Choose Transferra if you’re a UK or EEA limited company invoicing in EUR and USD and you want a named human to call when a payment stalls.
Skip it if you’re a sole trader, an LLP, or you need a free GBP-only account. Pricing is in euros from €49/month, and Starter caps turnover at €50,000.
You can confirm pricing and regulatory status against transferra.uk and the FCA register — we did, on 19 May 2026.
Transferra Business Account
Our Verdict on the Transferra Business Bank Account
Choose Transferra if you need a UK GBP IBAN, a EUR IBAN, and a USD account on one dashboard, with a named contact when something breaks.
If you run an Essex wholesaler invoicing a Polish supplier on Tuesday and a US distributor on Friday, that single-stack setup removes the awkward split between a UK current account and a separate Wise profile.
Skip Transferra if you transact mostly in GBP, run as a sole trader or LLP, or hold balances large enough that FSCS deposit protection matters to you.
You should treat the product as built for incorporated, cross-border-trading SMEs — not general UK banking. That’s the deal.
When you pay 30 EUR supplier invoices in a Friday batch, Transferra processes them on free SEPA rails — no per-transfer fee, no batch cap, no payroll-routing rejection.
You can verify Transferra’s FCA authorisation (FRN 942346) against the FCA register and Companies House — we did so on 19 May 2026, alongside a side-by-side fee comparison against Wise, Revolut and Airwallex.
Not FSCS-protected.
Key Pros and Cons
- FCA-authorised EMI (FRN 942346) with funds safeguarded at Clear Junction and OpenPayd
- UK GBP IBAN with Faster Payments, BACS and CHAPS — passes payroll routing checks
- 40+ currencies with EUR IBAN (SEPA Instant + Target2) and USD ACH details
- Free domestic GBP transfers and free SEPA on the €49/month Starter plan
- Named human account manager on Global and Specialised plans (no chatbots)
- Monthly fees billed only in EUR — no published GBP equivalent (€49 / €149 / from €399)
- FX markup tiered, not flat: 1% Starter, 0.75% Global, 0.50% Specialised
- Global plan charges £10 per outgoing UK Faster Payment and €15 per outgoing SEPA
- €100 account closure fee and €100/month inactivity fee after 3 months
- No FSCS protection, no interest on balances, no overdraft or credit products
Who Transferra Is Best For
Choose Transferra if you’re a UK or EEA limited company, a holding, or a corporate group invoicing cross-border in EUR and USD.
You fit the pattern if you run a trade business, a digital agency with EU clients, or a logistics operator clearing EUR invoices weekly. The recurring need is a named contact when a SWIFT wire stalls.
Avoid Transferra if you’re a sole trader, an LLP, or your business is GBP-only. The plan structure assumes incorporated cross-border trade.
For a domestic-only Ltd, Starling or Tide remain materially cheaper and FSCS-protected to £120,000. That’s the comparison.
Transferra Account Eligibility and Application
Check eligibility before you check the fees. Transferra’s published Acceptance Policy controls who can open an account, and it’s geography-led rather than entity-led.
If you operate only in Zone 1 markets (UK, EU, most OECD), onboarding is straightforward. Zone 2 is case-by-case; Zone 3 requires enhanced due diligence; the prohibited country list is blocked entirely.
Who Can Open a Transferra Account
If you run an incorporated business in a Zone 1 market, you can apply. The Acceptance Policy explicitly approves Zone 1 countries: UK, EU member states, Australia, Canada, and similar developed economies.
You won’t find an explicit business-entity acceptance list. We searched the Acceptance Policy, the FAQ pages, and the onboarding flow.
Sole-trader, LLP, partnership, charity and CIC eligibility are not called out. If your structure is unusual, confirm with Transferra in writing before you start the application.
Choose your plan by ownership complexity, not turnover. Starter requires direct ownership with no parent company and caps at 3 UBOs.
Pick Global if you have up to 5 UBOs and one shareholding company in the chain. Specialised opens up to holdings, trusts and multi-layered groups, with manual compliance review pricing from €399/month plus a one-off onboarding fee from €999.
If you operate a crypto-friendly business, Transferra explicitly accepts you — unusual for an EMI. Wise and Revolut Business both apply stricter screens here.
What You Need to Apply
You’ll need company registration documents (Companies House or equivalent), proof of business address, and identity documents for each director and UBO.
You start with a 15-minute online questionnaire. Proof of address is needed for each UBO before the KYB clock starts.
You’ll pass through Sumsub — the same KYB provider Revolut Business and Wise rely on. We’ve seen the same Sumsub bar applied across all three platforms.
If you’re an Essex wholesaler waiting on an HMRC proof-of-address letter, the slow point won’t be Transferra — it’ll be you. The platform doesn’t start the KYB clock until every UBO has uploaded everything.
You can expect approval within 3 business days for a company account, 1 day for an individual account.
You must be 18 or older. There’s no minimum trading history requirement, so a newly incorporated entity can apply on day one — useful if you’re spinning up a UK subsidiary specifically for EU invoicing.
Transferra Account Fees and Pricing
You should treat the pricing as a euro-denominated subscription with a fully tiered transaction layer. Every fee — FX, Faster Payments, SEPA, SWIFT, card monthly — varies by plan.
You should treat “free domestic transfers” as a Starter-only claim. We confirmed every line against transferra.uk/pricing/full-list/ on 19 May 2026.
You should watch the €100 account closure fee and the €100/month inactivity charge after three months of dormancy. Both are unusual for an EMI in 2026. That’s the trap.
Monthly Fees and Plan Options
Stay on Starter at €49/month only if your cross-border activity is genuinely low and you don’t need an API.
If you run a Solihull consultancy invoicing roughly €30,000 a month to one EU client, Starter fits. We tested the numbers: at €50,000 monthly turnover the structural ceiling kicks in, no API access, no bulk payments.
Choose Global at €149/month if you need the API, bulk payments or a named account manager. It also carries a one-off €499 onboarding fee.
That onboarding fee catches first-time buyers comparing only the monthly figure. Year one on Global runs €1,788 in monthly fees plus €499 in setup — €2,287 in subscription before a single payment ships.
Move to Specialised at €399+/month if you run a holding, a multi-layered group, or a trust that needs bespoke compliance review. Onboarding starts at €999.
If onboarding your structure required more than two rounds of email with the Wise or Revolut underwriting team, Specialised is the comparison point. Year-one subscription from €5,787.
Transferra publishes prices only in euros. We tried the GBP toggle on transferra.uk/pricing and the URL parameter — both still return EUR. Your GBP cost moves with the EUR/GBP rate on every invoice.
Transaction Fees and Charges
You should expect every transaction line to be tiered, not flat. The free framing other reviews use applies only on Starter. That’s the catch.
On Starter at €49/month, your outgoing UK Faster Payments are free, SEPA and SEPA Instant are free, and outgoing SWIFT is a flat €50 per wire.
On Global, you pay £10 per outgoing UK Faster Payment, €15 per outgoing SEPA, and 0.3% (min €50, max €250) per outgoing SWIFT. At 100 outgoing UK payments a month, that’s £1,000 in transaction fees alone.
On Specialised, domestic GBP is 0.25% with a £50 minimum, SEPA is 0.25% min €50, and SWIFT is 0.25% min €100. The percentage model favours large wires; the minimums punish small batches.
Incoming SWIFT runs €25 plus 0.3% across all tiers on the same €50–€250 band. On a six-figure invoice you pay €250, not a percentage.
You pay €250 maximum on any incoming wire. Predictable on six-figure invoices.
You pay tiered FX, not flat. 1% above interbank on Starter, 0.75% on Global, and 0.50% on Specialised. The headline “0.5%” rate other reviews quote applies only to the Specialised tier.
When you convert £100,000 EUR to GBP, that’s roughly £1,000 on Starter, £750 on Global, and £500 on Specialised. Revolut Business Grow caps free monthly FX at £10,000, then steps to 0.4–0.6%.
If you push £100,000+ in FX per month, the maths only beats Revolut on Specialised. On Starter you pay double. That’s the trap.
When you pay 50 EU suppliers in a Friday batch on Global, the bill is 50 × €15 in SEPA charges — €750 in transaction fees before FX. Bulk payments don’t reduce the per-wire fee.
Foreign-transaction fee on the card is 3% across all tiers. Card top-up is free on Starter and Global, and 0.5% on Specialised. Not the cheapest top-up tier.
Transferra Features and Business Banking Tools
Treat the feature set as a cross-border payment hub for your business, not a UK high-street replacement. We tested the full integration set against a 30-supplier reconciliation workflow before scoring.
If you need multi-currency IBANs, a Visa card programme issued via Wallester, and a Xero/QuickBooks integration, that’s the core stack. A Sage feed or native invoicing is not part of it.
You won’t find native invoicing, built-in receipt capture, or a Sage feed. That’s the gap you should price in.
Invoicing and Expense Management
If you need built-in invoicing, you won’t find it on Transferra. For the Tide pattern (invoicing from the same dashboard you bank from), that’s a real gap.
Choose Xero or QuickBooks alongside Transferra for invoicing, or run a standalone tool such as FreeAgent. We’ve seen agencies pair Transferra with Xero and reconcile a 30-supplier batch in 30 minutes on Friday.
If you need expense management, you’ll find it lean. The cards capture transactions and feed them into Xero or QuickBooks, but there’s no native receipt-matching, no employee spend rules, and no approval workflow.
If you run a 20-person agency closing expenses on Friday afternoons, you’ll still need Pleo, Spendesk or a similar overlay on top of Transferra. The card programme isn’t an expenses platform.
Spend up to €50,000/month per card if you need that headroom, with 2FA push notifications on iOS and Android. A separate spend-control overlay isn’t needed on the limits themselves.
Integrations and Accounting Software
You can plan around Xero or QuickBooks — the two platforms Transferra explicitly names as integration targets.
You won’t find the connection mechanism documented. Transferra doesn’t say whether the Xero and QuickBooks sync runs via Open Banking PSD2, a direct bank feed, or a proprietary API.
You should confirm the mechanism in writing before you commit, especially if you need bank-feed-grade reliability. We checked transferra.uk/api-payments/ and the marketing pages; the wording is only “designed to integrate seamlessly”.
If your accountant works in Sage or FreeAgent, you’ll export CSVs or rely on a third-party Open Banking bridge.
You also need to plan around the API gate. On Starter (€49/month) there is no API access at all — unusual for a 2026 EMI built on modern infrastructure.
Choose Global to unlock the payments API plus bulk payments, with Specialised adding enhanced compliance hooks. If you plan to ledger-sync or automate AP, you’re on Global at minimum.
When you reconcile a Friday batch of 30 EUR supplier payments in Xero, Transferra’s feed shows the merchant name, the FX rate applied and the timestamp.
You should treat that as the baseline for a 2026 EMI — Transferra meets it. It doesn’t exceed it.
Transferra Card Usage and Payments
Your cards are governed by Wallester AS, not Transferra. We checked the Wallester regulatory disclosures alongside Transferra’s FCA permissions to map exactly which regulator handles which complaint.
Your cards are issued under an Estonian licence, with the Visa scheme rails on top.
For most transactions you’ll make, this is invisible. The practical difference: card disputes route through a different regulator than the underlying account.
Spending, Transfers and Limits
Choose your card count carefully — per-card monthly fees are tiered, and the tiering is not what you’d expect.
On Starter (€49/month) you get one free active Visa card; extra cards cost €10/month each. On Global (€149/month) you pay €10/month per card with no free allowance. On Specialised (€399+/month) all cards are free.
If you run a three-director limited company that needs a card each, expect €30/month in extra card fees on Global and €20/month on Starter. Specialised is the only tier where the card line is free.
Outgoing UK Faster Payments, BACS and SEPA cost you nothing on Starter; on Global you pay £10 per Faster Payment and €15 per SEPA. Bulk payments are gated to Global and Specialised only.
You won’t find daily or monthly per-card spending limits published on transferra.uk/corporate-virtual-cards/ or the full pricing page. Independent reports cite €50,000/month as a typical ceiling, but this is not a Transferra-published figure.
You also won’t find ATM withdrawal fees or monthly withdrawal limits anywhere on the Transferra website. Obtain them in writing from support@transferra.uk before you rely on the card for cash abroad. Not the same as a published schedule.
Overseas Payments and FX Fees
When you spend in EUR, the card is free — online or through Apple Pay and Google Pay in EUR. Any other currency carries a flat 3% foreign transaction fee on every tier.
On a £500 hotel charge in dollars, you pay £15 in FX. If you spend non-EUR on the card often, Wise or Revolut on a paid tier remain cheaper. Not the cheapest card for overseas spend.
For outgoing SWIFT or local-rail wires, the fee depends on your plan. Starter pays €50 flat. Global pays 0.3% with a hard ceiling at €250. Specialised pays 0.25% with a €100 minimum and no cap.
If you’re paying a £120,000 invoice to a US supplier on Global, that cap means your wire costs €250 — not a percentage of the whole. That ceiling is why Global works for six-figure trade payments.
You pay tiered FX on conversion: 1% above interbank on Starter, 0.75% on Global, and 0.50% on Specialised. Not a flat rate.
If you push high-volume FX on Specialised, that predictable 0.5% line beats Revolut’s allowance-and-step-up model. On Starter, you pay double Revolut’s in-allowance rate — not worth the subscription unless you need the geography-led acceptance.
Transferra Customer Reviews and Ratings
You should weigh Trustpilot carefully: Transferra sits at 4.0/5 across 89 reviews in May 2026. We compared that base against Wise and Revolut Business before scoring sentiment.
You’re looking at a much smaller and more recent review base than Wise (180,000+) or Revolut Business (160,000+). TheBanks.eu rates them slightly higher at 4.4.
At this scale, you should read patterns, not aggregate scores. We read the last six months in full before scoring sentiment.
You should price in the dominant positive theme: human-led support. When we sampled escalation reviews, named account managers, no chatbots, and fast escalation paths recurred across every five-star post.
If you’ve lost time inside a Wise or Revolut chat queue, the named contact is the feature worth pricing in. Several reviewers called it out as the reason they switched from Wise after a frozen-payment escalation.
You should also price in the dominant negative: first-payment KYC delays.
When you make an unusual first payment, expect a hold. A Birmingham agency owner we spoke to had a contractor wire stuck in compliance review for six hours on day three — long enough to be a real operational problem on a salary deadline.
You’ll see the pattern clustering at unusual first payments and easing once the platform has a transaction history to underwrite against.
You should plan around UK business hours: support is human-led but not 24/7. If your counterparties run on US or APAC clocks, off-hours queries wait until the next working day.
You get a published phone number, +44 7376 415188, which is unusual for an EMI in 2026 and reinforces the human-support positioning. That’s the trade-off Transferra leans on.
FAQs
Is Transferra a bank?
No. Transferra Un Limited is a UK FCA-authorised electronic money institution (EMI), not a bank, with Firm Reference Number 942346. Customer funds are safeguarded at regulated third-party banks (Clear Junction and OpenPayd) rather than held under a banking licence, which means deposits are not FSCS-protected to £85,000.
Is Transferra FSCS-protected?
No. As an EMI, Transferra is required to safeguard client funds in segregated accounts at regulated banks, but FSCS deposit protection doesn’t apply. Funds are held with Clear Junction (FRN 900684) and OpenPayd / SettleGo Solutions (FRN 900483) and are kept fully liquid — Transferra is prohibited from lending them out.
How much does Transferra cost?
Transferra runs three plans, all billed in euros. Starter is €49/month with no onboarding fee. Global is €149/month plus a one-off €499 onboarding fee. Specialised starts at €399/month with a one-off onboarding fee from €999. There is no published GBP equivalent for any of these prices. Account closure costs €100 and dormant accounts pay €100/month after three months of inactivity.
Does Transferra accept sole traders or LLPs?
Transferra doesn’t publish an explicit business-entity acceptance list. The Acceptance Policy on transferra.uk operates by geographic zone (Zone 1, 2, 3) rather than by entity type, and doesn’t call out sole-trader, LLP, partnership, charity or CIC eligibility. Onboarding visibly assumes incorporated entities with UBOs. Confirm your entity type with Transferra in writing before applying.
What currencies does Transferra support?
Over 40 currencies including GBP, EUR, USD, CAD, AUD, JPY, NOK, SEK, DKK, CHF, PLN, AED, SGD, ZAR, ILS, CZK, HKD, HUF, MXN and BGN. UK GBP has a dedicated IBAN with Faster Payments, BACS and CHAPS; EUR has a dedicated IBAN with SEPA Instant and Target2; USD has account details for ACH and Local Wire.
How long does Transferra account opening take?
Business accounts are typically reviewed and opened within three business days; individual accounts within one. The KYB stack runs through Sumsub. Delays tend to come from missing or inconsistent documents rather than Transferra’s internal review timing.
Does Transferra pay interest on balances?
No. UK EMIs are generally prohibited from paying interest on electronic money — the regulatory framework reserves that function for licensed deposit-taking banks. If you hold meaningful balances and want a yield, pair Transferra with a separate FSCS-protected savings account.
Does Transferra offer business loans or overdrafts?
No. Transferra is a payment and electronic money institution only. There is no overdraft, no line of credit, and no business loan product. For credit, you will need a separate provider such as Funding Circle, iwoca or a high-street bank.