Compare business bank accounts

Our criteria for determining the best business account

Whether you’re a large successful business, just starting out, or a freelancer, it’s a good idea to have a business account to keep your business and personal finances separate – and lucky for you, there’s lots of good options out there in the UK.

We’ve compared a range of the most popular business current accounts, and focused on digital account options (that are often cheaper, quicker to set up and all online via a phone app), to put together our list of the best business accounts. And, here’s the criteria we used:

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

The business accounts above are all accounts we recommend to our friends and family if they ask, and we also use some of them ourselves here at Nuts About Money.

So, you can be confident that whichever one you pick, your money is in safe hands, and you’ll have the account and tools for your business to manage your business money, so you can concentrate on growing your business!

Interested in learning more? Here’s our full review methodology and how we test.

Which is the best business account for multiple currencies?

If you’re doing business internationally, and receiving lots of different currencies from across the world, or even just one or two, such as Euros or Dollars, you have a smaller range of account options for a business account – but that doesn’t mean you don’t have any good options!

Lots of the big UK banks don’t like handling multiple currencies, or charge you a lot for the privilege (such as high currency conversion fees), so often, modern digital banks are the best options (see our recommendations above).

These modern options are very low cost when it comes to foreign currencies, and you can manage everything from a single place – there’s no need to create multiple accounts.

To find the best business account for multiple currencies scroll up or click compare business bank accounts and select 'International payments' in settings.

What’s the best free business  account?

With business banking, there’s not really such a thing as a free account, you’ll likely still pay fees somewhere – whether that’s a fee per transaction (transfer money), or a monthly account fee, or something else like converting currency (e.g. from Euros to Pounds) or paying cash in or taking cash out at an ATM. It all depends on how you use your account.

Let’s assume you want no monthly fees, then the best free account overall is Tide¹ – you can use the free plan, and get free transactions (up to a limit each month). And you’ll get a debit card and be able to send and receive multiple currencies. It also integrates with accounting software. Plus, a great app to manage everything.

What’s the best account for a sole trader?

Sole traders (running a business in your own name) have a huge range of business account options – as you can use both personal accounts and business accounts, the choice is yours. However, it can often be best to separate personal and business finances – so opting for a business account can be a good choice.

Running a business by yourself can be quite time consuming, so any time saved on admin is super valuable. Therefore we recommend opting for a business account that has lots of time saving tools, such as invoice creation, budgeting features, and expense tracking.

To find the best business account for sole trades scroll up or click compare business bank accounts and select 'Sole trader’ in settings.

What’s the best account for small businesses?

If you're a small business, you’ll likely want to separate business and personal finances even if you’re not a registered company yet (registering your business with the Government). So, you’ll want a business account.

And just like sole traders, time is super valuable – getting a business account with the tools to manage your business finances efficiently is super important, giving you more time to grow your business and serve customers.

The best small business bank account is Tide¹. It’s low cost, has a great range of money management tools, and will also allow you to collect money directly from customers in-person, and online.

For instance, if you’re a personal trainer, you could collect cash from your clients with card payments, or send them a link (via text or email) to pay, without needing to buy any other software or equipment. It’s pretty cool, and even works for larger businesses such as ecommerce (shopping) sites.

What is a business account?

A business account is almost exactly the same as your individual bank account, called a personal bank account – except it’s solely for your business, whether that’s a side hustle, or you’re a sole trader, freelancer or contractor, or you’re running a large business.

You can use your account just for your business income and business transactions (sending and receiving money), rather than your personal account so everything stays separate.

You can still do all the same things, such as set up direct debits (regular payments), and manage things from your phone and on their website (online banking). In fact, there’s typically much more features in order to run your business effectively (such as creating invoices).

You don’t need to be a limited company in order to open a business account, you can still open one if you’re running your business under your own name and have a separate business account for all the money you make (and spend).

Note: a limited company is where you register the business as a separate legal entity with the government (via Companies House). This means, it’s separate to you, and if your company goes out of business and has debts, you wouldn't have to use your personal money to clear them.

Do I need a business account?

Technically, you don’t need a business account if you’re running a small business through your own name, e.g. a sole trader, or a contractor. Although you might find things get a bit confusing if you’ve got lots of personal transactions coming in too, so often it’s a good idea to open a business account.

If you are running a limited company, you’d technically need a business account as your business is its own legal entity – so your personal bank account shouldn’t mix with business money.

Integrating with accounting software

A bit confused with what integrating with accounting software means? Don’t worry, we’ll explain all.

Lots of businesses use accounting software to track the money in their business, things like sales and costs – to work out how much money they are making each year.

The software will also put together the end of year financial statements, such as the profit and loss account (how much a company has made in profit), and a balance sheet (how much money is in the business) – which is required by the Government each year.

There’s lots of other features too, such as paying employees, and sending statements to the Government about tax (HMRC).

It can save a lot of time (and money), and you’ll know everything is accurate and correct.

With bank and business accounts, you can link your account directly with the accounting software, and it will then know every transaction that happens and tell it if it's a sale, a cost or anything else. The accounting software will then use it to understand your business and create the right financial statements for you, all automatically.

How to open a business account

This is the easy bit, with our recommended options above, opening an account is all handled online, either via their website, or app, and you can get set up in just a few minutes.

You’ll need to provide your ID (e.g. passport or driving licence) if you are opening one under your own name (for instance if you’re a sole trader), and provide the name of your limited company if you are registering for a limited company account – they’ll check the records in Companies House, automatically, and then you’re all set.

Sometimes, they might want to do more checks, but normally it’s all pretty straightforward.

With typical high street banks, it can take a bit longer, sometimes a few days or even weeks, and you might have to go into a local branch to open an account.

Are business accounts safe?

Yep. It’s perfectly safe to use a business account for your money.

Technically with business accounts, some are banks, and some aren’t banks (but offer business accounts – these are technically called e-money providers).

With a bank account, your money is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). This is where you would be compensated by up to £85,000 if the bank were to go out of business.

This scheme is part of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), who make sure financial institutions are looking after their customers.

With e-money providers, as they’re not a bank, they aren’t able to provide FSCS protection. Instead, they have set up safeguards to protect your money. This means that all of their customers' money is separate from their own business money, and often looked after within a large international bank like HSBC.

Your money is in your name, and would be returned to you if the business who you have an account with were to go out of business. So, your money is still safe and protected, in fact, you could say even more so than a bank account with FSCS protection, as there’s no upper limit to what you’re entitled to get back, you’d get everything back.