If you employ people who pay for travel, software or stock, an expense card ends the reimburse-and-claim cycle and shows you the spending as it happens rather than three weeks later. The awkward part is not choosing a provider. It is deciding who gets a card and what they are allowed to buy with it before any card is issued, because every control these platforms offer is easier to set on day one than to retrofit once forty cards are live.
We checked the tax treatment below against HMRC’s own guidance and the provider features against each platform’s own pricing page on 25 August 2026. One of those checks reversed what this page previously said about Wallester.
How Employee Expense Cards Work
An employee expense card is controlled access to your own money, not a loan to your staff. It draws on your business account or on a ring-fenced budget you set, so your employee never spends personal funds and never files a manual claim. You set the budget, the permitted categories and any merchant restrictions, and every transaction is visible to your finance team the moment it happens.
Use a virtual card for anything you pay online. Most platforms issue physical cards for in-person spending and let you create virtual ones instantly, which matters more than it sounds: when you pay a supplier or a recurring subscription you can lock a virtual card to that one supplier and cancel it the moment the job is done. That is the difference between a one-off contractor payment that ends when the work ends and a subscription that quietly renews for three years because nobody remembered which card it was on.
Setting Spending Limits and Category Controls
Write the policy before you issue a card. Decide who gets one, what budget applies and which categories are allowed, then let the platform enforce that policy at the point of purchase rather than after the fact. Four kinds of control do the work.
- Per-card spending limits. Set a maximum transaction amount or a monthly budget per card. Hit the limit and the card declines automatically, with no action needed from your finance team.
- Merchant category controls. Block or restrict whole categories of merchant, such as entertainment, hotels or cash withdrawal, so the policy is enforced when the card is tapped rather than in a month-end review.
- Time-based limits. Some platforms allow daily, weekly or monthly caps separate from the overall balance, which suits field teams whose spending is regular and predictable.
- Project or cost-centre allocation. Tag cards or individual transactions to a project, department or client, so the cost lands in the right place in your accounts without anyone re-coding it later.
You can usually adjust limits in real time from the admin dashboard, so if someone needs more headroom for a specific trip you can grant a temporary increase and revert it when they are back. That flexibility is worth having, but it is not the point of the controls. The point is that a control which stops the transaction is worth more than a report that describes it, because by the time the report reaches you on Monday morning the money has already gone and your only remaining options are awkward conversations.
HMRC and Tax: What You Have to Get Right
The card itself is not a taxable benefit, and it is not a tax-free perk either. What matters to HMRC is what your employee buys with it, not the mechanism they used to pay. Spending on legitimate business costs, meaning travel, accommodation, subsistence and equipment, is not a taxable benefit to the employee, provided you have a proper expense policy and adequate records to show the spending was wholly and exclusively for business.
Client entertaining is the exception worth separating out from the start. You can rarely reclaim the VAT on it or deduct it for Corporation Tax, so keeping it in its own category from day one saves your accountant unpicking it later.
- VAT receipts. To reclaim VAT as input tax you must hold a valid VAT invoice, and a card statement alone will not do. Receipt capture in expense platforms fixes this by prompting your employee to photograph the receipt at the till, while they are still standing there.
- P11D reporting. If an employee uses the card for personal spending that is not repaid to the business, you may have to report it as a benefit in kind on a P11D. Category controls and receipt matching cut the risk of personal spending slipping through unnoticed.
- Benchmark and mileage rates. Reimbursing at HMRC approved rates needs no reporting. The Approved Mileage Allowance Payment rate for the 2026/27 tax year is 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p a mile above that. Subsistence paid above the benchmark rates needs either a PAYE Settlement Agreement or reporting on a P11D.
- Record-keeping. Keep your VAT and Corporation Tax records, including receipts and transaction data, for at least six years. A platform that stores transactions, receipt images and approval records in one searchable archive meets that far more reliably than a drawer of fading paper.
Receipt capture at the till is the control we rate most highly of the four above, because it is the one standing between you and a VAT reclaim you cannot support. The card makes the records tidy. It does not make the judgement for you, so where a specific category is genuinely borderline, that is a question for your accountant rather than for the platform.
What to Look for in a Provider
Compare the things that start to matter once a team is actually using the cards, rather than the feature list on the homepage. Five of them decide whether a platform works in practice.
- Cards included in the base price. Some providers charge per card and others include a fixed number, and the gap between them is wide. Soldo caps both its published paid plans at three cards, while Wallester includes 300 virtual cards and unlimited physical cards on a free plan. If you are issuing cards across a large team, that difference will dwarf the subscription.
- App quality. Your employees live in the app for receipt capture and spend visibility. A clunky app means poor adoption and incomplete records, which is exactly the gap that breaks your VAT reclaim.
- Accounting integrations, and which plan they are on. Direct links to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage are standard now. Check two things: that the integration pushes VAT codes and nominal mapping rather than transaction totals, and which tier it sits on. Wallester has the first and puts it on a EUR 199 plan.
- Approval workflows. Larger teams need sign-off from more than one person before a transaction posts. Payhawk and Moss support configurable approval chains. Soldo is built around stopping the spend before it happens rather than approving it afterwards, which is a different model rather than a weaker one.
- Support. When a card declines at a hotel check-in or a transaction will not sync, your employee needs a fix that day. Check whether you get phone support or only email and chat, and what response times the provider publishes.
On the UK landscape in August 2026 the shortlist is Moss, Payhawk, Soldo and Wallester. We rate Moss the best fit for an SME filing in Xero, because its integration carries VAT codes rather than lump sums. Payhawk is the one to pick when your policy needs several approvers, and it has the lowest currency mark-up of the four at 0.3%. Soldo publishes its prices, Standard at GBP 21 a month and Plus at GBP 33 plus VAT, and both stop at three cards. Moss we could not price at all beyond its free tier, because it publishes no paid figure and quotes on transaction volume.
Wallester is the one whose reputation is furthest out of date. Its free plan carries 300 virtual cards and unlimited free physical cards, which nothing else here comes near, and it added named Xero, QuickBooks and NetSuite support in December 2025. The catch is that those integrations sit on the Premium plan at EUR 199 a month, so the free tier that draws people in is the one tier that cannot export coded transactions into your accounts. If you need the Xero sync from day one, price Wallester at EUR 199 and compare it against Moss on those terms.
Eligibility is worth settling before you shortlist rather than after. Wallester accepts UK-registered businesses and sole traders. Soldo requires an incorporated entity, so a limited company, a limited liability partnership or a registered charity, and turns sole traders away. Payhawk and Moss are both aimed at incorporated businesses too.
Common Problems and How to Avoid Them
The problems below are the ones that show up two or three months in, once the novelty has worn off and the cards are just part of the furniture. None of them is exotic, and every one is cheaper to design out now than to fix at your year end.
- Employees not capturing receipts. The most common problem, and the one that breaks your VAT reclaim. Set the platform to flag missing receipts automatically and require your employee to resolve the gap before month-end. Some platforms let you freeze a card until the receipts are uploaded, which works considerably faster than a reminder email.
- Cards used for personal purchases. Category controls and merchant blocks cut this sharply. Make the policy explicit about what counts as a business purchase, and have your employee sign an acknowledgement when you hand over the card.
- Cards not cancelled when someone leaves. Put card cancellation on your offboarding checklist. Platforms that integrate with staff-management systems can automate it, so a leaver’s card stops working on their last day rather than the following month when you notice a subscription still billing.
- Budget overruns from shared cards. Do not share one card across a team. You lose the ability to attribute spending to a person, and you inherit a reconciliation problem every month. Issue individual cards instead, which is precisely why the per-card allowance in the section above matters.
- Wrong cost-centre allocation. Train your employees to tag a transaction at the point of purchase rather than leaving it to finance. Most platforms let them add notes, tags and the receipt photo in the same step, and a tag applied at the till is worth three applied from memory a fortnight later.
Top Expense Cards for Employees
The platforms below differ most on three things: whether the card is prepaid or credit-based, how many people the price covers, and how deep the accounting integration goes. We read every price in this table on each provider own pricing page on 25 August 2026, and two of them had moved since this page last quoted them.
| Provider | Best for | Published price | Card network | Key integrations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soldo | Pre-spend control; incorporated businesses only | Standard £21/mo, Plus £33/mo (+VAT), each covering 3 users and 3 cards | Mastercard | Xero, QuickBooks, Sage |
| Pleo | Small teams that need the app to be used | Starter £9.50/mo on annual billing; Essential £45/mo monthly or £39 annual; Advanced £109/£99. All cover 3 users | Mastercard | Accounting integrations included, not named on the pricing page |
| Payhawk | Mid-market and multi-entity teams | Growth Program £149/mo under 20 employees; otherwise quoted | Visa | Xero, QuickBooks, Exact Online; NetSuite and Dynamics as add-ons |
| Wallester | High card volumes on a small budget | Free (300 virtual cards, unlimited physical); Premium €199/mo | Visa | Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, on Premium and above only |
| Prices read on 25 August 2026 from soldo.com, pleo.io, payhawk.com and wallester.com. Soldo prices exclude VAT. Wallester prices are set in euros. | ||||
Two corrections are worth calling out, because we changed our own advice on both. Pleo Starter is no longer free: it is GBP 9.50 a month on annual billing, so the old reason to send a three-person team there has gone. And Wallester now has named Xero and QuickBooks support, added in December 2025, which the earlier version of this page said it lacked.
Check who is liable for the debt before you issue a single card, because the arrangements genuinely differ. Corporate liability means the company owes the money. Individual liability means your employee is personally responsible for it. Joint liability means both of you are. For a director of a smaller business that is not a technicality, and it is written into the terms rather than advertised on the pricing page.
Final Verdict
Soldo is the practical first choice for most UK incorporated businesses issuing expense cards for the first time, and we rate it the safest default of the four. The prepaid model, the per-card controls and the native accounting links cover the core job without an implementation project. Two things to check first: the plans stop at three users, and sole traders are not eligible at all.
Pleo is the one to look at when adoption is the risk, because its app is the reason people actually capture receipts. It is no longer the free option it used to be, so weigh Starter at GBP 9.50 a month against Soldo at GBP 21 on what each includes rather than on the headline.
Payhawk fits from about 20 employees upward, where you need approval chains, several entities and a wider accounting stack. Below that you are paying for machinery you will not switch on.
Wallester is the pick when you need card volume above all else, and its position has moved. The old objection, that it could not reach your accounting software, stopped being true in December 2025. The live objection is narrower: the Xero sync exists but starts at EUR 199 a month, so the free plan that makes it attractive is the one plan that cannot feed your accounts.
Whichever you pick, set the spend categories, the per-card limits and the receipt policy before you issue anything. Every one of these platforms works better when the policy behind it is already clear, and none of them will write that policy for you.
Expense Cards for Employees FAQs
Do employees need a credit check to receive a business expense card?
No. Business expense cards from platforms such as Soldo, Moss or Payhawk are prepaid or linked to the company account, not to your employee’s personal credit. The card is issued under the business’s account with no credit check on the individual, which makes them straightforward to issue to new starters, contractors or part-time staff.
What happens if an employee spends beyond their limit?
In most cases the transaction is simply declined at the point of sale. An employee cannot overspend a prepaid balance, and per-transaction or per-period limits enforce the same outcome. Some platforms alert the manager in real time as a card nears its limit, so you can decide what to do before your employee is standing at a supplier with a card that will not work.
Can expense cards be used for recurring supplier payments?
Yes, and virtual cards suit this particularly well. Create a virtual card with a set budget and assign it to a single supplier for a subscription. If you need to cancel, delete the card and the supplier cannot charge again. That is far more controlled than sharing a physical card or handing out your main account details.
Can a sole trader get an expense card?
Wallester will, Soldo will not, and that is worth settling before you shortlist. Wallester accepts UK-registered businesses and sole traders. Soldo requires an incorporated entity, meaning a limited company, a limited liability partnership or a registered charity, and excludes sole traders. Payhawk and Moss are both aimed at incorporated businesses. A sole trader who wants card issuance alongside banking may find a business current account such as Tide a more practical starting point.
Is the money on an expense card protected if the provider fails?
Not by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Most dedicated expense card platforms, including Soldo, Moss and Wallester, are e-money institutions rather than banks, so your balance is safeguarded in segregated accounts under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 instead of being covered by the scheme that protects bank deposits. Safeguarding is real protection, but it works differently and it is slower to pay out. The practical answer is to keep the float on the card to roughly what your team spends in a month, and leave the rest in your bank account.
Methodology and Disclosure
How we reviewed this
What we checked. We checked the tax and VAT points against HMRC’s own guidance on expenses and benefits, VAT input tax, record-keeping and the Approved Mileage Allowance Payments, and the provider prices and features against each platform’s own pricing page, on 25 August 2026.
What we corrected. An earlier version of this page described Wallester as having limited native accounting integrations. That stopped being true in December 2025, when Wallester added named Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite and Sage Intacct support, and we have corrected it here along with the plan those integrations sit on. The same version told you to confirm Wallester’s sole-trader eligibility with the provider yourself; the answer is on the page now instead.
Not advice: This is editorial guidance, not regulated tax advice. For an edge case in your own circumstances, speak to a qualified accountant.
Affiliate disclosure: BusinessExpert may receive referral fees from some providers mentioned on this page. This doesn’t affect our editorial assessments.