Tide is offers an online business current account designed to be faster and simpler to open and use than a conventional bank account. Over 1 million small business owners, freelancers and sole traders currently use Tide and manage all their transactions and processes on the Tide app.
Tide Business Banking Services
Key Features:
- Monthly fee: Free
- UK Card Purchases: Free
- ATM withdrawals: £1
- Bank Transfers: 20p
- Overdraft: No
- Access: App & Online
Protection:
- FSCS protected: Yes, up to £85,000 via Clearbank
- FCA regulated: Yes
- No monthly or annual fee
- Deposits are FSCS protected
- Accounting software integration
- Ability to add up to 5 business accounts
- Free built-in invoice software
- Costs 20p to transfer in or out (free with paid plans)
- Costs £1 to withdraw cash via ATM
- Can't deposit cheques
- £2.50 to deposit cash at PostOffice or 3% at PayPoint
Current Accounts
A Tide current account is managed entirely on the mobile or desktop app. You can schedule payments, set an account limit, and spend abroad for free on your contactless MasterCard. The account holder can pay physical cash into a Tide account via the Post Office or via a PayPoint.
If you choose to deposit cash at the Post Office, you can pay in up to £500 per deposit although multiple deposits per day are permitted. Tide allows deposits of up to £25,000 per month or £300,000 per year through the Post Office. You can expect to pay a fee of £2.50 for deposits of up to £500, or 0.5% of the deposit amount for deposits over £500.
Using PayPoint, you can deposit between £10 and £500 per day but you should expect a fee of 3% of the deposit amount.
Your Tide account syncs with popular accounting tools including Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, Kashflow, Crunch and ClearBooks.
For an additional monthly fee, Tide allows business account users to simplify essential bookkeeping, administrative, and accounting tasks. For example, you can issue invoices or even file your VAT return to HMRC. You can also use the app to categorise income and track expenditure.
According to Tide, you can open an account in 5 minutes.
They offer a free account and three paid accounts that offer enhanced account features, other transaction fees may also apply.
Savings account
Not available. You can organise cash into separate accounts within your main Tide account, but there are no interest rate incentives.
Overdrafts
Tide doesn’t offer overdrafts.
If your balance drops below zero, you will receive a notification from Tide giving you 5 days to add more funds. If you don’t deposit any funds, Tide will take money from other Tide accounts that you may have. Failing that, Tide may resort to other measures.
If you need credit, Tide has merged with the Funding Options credit marketplace to enable customers to apply for loans ranging from £1,000 to £1 million pounds.
Tide also offers other financing products including Start Up loans, Merchant Cash Advance, and a line of credit.
Tide Reviews and Ratings
Tide has over 21,000 reviews on Trustpilot with 72% rating it 5/5. Many reviewers are impressed with how intuitive and easy to use it is, however, there are several reviews from concerned business owners who have struggled to process payments and think the app lacks accessible customer service.
Smart Money People reviewers are also pretty pleased, say it’s efficient and low cost. 89% of reviewers gave it 5 stars. Some reviewers claim it’s all plain sailing until something goes wrong though, and then it’s difficult to get through to someone who can help you. The few reviews on Reviews.io are negative due to the poor experiences that they had received.
Tide isn’t included in the Which? list of ‘Best & Worst Banks’.
In October 2019, Tide secured £44.1 million in investment. As of 2024, Tide is estimated to have a 10% market share of small and medium-sized businesses in the UK and they have also expanded operations to India.
Trustpilot – 4.0/5 (based on 21,809 reviews)
Reviews.io – 1.3/5 (based on 193 reviews)
Smart Money People – 4.7/5 (based on 5,675 reviews)
Which? – not included
Pros
- No monthly account fee and low transaction fees
- The app is intuitive and easy to use
- Predominantly good reviews on Trustpilot
Cons
- Some reviewers think customer service is patchy
- Doesn’t have the age and stability of a mainstream bank
- No overdraft or savings products available
Website: Tide Business Banking
Tide Business Bank Account User Reviews
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* Please note we have an affiliate relationship with Tide.