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The best business account for sole traders is Tide. It’s easy to use, and has a great range of features to help you manage your business finances – including receiving payments from customers via text message and email. It’s free to open an account too, so you can try it out first.
Running your business as a sole trader? Perhaps just starting out? Exciting times. You’ll want to keep your finances in order with a separate bank account, it avoids a lot of issues when it comes to things like reporting and tax.
The best option is to open a business account, not only will your business transactions be separate, but they can also have tools and features to save you time, and grow your business.
We’ll cover that all in more detail, but for now, here’s the best business accounts for sole traders:
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).
For sole traders, there’s lots of bank account options, as you can actually use your personal bank account, or a business account. Although you’ll likely run into lots of issues if you use your personal bank account, with lots of personal and business transactions going through it at the same time.
So, it’s sensible to use a business account – they can be low cost, and you’ll be able to use lots of business account features to save yourself time, so you can focus on growing your business, rather than handling lots of admin.
With that in mind, we’ve looked at modern business account options, these are all online, where you can manage everything either from a phone app, or website. They’re easy to use, almost always lower cost than traditional banks, and have great features to manage your business finances.
The criteria we’ve used to find determine the best business bank accounts are:
Our recommendations above are all ones we recommend to our friends and family (those who are sole traders), and we also use some of the business accounts here at Nuts About Money.
So, you can be sure, whichever one of our recommendations you use, you’ll be using one of the best options out there for sole traders, and businesses in general.
Running a startup as a sole trader can be really exciting. It can also be stressful too – and very time consuming. So, getting a business account to save time and admin can be a real lifesaver.
Business accounts can handle things like invoicing, and expense management, and have budgeting tools too. Plus, loads more features such as accounting integrations. As a startup, you’ll likely want everything all in one place.
The best business account for startups is Tide¹. It’s got everything you need to run your business (money wise), and great tools to help grow your business too. You can even receive payments directly from customers in-person, over text message, or email. It’s free to open an account too.
If you’re running a small business as a sole trader (or even a limited company), your best options are pretty similar – a business account with all the features and tools to save you time, giving you more time to build your business. That’s tools such as invoices and expense management, and integrating with accounting software.
The best small business bank account is Tide¹. It’s easy to use, and has all the features you need to manage your business finances. There’s a free plan with no monthly fees too, so there's no harm checking it out. Also, check out ANNA¹, it’s a bit more basic, but still great for small businesses.
Saving money running a business, especially as a sole trader, can have a big impact on its future – and using a free business account can help.
Although, there’s no such thing as completely free when it comes to business banking. You’ll still have fees somewhere, whether that’s making transactions (sending and receiving money), or depositing or taking out cash from an ATM, or using features such as integrating with accounting software (more on that later).
With most of our recommendations above, you can start with a free plan, and upgrade as and when you need. Again, we recommend Tide¹, it's got great features to save time to help grow your business, such as invoicing and expense management.
If you don’t want all the bells and whistles, and just the basics, but still with some great tools, check out ANNA¹, it's free to get an account.
A business bank account is just like a bank account you’ve probably got yourself, called a personal bank account, except it’s for your business.
You can use it to separate all of your business finances from your own money, which is especially important if you’re running a limited company (registered the company with the Government), but even as a sole trader, it’s pretty important too – ideally, you wouldn’t want your business transactions to get confused with your personal transactions, and vice versa, it could cause a lot of issues when it comes to financial reports and paying the right amount of tax.
It's almost exactly the same as your personal account, you can send and receive payments, and set up regular payments (such as direct debits). You’ll also be able to get a debit card for yourself, and any of your team later down the line.
Alongside that, you’ll also get features and tools to help you save time and grow your business (if you use a modern business account, such as the ones we recommend above). You’ll be able to produce invoices for customers, manage expenses and even things like link with accounting software, to build financial statements (such as a profit and loss account (how much your business makes each year)).
Accounting software can be a bit of a lifesaver for sole traders, and well, every business. You can manage your finances yourself, with financial reports all put together automatically, by linking with your business account.
You’ll be able to produce profit and loss statements (how much your business has made), and a balance sheet (the value of the assets (things) in your business). Plus, lots more other reports – getting technical, you can even build your own ones to provide an insight into different areas of your business.
Accounting software can even help with ‘payroll’, if you have staff later down the line (paying staff), and will connect to HMRC directly to file all the documents you need.
It’s pretty great, and a good idea when running a business. One of the best accounting software options is Xero.
Long gone are the days where business accounts can take weeks to open. If you use a modern business account (such as our recommendations), you can open an account in a few minutes, and be up and running in no time at all, with everything running on a phone app (or website).
Once you’ve decided which account is the right one for you, sign up, and fill out a few details about yourself and your business. You’ll have to prove your identity too. All done online. And that’s it. Pretty simple right?
Using a business account is very safe. All business account providers in the UK are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). They’re the people who make sure financial firms are looking after you and your money (and business’s money).
When it comes to business accounts, some are from banks, and some can be from e-money providers. They’re not technically a bank, but effectively a business account is the same, just everything runs online (normally via a phone app).
With banks, you’ll be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). That’s where you are protected by up to £85,000 in compensation should the bank go out of business.
With e-money account providers, you don’t have this. However your money is still safe and secure. Instead, it’s held separate from the e-money account provider’s money, in a completely separate bank account with a large international bank, such as Natwest, all in your business’s name, and can only be returned to your business (or you). If the e-money provider were to go out of business, your money would still exist and be returned to you. This is called safeguarding.
We hope that’s made business bank accounts easier to understand if you’re a sole trader. And given you all the information you need to make the right decision about picking a great bank account for your business.
It’s a good idea to first decide what features you might want from a business account, and then find an account to suit you. Do you think you’d need just the basics? Or maybe multiple currencies, such as Euros from customers abroad, or features to help you manage your budget, create invoices, or even accept payments directly from customers via text messages, emails or in person.
As a recap, if you’re looking for an overall great business account for sole traders, scroll up to the top or click the best business accounts for sole traders. With all our recommendations you can open a free account and send and receive money. You’ll need to upgrade for more features.
If you want the full works, including multiple currencies scroll up or click the best business account for international payments. They’ve all got everything you need (and more), plus they're super easy to use.
If you’re just looking for an account for international payments, check out Wise Business¹. It’s the cheapest account for foreign currencies, and there’s a huge range of currencies. You can also save and invest your business money too (generating more income).
And finally, if you have any questions about banking in general, visit our banking home page.
That’s it for the best sole trader bank accounts! All that’s left is to grow your business with all the time saved!
Edward Savage is a leading expert on money, with a background of 8 years working in financial services in London, has a business, accounting and finance degree, runs an investing community, and teaches people about money. He writes about all aspects of personal finance, including pensions, investing, mortgages and insurance.
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With Tide, get £75 with a business account (deposit £100) and £100 with a saver account (deposit £5,000).