Our Free Bank Account Picks
Best Overall
Our Tide business account review found it the most complete free business account for the widest range of UK businesses. It opens in under 10 minutes on a soft credit check, has no monthly fee, and bundles invoicing plus direct feeds to Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, and Sage.
The trade-off is 20p per outgoing UK payment, fine below 50 payments a month. If your volume runs higher or you want zero transaction fees, Starling is the stronger pick.
Twenty pence per transfer is cheap until it isn’t.
Get £100 cashback with TideBest for High Payment Volume
Starling has no per-transaction fees at any volume, FSCS protection up to £120,000, and an overdraft facility subject to status. If you send more than 50 UK payments a month and want zero transaction cost, Starling is the cleanest pick. No hidden fees, no feature gating.
Visit StarlingBest for Limited Companies
Mettle suits single-director limited companies that run bookkeeping through FreeAgent: onboarding is fast, there are no transaction fees, and Mettle bundles a free FreeAgent subscription worth £14.50 a month. Multi-director LTDs should default to Starling instead.
Visit MettleBest for Interest on Balances
Zempler pays interest on your current account balance while charging no transaction fees and no monthly fee. Useful if you routinely hold £5,000 or more between projects and don’t want the overhead of moving funds to a separate savings account.
Visit ZemplerBest for New Businesses
Monzo Business Lite suits businesses in their first year: no credit check, quick app-based onboarding, and no monthly fee at any volume.
Starling or Mettle become stronger picks once you’re trading steadily. For the founder opening their first account the night before their first invoice, Monzo is the easiest to get through.
Visit MonzoBusiness Bank Account Providers Compared
Each provider verdict below covers the cost reality at realistic volumes, the best-fit scenario, and the dealbreaker if there is one. We opened accounts where possible and checked fee schedules directly against each provider’s pricing page in April 2026.
Tide Free Business Account
Zempler Bank Business Go Account
Allica Bank Business Rewards Account
Starling Bank Business Current Account
Monzo Business Lite Account
Mettle Business Bank Account
What These Free Business Bank Accounts Really Cost
Every account below costs £0 a month. The cost shows up somewhere else: per-transaction charges, cash deposit fees, FX markups, or a volume ceiling that quietly pushes you onto a paid tier.
Free on the label rarely means free at every volume.
| Provider | UK transfer | Cash deposit | FX markup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starling | Free | 0.7% (min £3, Post Office) | Mid-market to £5,000, then 0.4% |
| Tide Free | 20p | 3% (PayPoint) | +0.5% |
| Monzo | Free | £1,000 free, then 1% | n/a |
| Zempler | Free | Not accepted | Not offered |
| Mettle | Free | Not accepted | Not offered |
| Allica | Free | Not accepted | Not offered |
We modelled Tide Free’s 20p: £10 at 50 payments a month, £20 at 100. Above about 63 payments Tide Plus (£9.99) is cheaper; below 30, Tide Free wins and bundles invoicing.
Cash is a hard no on Zempler, Mettle and Allica. If any revenue arrives in cash, your free options narrow to Starling, Tide or Monzo.
We checked each provider’s April 2026 fees: no free account offers specialist FX. For material cross-border volume, Wise or Airwallex beats any free UK account on rate.
Above roughly 100 payments a month, or cash deposits over £2,000, a paid tier (Tide Plus £9.99, Mettle’s higher tier, HSBC Kinetic £6.50) can cost less than free-plus-charges. Run your actual volume first.
Eligibility and Account Requirements
Not every free account accepts every business type. We checked each provider’s onboarding criteria against each major UK business structure in April 2026.
Sole Traders
We verified sole trader eligibility with each provider in April 2026. Five of the six accept sole traders: Tide, Starling, Zempler, Monzo, and Mettle. Allica doesn’t; it targets established limited companies only.
Tide and Starling are the fastest onboarding paths for sole traders, opening in under 10 minutes with no trading history required.
Limited Companies
All six accept limited companies, but the fine print diverges. Mettle is the main outlier: single-director LTDs only, no provision for multi-director or multi-shareholder structures.
Starling accepts any LTD configuration including LLPs. Allica is built for established LTDs; the application assumes trading history.
Partnerships
Only Tide and Zempler accept partnerships and LLPs on the free tier. Starling accepts LLPs but not general partnerships. Mettle, Monzo, and Allica don’t support partnership structures on their free offerings at all.
Credit Checks and Application Criteria
Tide, Starling, Monzo, Zempler, and Mettle all use soft credit checks that don’t affect your personal credit score. Allica runs a standard hard credit check that appears on your credit file.
If you’re about to apply for a mortgage or a business loan, check which type of search each provider uses before applying. A hard search shortly before a credit application is worth avoiding.
Business Bank Account Features That Matter Most
On a free tier, the features are what separate a functional business account from one that doubles as your admin system. We weighted the feature comparison by what saves time, not what looks polished on a marketing page.
Accounting Integrations
Tide offers direct bank feeds to Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, and Sage: the widest coverage on a free tier. Starling covers the main platforms except Sage (CSV export only). Mettle integrates only via FreeAgent (which it bundles free). Zempler and Allica offer CSV export but no direct feeds.
We tested each live in April 2026. On a direct feed, your transactions are in Xero when you open it on the first of the month.
On CSV export, you’re downloading a file, tidying columns, and importing manually. An hour every month you’ll resent by quarter three.
If your bookkeeping stack is already fixed, that single factor decides the choice before any other feature does.
A direct bank feed is not a premium feature; it’s the baseline that saves you hours.
Invoicing Tools
Tide ships built-in invoicing on the free tier: create, send, and track invoices directly inside the banking app, with payment links and automatic reconciliation.
ANNA (PAYG tier) offers a similar model with AI-assisted invoicing. Starling, Monzo, Mettle, Zempler, and Allica leave invoicing to your accounting software.
Whether invoicing inside the bank is better than invoicing inside Xero depends on how much crossover you want between your accounting system and your bank.
Interest and Overdrafts
Starling is the only free account on this page to include an overdraft, subject to status. Zempler pays interest on balances. Allica pays competitive interest but excludes sole traders. Tide, Monzo, and Mettle pay no interest and don’t offer an overdraft on their free tiers.
If you routinely hold balances above £5,000 or need short-term borrowing, this narrows the shortlist fast.
App and Day-to-Day Banking
All six offer in-app chat support, push notifications on every transaction, instant card freeze, and two-factor authentication. Tide and Starling have the most polished apps with the widest feature surface: receipt capture, expense categorisation, tagging, and multi-user access on paid tiers.
Zempler, Mettle, and Allica are functional but basic. Fine if your banking app doesn’t need to double as your admin tool.
How to Choose the Right Free Business Bank Account
The right free account depends on four things: how many payments you send, whether you handle cash, what business type you trade under, and how much admin you want the bank to absorb. Use this as a decision framework, not another ranking pass.
Choose by Payment Volume
Under 30 UK payments a month: Tide Free is the cheapest and comes with invoicing. 30–60 a month: Starling or Mettle become cheaper because Tide’s 20p fees accumulate. Above 60 a month: Starling, Mettle, or Tide Plus are the only cost-sensible options.
Work out your actual volume from your last three months of transactions before picking. The intuition is usually wrong.
Choose by Cash Handling Needs
If any material part of your revenue comes in cash, your shortlist is Starling, Tide, or Monzo. Zempler, Mettle, and Allica don’t accept cash at all. Starling’s 0.7% Post Office route is the most widely accessible; Tide’s PayPoint route is cheaper but the network is smaller.
The test is practical: if the nearest branch of your chosen deposit route is a 20-minute drive and you’re banking £300 in cash twice a week, you’ll abandon the account inside a month. Check the network coverage at your actual postcode before you apply.
Choose by Business Type
Sole traders: Tide, Starling, or Mettle. Multi-director LTDs: Starling or Tide (Mettle excludes). Partnerships or LLPs: Tide or Zempler. Established LTD with a balance sheet: Allica for the interest rate.
If your structure changes during the year (sole trader incorporating, for example), Starling re-papers the account in place; most others require a new application.
Choose by Admin and Bookkeeping Needs
If your accountant works in FreeAgent, Mettle bundles it free: a £14.50-a-month saving in practice. If they use Xero or QuickBooks, Tide or Starling are the cleanest feeds. If invoicing matters more than accounting, Tide’s built-in invoicing removes a separate subscription.
The moment you feel it: Sunday night, you’re raising ten invoices for the week, and the difference between a bank that invoices for you and one that doesn’t is whether you finish by 9pm or midnight. That’s the deal.
How to Switch Free Business Bank Accounts
Switching a business bank account is more involved than switching a personal one, but the Current Account Switch Service (CASS) covers the main mechanics: payees, standing orders, direct debits, and incoming payments redirect automatically.
Which Providers Support CASS
We checked CASS participation directly with each provider. Starling, Monzo, and Allica support full CASS transfers in and out. Tide, Mettle, and Zempler do not support CASS: you migrate standing orders and direct debits manually.
For a business with more than ten recurring payments, that is material. Expect a weekend of admin.
Manual migration is the hidden cost of switching without CASS.
When to Switch from an Introductory Offer
High-street introductory periods (HSBC 18 months, Co-op 30 months, TSB 25 months, RBS 24 months) revert to paid fees automatically.
We’d set a calendar reminder two months before your period ends and start the switch then, not on the day fees kick in. Most switches complete within seven working days.
How to Avoid Disruption
Keep the old account open for at least 60 days after the switch. Suppliers sometimes hold old payment details; HMRC direct debits occasionally miss the CASS redirection. A 60-day overlap catches these without service interruption.
Classic failure mode: Friday afternoon, five weeks after the switch, the VAT direct debit lands on the closed account because HMRC still holds the old sort code.
You get a returned-payment notice on Monday. With a 60-day overlap, the payment clears on the old account and you update HMRC at your own pace instead of firefighting.
Reconcile both accounts for the first month after switching. Any payments that bounced or weren’t redirected will show up in the reconciliation and can be chased before they become a problem.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do free business bank accounts affect your credit score?
Opening a free business bank account does not affect your personal credit score if the provider uses a soft credit check. Tide, Starling, Monzo, Zempler, and Mettle all do. Allica runs a standard credit check that will appear on your credit file. If you’re about to apply for a mortgage or business loan, check which type of search the bank uses before applying.
Are free business bank accounts FSCS protected?
Not all of them. Starling, Zempler, Mettle (backed by NatWest), and Allica are FSCS protected up to £120,000 per banking licence. Tide and Monzo Lite hold funds as e-money, which is safeguarded but not covered by FSCS. The practical difference: if the provider fails, FSCS pays out within 7 days; e-money safeguarding can take longer and the process is less certain. If you hold balances above £10,000, FSCS protection matters.
Can you have more than one free business bank account?
Yes. There is no legal limit on the number of business bank accounts you can hold. Many businesses open a Tide or Starling account for day-to-day transactions and a Zempler or Allica account to earn interest on reserves. This also spreads your FSCS protection across multiple banking licences if your combined balances exceed £120,000. The practical consideration is admin: each account needs reconciling, so keep the setup simple unless you have a clear reason for multiple accounts.
Do sole traders legally need a separate business bank account?
No. Unlike limited companies, sole traders have no legal obligation to separate business and personal finances. However, HMRC expects you to keep accurate records of business income and expenses, and mixing personal and business transactions in one account makes that harder. A dedicated business account simplifies your self-assessment tax return and gives your accountant clean data. Most free accounts open in minutes; the time cost of separating your finances is minimal.
Which free business bank account is best for a limited company?
For most limited companies, Starling offers the best combination of zero fees, FSCS protection, and overdraft access. Tide is stronger if you need built-in invoicing and multi-user access with role-based permissions. Mettle works well for single-director LTDs that use FreeAgent. Allica suits established LTDs with larger balances that want a relationship manager and competitive interest rates. Check the eligibility table above: Mettle and Monzo have restrictions that exclude some company structures.
How we reviewed Best Free Business Bank Accounts in the UK
Ranking criteria. We ranked providers on cost, eligibility, features, and ease of access. Cost and protection carry the heaviest weight because these matter across every business type and rarely change with reader preferences.
Data sources. Every provider’s pricing page, terms, and product docs were checked directly in April 2026. No comparison sites, no press releases, no affiliate material. FCA register cross-checked for regulatory status.
Update cadence. We re-verify every provider on this page at least monthly, 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.