Which Is Better for international payments?
For UK businesses making regular international payments, we weigh the winner on whether you want per-transfer transparency or an allowance-based plan with FSCS cover behind it.
Wise wins on simplicity. The fee is shown before you confirm. The rate is the mid-market mid-point, the midpoint between buy and sell rates, no markup. You pay a published percentage plus a small fixed component.
For a one-off £5,000 supplier payment to a US factory, you see the cost in pounds and pence before pressing send. No allowance to track, no tier to upgrade, no surprise on the statement.
Revolut wins on breadth and protection. Inside the plan allowance, FX is at the interbank rate; above it, the rate carries a 0.6% mark-up. Basic (£10/month) allows £1,000 of conversion a month; Grow lifts that to £15,000 and Scale to £60,000.
Critically, that £120,000 of FSCS cover rides with the bank entity, not with the date you applied. Some businesses that applied during the phased rollout were opened with Revolut Ltd instead, and Revolut says that rollout is complete and moves any such account across automatically.
For most readers landing here, the answer is Wise if you want cheap, transparent transfers and already have a UK account. The answer is Revolut if you want one account that doubles as UK current and multi-currency wallet, FSCS-banked.
Wise vs Revolut Fees and Charges
Wise has no monthly fee. You pay per transfer: a fixed component (from £0.30) plus a variable percentage (from 0.33%).
The variable piece depends on the currency route, GBP to EUR or USD lives at the lower end; less liquid corridors carry higher percentages. The total is displayed before you confirm.
Revolut Basic is £10 a month, flat, with no annual discount on offer. Pay monthly for the tiers above it and Grow costs £35, Scale £125. Those are the sums that actually leave your account.
Revolut fronts those plans as £30 and £90. That is the annual-billing rate, £360 and £1,080 handed over twelve months upfront. We had quoted the discounted figures here as monthly prices, understating Scale by £420 a year. We have fixed that.
What the money buys is allowance. FX runs at interbank inside £1,000 a month on Basic, £15,000 on Grow, and £60,000 on Scale, and the paid tiers add team cards on top.
Stay inside the Basic plan limits and the only cost you see is FX once your monthly allowance runs out. Inside the allowance, Revolut applies the interbank rate with no markup.
Above the allowance, FX carries a 0.6% mark-up. Out-of-allowance international transfers also carry a fee. Both providers charge nothing for incoming international payments in the relevant currency. We verified each fee against the live pricing pages in May 2026.
If you send three international payments a month on common routes, Wise’s per-transfer fee is easy to model and usually cheaper than Revolut once you cross the allowance.
If you send fifty a month or routinely exceed the free FX allowance, Revolut’s paid tiers can be flatter. We ran a typical month through both calculators; do the same before deciding.
| Cost | Wise | Revolut Basic | Revolut Grow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | £0 | £10 (flat, no annual discount) | £35 billed monthly, or £30/mo billed annually (£360/yr) |
| Next tier up | None (pay per transfer) | Scale: £125 billed monthly, or £90/mo billed annually (£1,080/yr) | |
| Eligible business types | Sole traders and companies | Limited companies, LLPs, partnerships (sole traders unclear) | |
| FX rate | Mid-market | Interbank inside £1,000/mo; 0.6% above | Interbank inside £15,000/mo; 0.6% above |
| Transfer fee | From 0.33% + £0.30 (shown upfront) | Free in allowance; fee above | Higher allowance |
| UK domestic transfers | From 0.33% + £0.30 | Free in allowance | Higher allowance |
| Card spending (own currency) | Free (Wise card) | Free | Free |
| Currencies supported | 50+ | 25+ | 25+ |
| Local account details | 10+ countries | GBP, EUR, USD | GBP, EUR, USD |
| FSCS protection | No (safeguarded e-money) | Usually, on bank-entity accounts since 11 Mar 2026* | Usually, on bank-entity accounts since 11 Mar 2026* |
We ran three business profiles through both providers to show where the crossover falls. The right answer changes with your volume, entity type, and whether you need team cards.
Sole trader receiving $5,000 a month from US clients.
Wise gives you a US routing number and account number. Your client pays in dollars as if you were domestic. You hold the balance and convert when you choose, at the mid-market rate plus roughly 0.33–0.5% on a GBP-USD route, around £10–15 on $5,000.
Whether Revolut Business is open to UK sole traders is something Revolut’s own pages disagree on, so a sole trader cannot plan around it. Revolut Pro handles the same route inside its FX allowance but lacks the 10+ local account details Wise offers. For a sole trader, Wise is the one you can count on.
Limited company paying five overseas contractors, around £10,000 a month in euros and dollars.
On Revolut Grow at £35 a month billed monthly, the £15,000 FX allowance covers the full volume at the interbank rate, plus team cards and UK banking. We calculated Wise fees on this profile at roughly £50–70 a month at 0.5% average, with no cards or domestic banking included.
Revolut Grow is the cheaper, more complete tool here when your volume stays inside the allowance. In any month where you overshoot, the 0.6% mark-up can push Revolut past Wise’s per-transfer fee.
Agency with ten employees making regular business purchases.
Wise issues one business card to the account holder. Revolut Grow covers the whole team with virtual and physical cards, per-card spend limits, merchant category restrictions, and approval workflows. For card control as much as FX, Revolut wins outright.
Run your own figures through each provider’s calculator. The crossover falls at different volumes for different routes and team sizes, and no comparison page can substitute for your actual numbers.
Wise vs Revolut Features and Tools
Beyond pricing, the two accounts diverge on what they actually are. Wise is an FX tool with a UK account number bolted on. Revolut is a full business account with FX baked in.
We confirmed Revolut connects to Xero, QuickBooks, and FreeAgent, the three packages most UK SMEs actually use. Wise also connects to Xero and QuickBooks. Neither connects to Sage.
If your accountant runs Sage, you’ll need a different primary account; Tide is the standard choice. Too many finance teams discover the gap only after they’ve opened.
For team cards, we rate Revolut the clear winner. You can issue virtual and physical cards to staff, set per-card spend limits, restrict merchant categories, and pull receipts into the app.
Wise offers a business card for the account holder only; it doesn’t replicate Revolut’s team-spend layer.
Both support GBP account numbers and sort codes. Both have polished apps. Revolut adds direct debit origination, batch payments, an API on Grow and Scale (not Basic), team management, and invoicing on every plan including Basic.
The invoicing carries a catch worth knowing before you switch. To let a client settle a Revolut invoice by card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay, you have to switch on a separate Merchant account. Skip it and the invoice is payable by bank transfer only.
Wise keeps its surface area narrow: send money, hold balances, receive in local currencies. If you want one tool to run the business through, Revolut covers more ground.
Wise vs Revolut International Payments
For most readers, this section decides the page. Both accounts handle international payments well; they just do it differently, and the difference is large enough to land you on one side.
Wise gives you local account details in 10+ countries, GBP, EUR, USD, AUD, NZD, SGD, CAD and more. Your Singapore client pays into a local SGD account as if you were domestic.
The payment lands in Singapore dollars; you hold it until you choose to convert at the mid-market rate. Across 50+ supported currencies, the fee is shown before you confirm.
Revolut covers 25+ currency wallets with local account details in GBP, EUR, and USD. Inside your monthly free FX allowance, conversions run at the interbank rate, cheaper than Wise per unit.
Above the allowance, the 0.6% mark-up narrows or eliminates that gap. If your volume spikes unpredictably, model both before committing.
On batch payments, Wise lets you upload a CSV of supplier payments and see the total fee before confirming. Revolut supports batch payments on paid tiers.
For a finance team paying twenty contractors in five currencies on the last day of the month, both providers work. The choice usually comes down to where your account already lives.
We weighed the protection side: the regulator behind the account matters more than the app. Revolut launched as a fully authorised UK bank on 11 March 2026, when the PRA lifted the mobilisation restrictions on a licence it had held since July 2024.
Do not assume your own account sits behind that licence. Revolut onboards new applicants straight to the bank entity, and says the batched migration is complete, with any account opened on the older e-money side moved across automatically.
Wise stays an FCA e-money institution and a UK-authorised payment institution. Funds are safeguarded in segregated accounts at partner banks, not FSCS-protected.
If an e-money firm fails, you join a creditor pool and chase the safeguarded balance yourself. FSCS works the other way: for most depositors it pays out automatically inside seven working days, no form to fill in. Above a few thousand pounds of working capital, that gap decides it.
For pure transfer activity where money flows through the account rather than sitting in it, the protection gap matters less than the rate. Weigh both before deciding which side of the trade-off your business fits.
Wise vs Revolut Customer Reviews and Reputation
When we checked Trustpilot in May 2026, Wise sat at around 4.3 stars across 250,000+ reviews. Revolut Business sat at around 4.2 stars across 200,000+ reviews. Both numbers are strong by fintech standards.
Wise customers praise the rate transparency, the speed of common-route transfers (frequently same-day), and the receive-in-local-currency feature.
Complaints cluster around verification delays on first-use larger transfers, and slow support response on edge-case currency routes.
Revolut Business customers praise the app, the breadth of features for the price, and the team-card layer.
Complaints cluster around account freezes during compliance reviews, a known fintech onboarding issue where a flagged transaction can lock the account for 24-72 hours. For a small business with weekly payroll, that risk is real.
For support, Wise offers email and in-app chat with business-hours priority routing. Revolut runs 24/7 in-app chat that responds in minutes for most queries.
If something goes wrong at 9pm on a Sunday, Revolut will pick up first. If you need someone who genuinely understands a complex multi-currency edge case, Wise’s specialist team escalates faster.
Wise vs Revolut for Per-Transfer Transparency vs FSCS-Banked Allowances
We see the factor that decides this matchup as whether you value per-transfer transparency at Wise’s published rates or the FSCS-banked allowance model at Revolut.
Wise’s pricing is unambiguous. Every transfer shows the exact fee and the exact mid-market rate before you confirm. No allowance to track, no tier to upgrade, no surprise mark-up at a threshold.
For a finance team modelling cost on a forecast, that predictability is operationally cheaper than the actual fee difference. Some teams switch to Wise purely for the modelling clarity.
Revolut’s pricing is allowance-based. Inside your monthly free FX limit, you get the interbank rate, cheaper than Wise per unit. Above the allowance, it’s 0.6%.
If your monthly volume sits comfortably under the allowance, Revolut is cheaper. If it spikes unpredictably above, Wise becomes cheaper and easier to model.
FSCS protection is the other half of the differentiator. A Revolut account opened on the bank entity carries £120,000 of statutory deposit protection per depositor. Which entity holds your account was Revolut’s call during the phased rollout, not yours, so check the name on your own statement rather than assuming.
Wise carries safeguarding at partner banks. Meaningful, but not a statutory payout, which for most depositors lands inside seven working days. With safeguarding an administrator sets the timetable, and you kick your heels while payday comes round regardless.
When you pay a contractor in dollars on the first of the month, see the fee before you confirm at Wise, or send it within Revolut’s allowance and check your tier ceiling before payday.
Most businesses land on one side or the other within a quarter of trying both.
Downsides of Wise and Revolut
Wise’s biggest weakness is that it isn’t a full business bank account. No overdraft, no FSCS, no built-in invoicing, no direct debit origination, no team-spend layer beyond a card for the account holder.
If you need any of those, you’ll still need a separate domestic account alongside. Wise also can’t replace a UK current account for a business that wants relationship-banking features.
No branch network, no relationship manager, limited cash handling. If your business takes cash deposits or values branch access, Wise alone won’t do the job.
Revolut’s biggest weakness is the account-freeze risk. The compliance engine flags transactions and the account can lock for 24-72 hours while support reviews.
For a freelancer waiting on an invoice, that’s survivable. For a business with weekly payroll, it’s a real operational risk worth planning around.
Revolut also has no overdraft on the Business product. If your cash flow dips below zero at month-end, you’ll need a credit line or a high-street account alongside.
And Revolut Business will not have you at all if you are a UK sole trader. It takes limited companies, LLPs, and partnerships, and points everyone else at Revolut Pro in the personal app. Wise sets no such condition, which quietly settles this page for a lot of freelancers.
The FSCS protection is real, but do not take it as yours the moment you sign up. Revolut says the phasing onto the banking entity is complete, and that any account opened on Revolut Ltd during it transitions across automatically.
Neither provider is a perfect substitute for a high-street business bank. No physical branches, no traditional relationship managers, no cheque deposits, limited cash handling.
If your business needs any of those, pair either account with a Lloyds, Barclays, or NatWest current account.
Alternatives to Wise and Revolut
Both Wise and Revolut are worth considering, but they’re not the only options. Four alternatives are worth weighing first depending on your priorities, see the list below.
- Airwallex Business, built for high-volume international payouts. Free above £10,000 monthly deposits; £19/month below. Pick this if you push fifty supplier payments through a CSV at month-end.
- Starling Business, UK-only, FSCS-protected, free monthly account with a strong app and high-street feel. Pick this if you don’t need multi-currency wallets and want a conservative banking relationship.
- Tide, free UK business account with invoicing, expense cards, and accounting integrations built in. Pick this for a UK-focused SME that values invoicing tools over international features.
- ANNA Money, sole trader and small business account with AI receipt scanning and automatic tax tools. Pick this if tax automation matters more than FX.
Final Verdict: Wise or Revolut?
We land on Wise for the cheapest, most transparent transfers when you already bank elsewhere, and on Revolut when you want one account doubling as your UK current account and multi-currency wallet, with FSCS cover once you are on the bank entity.
Choose Wise if your priority is transparent per-transfer FX and you already have a domestic UK account for everything else. It wins on currency breadth too: 50+ currencies and 10+ local account details cover corridors that Revolut doesn’t reach.
Choose Revolut if you want one account for UK banking, team expense cards, and multi-currency payments. Note the entity rule: limited companies, LLPs and partnerships are accepted, while Revolut’s own material contradicts itself on sole traders, so check at sign-up.
For businesses with more than a couple of people making regular purchases, the virtual and physical card controls that Wise can’t match make Revolut the clearer fit.
Using both makes sense once you know what each is for. The common split: Revolut as the primary account for UK banking, team cards, and main FX routes; Wise for corridors where the mid-market rate saves a material amount.
Revolut Basic is £10 a month; Wise adds only per-transaction cost, so the incremental spend is low.
Neither works as a standalone if your business handles cash, needs an overdraft, or depends on a lending relationship. Keep a high-street account as your primary and layer either provider on top for international payments or team spending.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Wise or Revolut cheaper for international transfers?
It depends on the currency route, transfer size, and how frequently you send. Wise charges a transparent fee from 0.33% plus a small fixed component and applies the mid-market rate. Revolut charges the interbank rate inside the monthly FX allowance and 0.6% above it. For occasional transfers on common routes (GBP-EUR, GBP-USD), Wise’s per-transfer fee is usually the lower total cost. For volume that sits comfortably inside Revolut’s allowance, Revolut is cheaper per unit. The most accurate comparison is to run a specific transfer amount and currency through each provider’s calculator. Do this for your typical transfer profile before deciding.
Can you use Wise and Revolut at the same time?
Yes. There is no restriction on holding accounts with multiple providers. A common dual-setup is Revolut as the primary account for day-to-day GBP banking, team cards, and the more common FX routes, with Wise as a specialist tool for less common currency transfers or high-value payments where mid-market rate transparency matters. Wise has no monthly fee and Revolut Basic is £10 a month. Running both in parallel is low-risk to try while you work out which provider is cheaper for your typical transfer profile.
Are Wise and Revolut FSCS protected?
Revolut Bank UK Ltd launched on 11 March 2026, when the PRA lifted the mobilisation restrictions on the licence it had held since July 2024. Deposits held with that bank entity are FSCS-protected up to £120,000 per eligible depositor. New applicants are onboarded directly to it, and Revolut says the phased rollout is complete, transitioning across any account opened on the older Revolut Ltd e-money side during it. Existing Revolut customers are being migrated onto the banking entity in phases; until migration, those accounts remain on the e-money safeguarded model.
Wise remains an FCA-authorised e-money institution and payment institution. Funds sit safeguarded at regulated banking partners: real protection, but not an FSCS payout, which for most depositors is automatic within seven working days, and up to three months in complex cases.
If FSCS deposit protection is a hard requirement, check which Revolut entity your account actually sits on rather than taking the headline at face value. Wise is best positioned as a specialist FX platform alongside an FSCS-covered primary bank such as Starling or Monzo.
Does Wise work as a full UK business bank account?
Not entirely. Wise provides a UK sort code and account number, so you can receive GBP payments and make GBP transfers. But Wise is designed around international transfers rather than domestic business banking. It doesn’t include built-in invoicing, overdraft facilities, direct debit origination, or the team management tools that a dedicated business bank account typically provides. Many businesses use Wise for international payments alongside a separate domestic account, such as Tide, Starling, or Monzo, for UK-facing operations. Revolut covers both functions in a single account if that consolidation matters to you, and it does include invoicing on every plan, though taking card or Apple Pay payment on an invoice means switching on a separate Merchant account first. Revolut Business accepts limited companies, LLPs and partnerships; on sole traders its own sources disagree, so it is not something a sole trader can rely on as that all-in-one.
Which is better for a sole trader who sends occasional international payments?
Wise, on certainty. It accepts sole traders and says so. Revolut cannot give you a straight answer: its Help Centre lists “Freelancer or soletrader” under unsupported business types, while its Revolut Bank UK Business Terms, effective 28 April 2026, list “new sole traders” among those who can open a Business Account. We read both directly and found no definitive answer in Revolut’s current published material, and the dates do not settle it. Limited companies, LLPs and partnerships are eligible either way. Check what the sign-up flow shows you. Revolut Pro, a fee-free account inside the personal Revolut app, is where Revolut points unincorporated individuals, with a narrower feature set than Revolut Business.
Wise sets no such condition. You pay per transfer with the fee shown upfront, there is no plan to manage, and the mid-market rate means no hidden margin on the exchange. If you incorporate later and want domestic UK banking, invoicing, and team cards in one place, Revolut Business becomes a real option at £10/month on Basic.
What happened with Revolut’s UK bank licence?
Revolut Bank UK Ltd held a restricted UK banking licence from July 2024, the mobilisation phase, during which it could take only limited deposits. The PRA lifted those restrictions on 11 March 2026, and Revolut launched as a fully authorised UK bank. Deposits with that bank entity are FSCS-protected up to £120,000 per depositor. New business applicants are onboarded straight onto it, and Revolut says the phased rollout is complete, moving across any account opened on the older Revolut Ltd e-money side during it. Existing customers are being migrated across in batches, check Revolut’s in-app messaging for your migration status. Until your account moves, it sits on the e-money safeguarded model rather than under FSCS cover, so the £120,000 headline is not yours to lean on yet.
How we reviewed Wise vs Revolut
Ranking criteria. We compared Wise and Revolut on pricing, fees, feature set, eligibility, and contract terms. We also verified regulatory status and deposit protection where applicable.
Data sources. Every provider’s pricing page, terms, and product docs were checked directly in July 2026. No comparison sites, no press releases, no affiliate material. FCA register cross-checked for regulatory status.
Correction, 14 July 2026. We had been quoting Revolut’s annual-billing rates for Grow and Scale as if they were the monthly prices. A reader budgeting Scale at £90 a month while paying monthly would have been £420 a year out of pocket.
Every price on this page now carries the monthly-billed figure and the annual-billed equivalent. A later re-check, on 24 July 2026, also corrected our eligibility claim. We had reported flatly that Revolut Business does not accept UK sole traders; Revolut’s own sources contradict each other on that, so the page now states the conflict rather than picking a side.
Update cadence. We re-verify every provider on this page regularly, and whenever a provider changes pricing, eligibility, or terms. The verification date on the page reflects the most recent full review. Some links on this page are affiliate links, see our editorial policy.
Related Pages
Need to compare more international or multi-currency accounts? We have more comparisons and roundups below.
- Best international business accounts, accounts built for cross-border trading
- Revolut vs Airwallex, Revolut vs a high-volume payout specialist
- Tide vs Revolut, domestic SME banking vs international payments
- Revolut vs Monzo, two app-first business accounts compared
- Best business bank accounts, full comparison of 15 UK providers