The Tide business account is designed for SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises), and aims to help businesses manage all their finance admin in the one app. Tide offers 4 different account plans – one of which is free – so you can upgrade your account as your business grows. What’s more, if you’re planning to set up a limited company, it will even register your company for you when you set up your business account.
Tide has been featured as one of our best business accounts. We picked it as best for accounting integrations – it stands out for the number of accountancy software packages it can integrate with. It also runs promotional offers from time to time. We have a separate guide on Tide’s card reader.
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Tide is a fintech app which offers business accounts to small businesses and freelancers, hoping to relieve them of some of the financial stress that comes with a growing company.
Like many other fintech online-only business apps, the majority of Tide’s features are found on your smartphone. The card you’re sent in the post is the only physical aspect of your Tide account.
The Tide app offers a number of resources to help freelancers nurture their businesses and organises them into a series of easily accessible pages.
The app at its core is simple and streamlined, with some more advanced and decorative features present to help exaggerate its convenience. The pages of features include:
Accounts: The introductory screen for your Tide app. Here you can see your Tide account plus any other accounts you have linked through Open Banking, along with their balances and transaction records.
Easy accounting: Each Tide card has a record of its transactions. File these transactions under a selection of different categories, e.g. travel, insurance, health, food.
Invoice: Manage invoices, see a description of the job and its pricing, see which invoices are active or paid and create new invoices. Invoices can be issued in minutes.
Pay: You get issued a virtual card immediately upon registration, then you will be posted a physical card with which to make payments.
Help: Issue enquiries and requests to the Tide team. This page also displays several questions frequently asked by users.
More: Manage your personal and security details and learn about more Tide services including accountancy software, direct debits and customisable invoice templates.
Is Tide Making Tax Digital (MTD) compliant?
Yes, in fact it was the first business bank to embed Making Tax Digital (MTD) into its account for all users. Most other business bank accounts just provide the ability to send information to a third-party accounting platform (like QuickBooks or Xero).
Tide offers integrated HMRC-recognised software within its business accounts to help you comply with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax rules. The software is included in your business account for free and will enable you to submit quarterly updates and your final declaration to HMRC. You’ll also be able to record your income and expenses, as well as get a linked tax account to set aside money for your tax bill.
Further benefits include auto-categorising and receipt capture for instant bookkeeping as well as running tax estimates and a dedicated Tide Tax account so you can ring-fence funds for tax.
Tide’s accounting plans with Making Tax Digital (MTD)
Tide Making Tax Digital
Tide Accounting
Tide Admin Extra
Price
£0
£13.99 + VAT (free to Tide Pro/Max customers)
£17.99 + VAT (free to Tide Max customers)
Quarterly MTD filings to HMRC
Yes
Yes
Yes
Self Assessment form generator
Yes
Yes
Yes
Tax estimates + deadlines
Yes
Yes
Yes
Put money aside in a Tide Tax Account
Yes
Yes
Yes
File VAT to HMRC
No
Yes
Yes
Profitability, expenses and cash flow forecasting
No
Yes
Yes
Financial reports
No
Yes
Yes
Real-time reconciliation to Tide BCA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Live bookkeeping score and task list
Yes
Yes
Yes
Categorise transactions in bulk
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto-categorisation of income and expenses
Yes
Yes
Yes
Give user-access to your accountant
Yes
Yes
Yes
Connect your external bank accounts
Yes
Yes
Yes
Send customised invoices
3/month
3/month
Unlimited
Auto-chasing and auto-matching invoices
No
No
Yes
Premium templates and cloning
No
No
Yes
Send payment receipts
No
No
Yes
The prices above are based on sole traders.
What is Tide Pro?
Tide Pro is an account plan which has a host of features designed to help small businesses grow and scale up.
While it’s not free – it has an £18.99 + VAT monthly fee – it does include a range of features designed for a growing business:
Unlimited free transfers. Exclusive to the Tide Pro account plan, saving you 20p each time you make or receive a transfer.
Free company cards. You can get 2 free expense cards which include spending limits set by you.
Legal advice. Provided by Tide’s partner Irwin Mitchell, you can access a 24/7 legal helpline to help protect your intellectual property and access support for filing trademark applications.
Phone support. You can access phone support 9am to 6pm every weekday.
You will also benefit from most of the features found on the free account plan and Tide Plus plan. The main difference is free unlimited transfers, as these are limited on all of Tide’s other account plans.
How can Tide help your business? CEO Oliver Prill answers
3:47
Tide CEO Oliver Prill on how the company developed its business account: “The Tide team found that banking itself was not really working well for SMEs, but they also realised that it’s not just banking but all the things around it, like accounting, payroll and invoicing. So they set out on a journey to solve all of that for small businesses.”
The company registration service from Tide
Tide also offers a service that allows new customers to register a limited company at the same time as opening a Tide business account. Rather than paying the usual £50 fee to do this, Tide customers pay £14.99 and Tide takes care of the rest, with the certificate of incorporation usually arriving from Companies House within one business day.
The streamlined process means both applications can be carried out at the same time, with business owners able to check whether their company name is available and then register the name at the time of sign-up. Tide is only able to process applications from single company shareholders, although it notes that you can add additional shareholders and directors to your limited company at a later date by contacting Companies House directly.
You can also choose to add on a virtual office address when you register a limited company. This can be useful if you run your business from home as it lets you use a registered address in Central London and keep your home address private.
What does the Tide app look like?
Business loans from Tide
Tide has joined forces with Funding Options to become the largest credit marketplace in the UK, with more than 120 lenders to choose from.
There’s no lengthy application process and you can choose to apply for:
Business loans
Start-up loans
Business cash advances
Invoice finance
Asset finance
For a monthly fee of £4.99 (plus VAT), you can also take advantage of Tide’s Credit Score Insights feature. This enables you to access your business credit score and get insights into what’s impacting it, as well as tips on how you can improve your score to increase your chances of being accepted for credit.
Is Tide safe?
Not only do you have to authenticate your account using a password, you also have to authorise all payments through your phone. Tide also requests a selfie every time you log onto a new device to make sure it’s actually you.
Tide’s bank accounts are provided by ClearBank, which means they are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which protects deposits of up to £120,000. Tide itself is not a bank, but it is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
On the Apple App Store, Tide scored 4.8 out of 5 based on over 79,000 reviews. On the Google Play Store, the app scored 3.7 out of 5 based on over 24,000 reviews (updated March 2026).
On Trustpilot, Tide scored 4.4 out of 5 from more than 32,000 reviews, giving it an ‘Excellent’ rating. Many customers commented on the fast and professional service, but some said they’d had problems accessing their account (updated March 2026).
Sort your transactions into a number of categories.
Connect your Tide account with external accounting technology.
Invoice directly from your Tide app.
Link your other bank cards to the app to see the balance and a spending record for each one.
Can help you set up a limited company.
Cons
No international money transfers.
Can't deposit cheques.
No overdrafts or business credit cards available.
Digital-only banking, so maybe not for you if your prefer face-to-face contact.
Tide and Finder Awards
Our Finder Awards celebrate brands that truly stand out in their field. Tide was named our 2025 Startup Business Bank Provider of the Year Award winner!
Our verdict
Tide is specifically built for small businesses, which means you’ll get a lot of features to help you manage your finances and keep on top of everything even if you don’t have a big accounting team. It’s also easy to use and set up. What’s more, you have the benefit of being able to choose from 4 different pricing plans, depending on what suits your business best. It’s also a pretty great option if you want to set up a limited company, as it’ll register your company for you.
The fees are pretty reasonable, all things considered (especially if you don’t often need to withdraw cash). However, keep in mind that if you use your account a lot and make several transfers and withdrawals a week, you might be better off with one its competittors, such as Mettle or Starling, which don’t charge transaction fees. Also, the downside of Tide’s expertise in business current accounts is that you don’t get any other products such as credit cards or personal current accounts.
All in all, Tide is a sound option for a small business owners. It’s comparatively cheap, has plenty of useful features, can be used both from the app and from desktop, and it helps you track your spending and manage your business finances, saving you from spending an age studying your account statements.
Frequently asked questions
Tide has a few approaches to making money, these include:
Interchange fees: Every time you make a transaction or payment, Tide takes a small fee for processing that payment.
Transaction fees: Each time you transfer, withdraw or deposit money Tide charges account holders a small fee.
It’s easy – transfer money into your Tide account for free via a bank transfer, or deposit cash through the Post Office or a PayPoint for a small charge.
That depends on your situation. We have actually written a guide comparing Tide against Starling.
We show offers we can track - that's not every product on the market...yet. Unless we've said otherwise, products are in no particular order. The terms "best", "top", "cheap" (and variations of these) aren't ratings, though we always explain what's great about a product when we highlight it. This is subject to our terms of use. When you make major financial decisions, consider getting independent financial advice. Always consider your own circumstances when you compare products so you get what's right for you. Most of the data in Finder's comparison tables is provided by Defaqto. In other cases, Finder has sourced data directly from providers.
Sources
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Editorial Review Board.
Matthew Boyle is a banking and mortgages publisher at Finder. He has a 7-year history of publishing helpful guides to assist consumers in making better decisions. In his spare time, you will find him walking in the Norfolk countryside admiring the local wildlife.
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NatWest offers a range of business banking options including current accounts, savings accounts and business insurance, as well as specialised accounts for startups and charities.
Thinking about opening a Starling business account? Take a look at our analysis to find out if it’s suited to your company.
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