The best small business bank accounts (2024)

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:

Best business accounts for small business

Best business account for international payments

Our criteria for determining the best business account for small business

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:

• Ease of use
• Range of helpful tools
• Fees
• Customer service

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.

What’s the best bank account for a sole trader?

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.

What’s the best business bank account for a limited company?

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.

What’s the best business account for startups?

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.

What’s the best free business account?

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.

What's a business bank account?

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.

You’ll probably need a business account for a small business

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.

What about accounting software?

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.

How to open a business account for small business

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?

Are business accounts safe?

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).

Let’s recap

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!