and loss), so you’ll need to know which transactions are for the business.
Running your business is very time consuming too – so getting a modern business account with all the features needed to manage your money efficiently can be a lifesaver. With the right account, you’ll be able to do things like produce invoices quickly, track expenses and use budgeting and cash flow features.
With that in mind, the best sole trader business account is Revolut¹, closely followed by ANNA¹. They’ve got great features to manage your business finances – saving a lot of time. And low cost (no monthly fees).
However, if you need to deposit cash into your account, for instance, accepting cash as payment from customers, you’ll need to use a different account. We recommend checking out Tide¹ – it’s got some great time saving tools and you’ll be able to pay in cash too.
A limited company is where the business is registered with the Government, and it becomes completely separate from you. Technically called a separate legal entity. This means that if your company were to go out of business and had any debts, only the company would be responsible to repay, rather than you directly.
Limited companies can come in all shapes and sizes, so there’s no one-size-fits all account for business bank accounts, however most companies will want to save time (and money of course).
So, opting for a business account that has lots of time saving features, such as invoicing, expense management and even things like accepting payments directly from customers in-person (without any devices or software), and even multiple currencies, can be super useful.
The best account that has everything you need and more is Revolut¹. It’s free to open too.
If you’re a brand new business (a startup), you’ll probably be on a bit of a budget, and possibly running things yourselves, or with a small team. So, you’ll likely want a business account that can handle everything for you, all in one place.
That’s things like expense management, invoicing, budgeting tools, and even receiving payments from customers directly, for a low cost.
The best business account for startups is Revolut¹, it’s got everything you might want, all in an easy to use app (and website). And, you can start for free, and upgrade later if you like it and need to.
There’s not really a free lunch when it comes to business banking. You can get a free account (no monthly fees), but you’ll likely still pay to receive or send money, or there might be some limits before you need to start paying (for instance 5 payments per month). Free business banking is a bit of a myth unfortunately.
With most of our recommendations above, you can open a free account, and pay nothing every month – it all comes down to what features you might want too.
For the best business account with no monthly fees, you’ll probably want to opt for Revolut¹ – it’s also got great features to help you save time, such as invoicing, and you can send and receive money for free (up to a limit).
If you’re just after a basic bank account that’s low cost, check out Tide¹, you can open a free account and just pay per transaction (20p), and it’s still got some great tools to help your business save time and grow.
A business bank account is exactly what it says on the tin – an account to manage your business’s money. You’ll need one if you run a business, especially as a limited company, but even if you’re a sole trader, it’s a good idea to keep your business money and personal money separate.
It works just the same as your personal bank account, so you can set and receive payments, set up direct debits (regular payments), and pay for things via a debit card. Except, it’s intended just for your business.
Modern accounts often come with tools to help you save time, such as producing invoices, or managing team cards and expenses. They can also integrate with accounting software, so you can automate lots of your financial reporting (such as a profit and loss account (how much money you made in a year)). We’ll cover accountancy integrations in a bit more detail below.
If you’re in two minds about whether to get a business account or not, and currently run things through your personal account – we recommend you open one! They can be pretty low cost, easy to open (normally), and you’ll be able to separate your business and personal finances – which can be a great time saver down the line, and avoid any potential issues trying to work out which are business transactions and which are personal ones.
You can also make use of all the great features business accounts have that personal accounts don’t, such as linking with accounting software, invoicing, and lots more features to save time and money.
Lots of modern business bank accounts integrate (link) with accounting software, such as Xero. If you don’t have accounting software yet, it’s super helpful – it will automatically put together everything you need to get a good insight into your business financially, in order to make the best decisions.
Each transaction from the bank account will help build the financial reports your business needs, and you’ll be able to see things like the total sales, running costs and team expenses. With all the end of year financial reports put together automatically for you (e.g. profit and loss statement and balance sheet (how much money your business made, and the assets it owns).
You’ll even be able to ‘run payroll’ (paying staff), and automatically submit this information to the Government (HMRC). If you’re not using accounting software at the moment, it’s worth looking into.
Another great thing about modern business accounts is that they’re super easy to open a business bank account and start using. In fact it can take just a few minutes. Everything is handled online, either on the company’s website or an app.
All you need to do is pick the right one for you, then sign up, enter details about your business and yourself, then you’re off and running – you can normally start using it within minutes.
With a more traditional bank, you’d likely have to go into a local branch with lots of documents, and it could take a few weeks while they run checks. How outdated is that?
Business accounts are very safe to use. Every business account provider needs to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), in order to accept customers. They’re the people who make sure companies are looking after you and your money, and in this case, businesses.
Technically speaking, with modern business accounts, some are banks, and some are called e-money accounts. That means they’re not technically a bank, but effectively the same, with everything running online (and via an app).
However, only with banks, would you be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). That’s where you would be able to claim up to £85,000 in compensation if the bank were to go out of business.
With e-money business account providers, your money is still safe and secure, but it’s protected in a different way – all of your money is held completely separate from their money, all in your business’s name, and normally stored with a large bank, such as Barclays. This is called safeguarding.
So, if the e-money account provider went out of business, your money would still exist and be returned to you. You could say there’s even more protection, as all of your money would be returned, rather than only up to £85,000 (if you had more).
There we have it for business accounts for small businesses. We hope that was useful, and you’re able to find the right business account for you and your business.
There’s lots that will go into your decision on which account to pick, but as a recap, it’s best to have a think about what you’re after first, and go from there.
For instance, do you want to send and receive international payments via multiple currencies? Do you just want the basics? Or, do you want tools to save you time and help build your business (such as invoicing and expense management features).
If you want the full works, and for a low cost, we recommend Revolut¹. It’s super easy to use, has a tonne of features to help you and your business manage its money, and you can hold, send and receive over 25 different currencies (including Euros and Dollars).
If you’re only looking for multiple currencies, check out Wise Business¹. There’s a huge range of currencies available, it’s easy to use and very low cost. Plus you can save and invest your money within your account.
Or, if you’re just looking for the basics, or want to make cash deposits, check out Tide¹, Starling and Monzo. They’re all free to open an account and offer a simple option to send and receive money. You can upgrade later if you feel like you want more features.
That’s the money sorted. All that’s left to do is wish you all the best for your business in the future!
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.
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Revolut is our top pick for a business bank account – it’s low cost, easy to use, and is packed full of features.