Our Verdict
ANNA is our pick for sole traders who manage their own tax and will use its receipt scanning and live HMRC liability estimate. The free plan carries no monthly fee and unlimited outgoing transfers, so its value comes from combining the account and the tax admin rather than from banking alone.
That convenience comes with clear limits: the main account is safeguarded e-money rather than an FSCS-protected bank account, and no plan includes an overdraft. The tax tools justify those compromises only if you file your own Self Assessment; if an accountant handles the books, much of ANNA’s appeal disappears.
Open an ANNA account →Choose ANNA for the tax admin, not simply because the account is free.
ANNA Business Account at a Glance
Best for sole traders who self-manage their tax and take in less than about £2,600 a month. AI receipt scanning and a real-time HMRC tax liability estimate are included on every plan, including the free one.
Not ideal for businesses taking in several thousand pounds a month on the free plan, anyone needing FSCS deposit protection on larger balances, or any business that requires an overdraft on any plan.
Free plan: £0 a month, unlimited outgoing transfers, and the first £1,000 you receive each month free before 0.95% applies. Grow: £12.90 + VAT a month, 15 free transfers in and out, then 27p each. Business: £22.90 + VAT, 60 free, then 20p each. Big Business: £59.90 + VAT, unlimited. We checked these prices on anna.money on 23 September 2026.
All plans include AI receipt scanning and real-time HMRC tax estimates. The main account holds safeguarded e-money through PayrNet Limited (FCA reference 900594) rather than FSCS-protected deposits, so the tax tools do not remove the need to think carefully about how much working capital you leave in it.
What Is ANNA Business Account and How Does It Work?
You hold a GBP e-money account, send and receive payments, and use the app to photograph receipts, categorise expenses, and track a running HMRC tax liability estimate. ANNA combines day-to-day banking with built-in tax admin tools, confirmed from anna.money in April 2026.
The tax estimate updates as you log receipts and income, so you can see the running figure throughout the year rather than waiting until year-end. That is useful if you do your own books; it adds much less if an accountant already calculates the liability for you.
Who the account is designed for. ANNA is designed for owners who handle their own bookkeeping. Receipt scanning, expense categorisation and the live HMRC tax estimate bring routine tax admin into the account instead of leaving a sole trader to sort it out separately at month-end.
It suits a business that does its own books, more than one with an accountant behind it. The tax automation only pays off if you file your own Self Assessment.
How to open an account. You apply through the ANNA app using photo ID and a selfie for identity verification. Most straightforward applications complete within a few hours to one business day.
ANNA also operates a separate company-registration service for new limited companies. Its formation packages combine Companies House filing with a starter ANNA account.
Package prices, inclusions and restrictions sit outside the account plans reviewed here. Read our ANNA company registration review before choosing that route.
Funds are safeguarded in segregated accounts, not covered by the statutory FSCS deposit guarantee. The debit card is issued by PayrNet Limited, an FCA-authorised electronic money institution (reference 900594). Confirmed from the FCA register, April 2026.
Account Plans and Pricing
You pay £0 a month on the free plan, and outgoing transfers cost nothing however many you send. What the free plan charges for instead is money coming in: the first £1,000 each month is free and ANNA takes 0.95% of the rest. The three paid plans drop that commission and give you an allowance of transfers in and out. We checked the plan structure on anna.money on 23 September 2026.
| Plan | Monthly Fee | Free Transfers | Key Inclusions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | £0 | Unlimited outgoing | AI receipt scanning, real-time HMRC tax estimate, in-app expense categorisation |
| Grow | £12.90 + VAT | 15 a month in and out, then 27p | No commission on money received; £5 per SWIFT or CHAPS payment |
| Business | £22.90 + VAT | 60 a month in and out, then 20p | 2 free SWIFT and 2 free CHAPS payments a month; 3 free cash withdrawals |
| Big Business | £59.90 + VAT | Unlimited | Free CHAPS; 4 free SWIFT payments a month; 0.5% currency conversion |
| Prices exclude VAT. Checked on anna.money, 23 September 2026. | |||
Monthly fees. Free: £0. Grow: £12.90 + VAT. Business: £22.90 + VAT. Big Business: £59.90 + VAT. ANNA also waives the fee for any month in which you do not use the account.
Which plan is cheaper now turns on what you receive, not what you send. At 0.95% on everything above £1,000, the free plan’s commission reaches £15.48, the price of Grow with VAT added, once about £2,630 comes in during a month. Above that, Grow works out cheaper as long as your transfers in and out stay within its 15 free ones. If you are VAT-registered and reclaim the VAT, we put the crossover lower, at about £2,360.
Transaction and transfer fees. On the free plan an outgoing UK bank transfer costs nothing. On the paid plans the allowance counts transfers in and out together, and each one beyond it costs 27p on Grow and 20p on Business. We checked the transfer charges on anna.money on 23 September 2026.
On a paid plan that per-transfer charge builds up in a way it never does on a Starling or Monzo account. Forty-five transfers a month on Grow is 30 over the allowance, which adds £8.10 to the £12.90 fee.
Money coming in, ATM and card charges. We traced the 0.95% that gets quoted everywhere as a cash fee, and it is not one. On the free plan, ANNA lets in the first £1,000 of incoming payments each month for nothing and takes 0.95% commission on everything above that. Invoice £8,000 in a month and that is £66.50 gone before you have spent any of it.
Cash is the gap. ANNA takes it through PayPoint shops, and its terms name PayPoint as the collecting agent, but we could not find a cash deposit charge anywhere on its pricing page. If cash is a regular part of your week, get the figure in writing before you move rather than after.
Cash machine withdrawals are free on the free plan and on Big Business. Grow charges 1.5% with a £1 minimum, and Business gives you three free a month before 1% applies. So the middle plans charge for what the free one gives away, which is the wrong way round from what you would expect. Converting currency costs 1%, or 0.5% on Big Business.
| Transaction | Fee (Free Plan) |
|---|---|
| Monthly account fee | £0 |
| Incoming UK payments | First £1,000 a month free, then 0.95% |
| Outgoing UK transfer | Free, unlimited |
| Cash deposit | Not published |
| ATM withdrawal | Free |
| Overseas card spending | Not published |
| Free plan charges checked on anna.money, 23 September 2026. ANNA publishes no cash deposit or overseas card rate, which is unusual on an account sold on fee transparency. | |
Banking Features
Payments, transfers and direct debits. UK bank transfers go through Faster Payments. Outgoing ones are free without limit on the free plan, while the paid plans give you an allowance covering transfers in and out (15 on Grow, 60 on Business, unlimited on Big Business) and then charge 27p or 20p each.
No overdraft is available on any plan. Direct debits are supported, and ANNA prices them alongside Faster Payments and BACS in one line on its limits page.
Cards and expense cards. The account comes with a Mastercard debit card issued by PayrNet Limited. Domestic card purchases carry no per-transaction fee, and we confirmed the currency conversion charge at 1% on ANNA’s own pricing page. Expense cards are the surprise: unlimited and free on the £0 plan, but capped at two and charged £5 each per month beyond that on the £12.90 plan. The free tier is the more generous one for a team.
Accounting integrations and tax tools. You can integrate ANNA with Xero and QuickBooks, confirmed from the Open Banking directory in April 2026.
ANNA connects to Sage too. ANNA transactions import into Sage Business Cloud automatically, so an accountant on Sage gets a live feed rather than a CSV export.
Photograph a receipt and ANNA categorises the spend and updates the running tax figure in the same session. The AI receipt scanning and real-time HMRC tax liability estimate is available on all plans. The estimate is visible throughout the year, not generated at year-end.
Multi-user access and spending controls. ANNA now publishes flexible roles and permissions to control who can access your company’s money and information, filling the gap that existed in April 2026. For a business where more than one person touches the account, that removes a reason to look elsewhere.
Savings, credit and other extras. No overdraft or credit facility on any plan. Savings do exist: ANNA Savings, provided by Griffin Bank, advertised a promotional 3.66% AER for the first three months when we checked on 23 September 2026, after which the rate depends on your plan. Invoicing is included on every plan, the free one too.
Company registration. ANNA offers a separate formation journey that includes a starter account. Registration pricing and secretarial services are not banking-plan inclusions, so we assess them separately in our ANNA company registration review.
International Features
ANNA does more abroad than its tax-app reputation suggests, and we went to its own international payments page rather than the pricing table to check. It sends and receives by SWIFT and by SEPA, to and from more than 200 countries, and it runs separate currency accounts in US dollars, euros and Swiss francs using the same IBAN, with payments automatically routed to the account for the currency received. You can hold money in the currency it arrived in and convert when the rate suits you rather than on the day.
The pricing is plain. Converting currency costs 1%. On the paid plans a SWIFT payment costs £5. Three currencies is narrower than Wise, which is the account to use if you deal in more than dollars and euros, but for a UK company with European suppliers it does the job.
Receiving international payments. Yes, and by more than one route. You get a UK account number and sort code, and you can open separate accounts in dollars, euros and Swiss francs using the same IBAN, which automatically routes euro payments into the euro account, so a customer in Frankfurt pays into that account rather than converting at their end. ANNA accepts both SWIFT and SEPA payments.
Foreign exchange fees. 1% to convert, which ANNA publishes on its pricing page. That is above Wise but below every high-street bank on this page, none of which publishes a margin at all. Watch the incoming commission instead: on the free plan, anything over £1,000 of payments received in a month costs 0.95%.
For businesses with regular FX requirements, compare ANNA against Wise (mid-market rate, 0.33% to 0.57% per conversion) or Airwallex (interbank +0.5%, 60+ currencies) before committing. Neither charges for the domestic account while offering stronger international infrastructure.
Eligibility and Account Limits
Eligible business types: sole traders, limited companies (LTDs), and limited liability partnerships (LLPs). Confirmed from ANNA’s website in April 2026. ANNA doesn’t list standard partnerships the way Tide does.
You apply through the ANNA app using photo ID and a selfie for identity verification. No branch visit required. FSCS deposit protection does not apply: ANNA is an e-money institution, not a licensed bank.
Account limits and restrictions. We found these published in full, and they are the same on every plan. Payments out are capped at £250,000, while inbound Faster Payments are capped at £1,000,000 and inbound BACS payments at £10,000,000. Card purchases are capped at £30,000 a transaction, £50,000 a day and £200,000 a month. Cash machine withdrawals are the tight one: £310 at a time, £1,000 a day and £5,000 a month. ANNA says it will raise a limit if you ask in the app chat. No overdraft is available on any plan.
App, Online Banking and User Experience
Mobile app. ANNA puts receipt scanning, invoicing, the HMRC tax estimate and card management in its mobile app. That works naturally when you photograph receipts as you spend, but the tax workflow is built around a phone camera rather than someone doing the books at a desk.
What you do not get is a full desktop equivalent. ANNA builds the account round the phone, so a finance team working at a desk will find the web side thinner than Allica or Tide. If somebody other than the owner does the books, that is worth testing before you switch.
Web and desktop access. ANNA is built mobile-first and publishes nothing about a web dashboard; we could not confirm one from a primary source in April 2026. If your bookkeeping happens at a desk, treat that silence as the answer until ANNA says otherwise.
Day-to-day management. For a sole trader doing their own bookkeeping, the workflow is straightforward: photograph a receipt, categorise the expense, check the running tax estimate.
If your operation involves multiple users, or complex payment batches, ANNA adds overhead rather than removing it. That is the practical limit of the product.
Customer Reviews and Reputation
Reviews of ANNA as a whole combine banking, tax tools, support and company registration, so they do not provide a clean rating for the account alone. The receipt-scanning and tax-automation features draw the most consistent positive feedback in reviews focused on the day-to-day account.
No other account here bundles the tax tools in as standard. That is worth something if you do your own books, and a poor reason to pick ANNA if an accountant already handles it.
Common complaints. The friction points across e-money accounts are support response times and identity verification holds. If your account is paused at month-end, that is a missed supplier payment, not an abstract risk.
Those two complaints run through the sole-trader reviews more than any other, and they are the ones with a cash-flow consequence rather than an inconvenience.
Customer Support and Service
Support runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through the app chat or by email to hello@anna.money. Lost, damaged, stolen or copied cards can also be reported by calling 02920 100 420 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday, other than bank holidays. We compared the hours against the high-street accounts in this review and ANNA beats all of them: TSB stops at 6pm, Allica at 5pm, and neither works Sundays.
Self-service resources. For straightforward sole trader use cases, ANNA’s help centre and in-app guidance cover the primary workflow without needing direct support.
Security, Regulation and FSCS Protection
The ANNA debit card is issued by PayrNet Limited, an electronic money institution authorised by the FCA (reference 900594), confirmed from the FCA register in April 2026. Not a fully licensed bank. That is the regulatory class distinction that shapes everything below.
FSCS Protection or Safeguarding
No FSCS protection applies. Funds are e-money safeguarded: held in segregated accounts separate from ANNA’s own money, under FCA e-money safeguarding regulations. This is contractual protection, not the statutory £120,000 FSCS deposit guarantee. They are not equivalent.
Safeguarding provides contractual protection through fund segregation. FSCS provides a statutory government-backed guarantee up to £120,000 if a licensed bank fails. They are not equivalent.
If FSCS protection is a requirement, Starling holds a full UK banking licence and provides FSCS deposit protection up to £120,000.
Security features. Money in the current account is safeguarded under FCA e-money rules by PayrNet Limited, which holds e-money authorisation under firm reference number 900594. Safeguarded is not the same as guaranteed. If PayrNet failed, your money should come back to you out of the segregated pot, but no statutory scheme stands behind it, so you would be waiting on an administrator rather than on a compensation claim.
The savings side is different, and we separate the two here because almost nobody does. ANNA Savings is provided by Griffin Bank Ltd, a bank authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority under firm reference number 970920, and money you hold there is FSCS-protected up to £120,000. So the same app holds one of your balances that is guaranteed and one that is not, and it is worth knowing which is which before you decide where to leave a VAT reserve.
Who ANNA Business Account Is Best For
ANNA suits you if you handle your own tax records and want the account to take some of that admin with it. A sole trader or small LTD director can photograph receipts as they spend, check the running HMRC estimate during the year and raise invoices without moving between separate tools.
Income under about £2,600 a month. ANNA covers that workflow without a monthly fee.
ANNA may also suit a new limited-company director who wants to register the company and open the account through one provider. That convenience is a separate assessment from the quality of the account itself; see our ANNA company registration review for the £19 offer, package costs and restrictions.
When to consider alternatives. Choose Tide if you need built-in invoicing on the free plan. Choose Starling if FSCS protection matters: full UK banking licence, free domestic transfers, £120,000 FSCS cover.
Choose Monzo for free transfers and FSCS cover without paying for tax automation you won’t use.
ANNA Business Account vs Alternatives
ANNA vs Tide
Tide and ANNA both have a free plan, but they charge for different things. Tide’s free plan charges 20p for each outgoing UK transfer, while ANNA’s sends transfers for nothing and takes 0.95% of what you receive above £1,000 a month, so the cheaper of the two depends on whether your money mostly goes out or mostly comes in. The more useful distinction is which admin job each account removes for you.
Tide suits businesses whose accountant uses Sage: it includes a direct Sage bank feed and connections to Xero, QuickBooks, and FreeAgent on its free plan. ANNA suits you if you self-manage your tax: AI receipt scanning and a real-time HMRC estimate are included from the free plan.
Full comparison: our ANNA vs Tide guide.
ANNA vs Starling
Starling holds a full UK banking licence and offers free domestic transfers with FSCS deposit protection up to £120,000. Starling is not currently accepting applications for business overdrafts or loans. ANNA offers neither FSCS protection nor an overdraft on any plan.
If FSCS protection or free incoming payments at any volume are your priority, Starling is the better account. If the AI tax tools matter more than protection level, ANNA is the fit: Starling offers none of that automation.
ANNA vs Monzo
Monzo Business offers a free account with no domestic transfer fees and FSCS deposit protection up to £120,000. Monzo Pro at £9/month, £108 a year, adds invoicing and more integrations. We checked that price at monzo.com on 14 July 2026.
Monzo doesn’t offer AI tax automation or company formation. It’s limited to sole traders and limited companies; LLPs aren’t eligible.
If free transfers and FSCS protection are your priorities and you don’t need tax automation, Monzo covers both without a monthly fee. If the tax tools are the deciding factor, ANNA is the only account in this comparison that includes them.
We have a full comparison across all options in our best business bank accounts guide.
Final Verdict: Is ANNA Business Account Worth It?
The case for ANNA is narrow but real: a sole trader who files their own Self Assessment and takes in less than about £2,600 a month, where the free plan costs nothing. No rival in this comparison puts a live tax estimate in the banking app.
ANNA is worth choosing when you will use the tax tools yourself. If an accountant already manages that work, Tide, Starling or Monzo gives you FSCS protection without asking you to pay for tax automation you do not need.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ANNA FSCS-protected?
No. ANNA isn’t FSCS-protected. The ANNA debit card is issued by PayrNet Limited (FCA reference 900594), an authorised electronic money institution. Funds are safeguarded (held in segregated accounts separate from ANNA’s own money), but this isn’t the same as FSCS deposit insurance. FSCS protection provides a statutory £120,000 guarantee if a licensed bank fails. E-money safeguarding provides contractual protection through segregation, without that guarantee. We confirmed ANNA’s regulatory status from the FCA register in April 2026. If FSCS protection matters for your business, Starling holds a full UK banking licence.
Does ANNA offer a business overdraft?
No. ANNA doesn’t offer an overdraft facility on any plan. Starling is also not currently accepting applications for business overdrafts or loans, so it is not an alternative for a new credit buffer at present.
What accounting software does ANNA connect to?
ANNA offers integrations with Xero and QuickBooks. We confirmed the integration list from the Open Banking directory in April 2026. If your accountant uses Sage, ANNA’s transactions import into Sage Business Cloud automatically.
Is ANNA a real bank?
No. ANNA isn’t a licensed bank. The debit card is issued by PayrNet Limited (FCA reference 900594), an electronic money institution authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. Your funds are held in segregated accounts rather than covered by FSCS deposit protection. This means your balance is protected through the safeguarding arrangement rather than the statutory £120,000 FSCS guarantee. We confirmed ANNA’s regulatory status from the FCA register in April 2026.
How long does it take to open an ANNA account?
Most straightforward applications complete within a few hours to one business day. You apply through the ANNA app using photo ID and a selfie for identity verification. If you’re forming a new limited company at the same time, ANNA’s company formation service processes the Companies House registration as part of the same session. We confirmed the digital application process from ANNA’s website in April 2026. Complex cases involving additional checks may take longer.
Can sole traders open an ANNA account?
Yes. Sole traders are one of the core eligible business types. LTDs and LLPs are also eligible. We confirmed the current eligibility list from ANNA’s website in April 2026. As a sole trader, you can access all the free plan’s features including AI receipt scanning, real-time tax estimates, and the full accounting integration suite. Partnerships are the structure ANNA does not name either way, so that is the one case its published list does not settle.
How we reviewed ANNA
What we assessed. We judged ANNA on the cost of receiving and sending money, the usefulness of its tax tools, eligibility, integrations and the protection applied to customer funds. Those are the points that decide whether the account saves you admin or merely moves it elsewhere.
Data sources. ANNA’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.
Scope. We assessed the ANNA business account on pricing, transfers, features, tax tools, integrations, eligibility, support and safeguarding. ANNA’s separate company-registration packages are assessed on their own review page and are not scored as banking-plan inclusions.
Update cadence. We re-verify 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.