What UK owners run into after the honeymoon
Most app-based accounts advertise a £0 monthly fee, and that part is generally true. The friction turns up elsewhere. A builder in Leeds who takes cash from customers discovers that several digital accounts do not accept cash deposits at all, while others route them through Post Office counters or PayPoint with a percentage charge attached. A marketing consultant in Shoreditch who invoices a client in Dubai finds a 2.75% card conversion fee quietly eating into a small monthly retainer. Neither problem shows up in the headline number.
Credit checks are another thing people miss. Starling, which holds a full banking licence, runs a hard search when you apply, and that search sits on your personal file for a while. Tide and Mettle do not run one, which matters if you are applying for a mortgage in the same quarter. Deposits protection differs too. Monzo Business and newer Tide accounts advertise cover up to £120,000, Starling sits at the standard £85,000, and Mettle holds client money under a safeguarding arrangement rather than the deposit guarantee scheme. Higher figures usually mean funds are spread across more than one banking entity, so read the detail rather than the badge.
Then there is HMRC. Making Tax Digital for Income Tax has pulled more sole traders into quarterly digital reporting, and an account that feeds straight into Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent removes a monthly evening of typing. The account you pick is really a decision about which software you will live inside.
The £0 accounts are not the same product
Figures below reflect provider comparison pages and published pricing as at November 2026. Treat them as a starting point and confirm current charges before applying, because introductory periods expire.
| Provider | Monthly fee | Best suited to | Worth knowing |
|---|
| Starling Business Current Account | £0 | Sole traders and limited companies wanting a full bank with lending | Hard credit search at application; unlimited UK Faster Payments; overdraft available later |
| Tide entry plan | £0 | New businesses that invoice clients and want fast onboarding | Five transfers included each month then 20p; three invoices per month on the entry plan; paid tiers around £12.49 to £69.99 per month |
| Mettle (NatWest Group) | £0 | One-person operations wanting accounting software included | FreeAgent bundled in; no international payments, no cash deposits, single user access |
| Monzo Business Lite | £0 | GBP-only traders who want tax tools in the app | Pro tier around £9 per month adds invoicing and fuller integrations |
| Revolut Business Basic | About £10 | Businesses billing overseas clients | Multi-currency holding, weekday FX around 0.6% beyond the included allowance |
| High street names (Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, RBS) | Often £0 for an introductory spell, then roughly £100 to £120 per year effective | Businesses needing branch access, cash handling or a relationship manager | Charges start once the intro period ends; lending assessed separately |
Three businesses, three different answers
Priya runs a freelance design practice from a flat in Manchester's Northern Quarter. She has four regular clients, no staff, and no plans to trade abroad. Her previous account charged her for every incoming payment. She moved to Mettle because FreeAgent comes bundled and the software licence she was paying for separately, typically around £150 a year, disappeared from her outgoings. The trade-off is deliberate: no international payments means she turns down the occasional US project, and she knows it.
Daniel repairs e-bikes in Bristol and takes a fair amount of cash from walk-in customers. He tried an account that looked perfect on paper until he read the small print and found cash deposits were not supported. He settled on Starling, where cash goes in at Post Office counters, and the £0 monthly fee has held for his first two years of trading. He also wanted the overdraft option for the quiet January stretch, which narrower providers cannot offer.
Aisha advises London consultancies and bills in both dollars and euros. She keeps a sterling account for UK overheads and runs Revolut Business for client receipts, at roughly £10 a month. The multi-currency holding means she is not converting every invoice the day it arrives. For her the monthly charge is smaller than the FX spread she used to absorb.
Opening one without losing a week
Get your paperwork in order before you start the application, because a half-finished form sitting with a compliance team is the slowest route.
Prepare the documents first
You will need photo ID such as a passport or UK driving licence, proof of your business address like a utility bill, and a live photo of your face and signature during the application. Limited companies also need to be showing as active on the Companies House register, and some banks require the company to have been registered for at least four days with no recent changes to the register. Applicants are generally 18 or over, UK resident, and hold a UK mobile number.
Check the structure fits
Sole traders and single-director limited companies are the easy case. Partnerships, LLPs and charities fall outside several app-based providers, and companies with complicated share structures sometimes fail Mettle's eligibility checks. Ask before you download the app.
Compare the second-year cost, not the first
List the fees you will actually trigger: bank transfers beyond the included allowance, cash paid in over a counter, card spending abroad, extra users, and the monthly charge that kicks in after any introductory period. An account costing nothing today but 20p on every transfer is expensive for a business processing fifty supplier payments a month.
Line up the switch properly
The Current Account Switch Service moves standing orders, direct debits and incoming payments, and redirects anything sent to your old details after the switch date. Keep both accounts open until the switch completes and tell your main customers directly, because a redirected payment can still arrive a day later than expected.
Local support is closer than you might think. The Business Growth Hub covers Greater Manchester, Business Gateway handles Scotland, Business Wales and Invest NI cover their nations, and most London boroughs run business support desks that will sit with you through a banking comparison. HMRC also runs regular webinars on Making Tax Digital that explain what your bank feed needs to capture.
Regional habits are worth noting. Freelancers clustered around Bristol's Temple Quarter and Edinburgh's Old Town tend to prioritise software integrations, while businesses in smaller market towns and coastal areas ask about cash and cheque handling first, because footfall still arrives with notes in hand.
A sensible rhythm is to review the account once a year, at the same time you file. If your turnover has grown, or you have started invoicing abroad, the account that suited a first-year sole trader may be the wrong fit for a limited company with two staff. Moving is not dramatic. It is a form, a switch date and a short email to your accountant, and the savings usually show up within two or three months.
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