Start-up business account
Spend more time on your business
Our start-up business accounts come with tools and support to help your new business thrive.
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Free invoicing and account software from FreshBooks1, worth more than £260 per year
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Simple and secure Online Banking with group payments and cash collection booking tools
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A UK-based team of business managers to help you manage and grow your business
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Specialist advice from our international team of high-growth and entrepreneurial experts
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Free digital banking for the first 12 months2
Banking with a personal touch
Advice for every day and beyond
We’re here to help with your day-to-day banking, while our UK-based team of business managers3 are on hand to offer advice for your growing business. They can assist your strategy, planning and cashflow to help with lending and trading abroad.
Insights to help your business grow
If you’re just getting started, our guides can help you with everything from business planning to cashflow forecasting.
Support wherever your business takes you
You can’t always predict where your new business will take you. That’s why we connect you to our accredited international team and high-growth and entrepreneur experts, who can help you adapt to change and respond to opportunities.
Barclays Business Account
Free digital banking for 12 months4
Enjoy no monthly account fees for the first 12 months, then pay £8.50 each month after that with one simple tariff. Businesses with existing Barclays business current accounts aren't eligible for this offer.
| Description | Charge |
|---|---|
Per month (first 12 months) Businesses with existing Barclays business current accounts aren't eligible for this offer. |
Free |
| Per month (after 12 months) | £8.50 |
Standard transactions
| Description | Charge |
|---|---|
| Simple electronic payments including Faster Payments, Direct Debits and standing orders | Free Monthly fair usage policy of 500 free simple electronic payments applies. Additional simple electronic payments cost 35p each. |
| Debit card payments | Free |
| Cash out – ATM/Post Office/self-service device | Free |
Cash in – Post Office/Barclays Collect/self-service device Additional Barclays Collect charges may apply. |
60p per £100 |
| Cheques in – Barclays app/self-service device | 60p each |
| Cheques out | 60p each |
For more details on transaction fees and tariffs, including transactions made at the branch counter, visit our rates and charges page.
Business banking on the move
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Log in the easy way
Forgotten your card reader and need to access your Online Banking? Mobile PINsentry in the Barclays app lets you log in to Online Banking without a card reader or debit card.
Apply online for a new business account or to switch your account
When you apply, you’ll need to give us some basic information. You can find the guide to what we need at UK Finance, the UK’s leading trade association for financial services.
Already bank with us?
This only means a personal or a business current account. If you have anything else with us, choose ‘No’.
Want to open a start-up business account, and don’t already bank with us?
You can apply in our app5 if you’re over 18, a UK resident and a sole trader or the director of a limited company.
If you’re a limited company, you’ll also need to have a maximum of 10 directors, shareholders or company secretaries – including yourself. All of these must be individual people, not other businesses.
You'll need to call us to switch
Please call us on 0800 515 462 to book your telephone appointment. Lines are open Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Call charges
What type of business are you?
We can't take your application right now
We're sorry but we've temporarily paused new account applications for your business type.
We understand this is inconvenient. We're working to open as many accounts as we can so that we're ready to welcome you and your business in the future.
We’ll update this message once we’re back to accepting new applications.
Check if you're eligible
You need to
- Be over 18
- Live in the UK permanently (excluding Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man), with at least 12 months’ UK address history
- Have your business registered in the UK (excluding Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man) with Companies House
- Have been trading for less than 12 months
Are there any directors, shareholders, or secretaries in your company, other than you?
Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
Your eligible deposits with us are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), the UK's deposit guarantee scheme. The link below will take you to the FSCS Information Sheet – please read this to find out what is and isn't covered in the scheme. You can also print or save a copy for future reference.
For your own protection and benefit, please read the FSCS sheet carefully before you confirm and continue.
FSCS information [PDF 118.3 KB]
Terms and conditions
Please click on the links below to read.
Our Business Banking Customer Agreement, which sets out the terms and conditions that apply to this account and your relationship with us.
For your own protection and benefit, please read the terms and conditions carefully before you accept and continue.
Terms and conditions [PDF 483.2KB]
Barclays Business Account charges
Free digital banking for 12 months4
No monthly account fees for the first 12 months4, then £8.50 a month after that.
Please select 'Barclays Business Account charges' at the bottom of this section to read your tariff document, which contains a full list of fees and charges.
You'll find your tariff details below. You can also search ‘Barclays business rates and charges’ online at any time to see all our business account tariffs.
Simple electronic payments including Faster Payments, Direct Debits and standing orders: Free6
Debit card and ATM withdrawals: Free
Cash deposits: From 60p per £100
Cheques in/out: From 60p each
Monthly fee: £8.50 after the first 12 months4
Visit our ways to bank hub to discover the different ways you can handle cash and cheques, plus more information on managing your account.
Additional fees apply for cash and cheque deposits made over branch counters, see your tariff for more information.
For your own protection and benefit, please read the terms and conditions relating to your account charges carefully before you accept and continue.
Business account charges [PDF 437 KB]
Statements and Communications
By opening this account you agree to receive your statements, documents and any other correspondence in an electronic form. You can view and download these whenever you like in the Barclays app and Barclays Online Banking, or Barclaycard app and online servicing. You’ll be able to print them or send them by email as needed.
This applies to all of your accounts, products and services related to this business – including overdrafts, credit cards, Barclays loans, business loans, instalment accounts, mortgages and investments and any other services you may open in the future where this option is available.
This also includes anything we need to send you for legal or regulatory reasons, such as anything required by the Consumer Credit Act, changes to your terms and conditions and interest rates, and arrears and default sum notices.
However, we may still need to send you some things by post.
Once your account is open, you can change your preferences in the Barclays app or Online Banking at any time.
Before you continue
Using information about you
Barclays is committed to protecting your personal data. We will use your information for a number of different purposes, for example, to manage your account(s), to provide our products and services to you and others and to meet our legal and regulatory obligations. We may also share your information with our trusted third parties for these purposes. For more detailed information on how and why we use your information, including the rights in relation to your personal data, and our legal grounds for using it, please go to Barclays Privacy Hub or you can request a copy from us.
Identity checks and fraud prevention
In order to process your application, we will supply your personal information to credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies and they will give us information about you, such as about your financial history. We do this to check your identity, manage your account and prevent criminal activity. These agencies may in turn share your personal information with other organisations. If false or innacurate information is provided to us and fraud is identified, details may be passed to credit reference and fraud prevention agencies to prevent fraud and money laundering and to verify your identity. The Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN) describes how the three main credit reference agencies in the UK each use and share personal data. The CRAIN is available on the credit reference agencies’ websites:
For more details on how the information is held by us, credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies may be used, please go to Barclays Privacy Hub or you can request a copy from us.
You’re ready to apply
Here’s what we’ll need from you
- Your details, including your name, date of birth, phone number and address history for the last three years
- Your business details, including your trading information and tax information
Log in to Online Banking
We need you to log in so we can use the information we already have about you. This will help speed up your application.
We can't take your application right now
We're sorry but we've temporarily paused new account applications for your business type.
We understand this is inconvenient. We're working to open as many accounts as we can so that we're ready to welcome you and your business in the future.
We’ll update this message once we’re back to accepting new applications.
Check if you're eligible
You need to be
- Over 18
- Living in the UK permanently (excluding Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man), and have a UK address history for at least the last 12 months
- The director of a limited company with a maximum of nine other directors, shareholders or company secretaries who are individual people, not other businesses
If you don’t meet these requirements, call us on 0800 515 462 to book a telephone appointment. Our lines are open Monday to Friday, from 8am to 6pm. Call charges.
Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
Your eligible deposits with us are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), the UK's deposit guarantee scheme. The link below will take you to the FSCS Information Sheet – please read this to find out what is and isn't covered in the scheme. You can also print or save a copy for future reference.
For your own protection and benefit, please read the FSCS sheet carefully before you confirm and continue.
FSCS information [PDF 118.3 KB]
Terms and conditions
If you’re a limited company with multiple directors, shareholders or company secretaries
Please share the details below with all the other directors, shareholders and company secretaries.
Please click on the links below to read.
Our Business Banking Customer Agreement, which sets out the terms and conditions that apply to this account and your relationship with us.
For your own protection and benefit, please read the terms and conditions carefully before you accept and continue.
Terms and conditions [PDF 483.2KB]
Business account charges
Please take a look at our tariff and charges information. You can download them as PDFs, too.
- Transactions tariff – our fees for standard and non-standard transactions (you won’t pay for standard transactions during your first 12 months)
- Business account charges – our fees for banking services after your first 12 months
For your own protection and benefit, please read the terms and conditions relating to charges carefully before you accept and continue.
Transactions tariff [PDF 375 KB]
Business account charges [PDF 437 KB]
Statements and Communications
By opening this account you agree to receive your statements, documents and any other correspondence in an electronic form. You can view and download these whenever you like in the Barclays app and Barclays Online Banking, or Barclaycard app and online servicing. You’ll be able to print them or send them by email as needed.
This applies to all of your accounts, products and services related to this business – including overdrafts, credit cards, Barclays loans, business loans, instalment accounts, mortgages and investments and any other services you may open in the future where this option is available.
This also includes anything we need to send you for legal or regulatory reasons, such as anything required by the Consumer Credit Act, changes to your terms and conditions and interest rates, and arrears and default sum notices.
However, we may still need to send you some things by post.
Once your account is open, you can change your preferences in the Barclays app or Online Banking at any time.
Before you continue
If you’re a limited company with multiple directors, shareholders or company secretaries
Please share the details of the privacy policy below with all the other directors, shareholders and company secretaries.
Using information about you
Barclays is committed to protecting your personal data. We will use your information for a number of different purposes, for example, to manage your account(s), to provide our products and services to you and others and to meet our legal and regulatory obligations. We may also share your information with our trusted third parties for these purposes. For more detailed information on how and why we use your information, including the rights in relation to your personal data, and our legal grounds for using it, please go to Barclays Privacy Hub or you can request a copy from us.
Identity checks and fraud prevention
In order to process your application, we will supply your personal information to credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies and they will give us information about you, such as about your financial history. We do this to check your identity, manage your account and prevent criminal activity. These agencies may in turn share your personal information with other organisations. If false or innacurate information is provided to us and fraud is identified, details may be passed to credit reference and fraud prevention agencies to prevent fraud and money laundering and to verify your identity. The Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN) describes how the three main credit reference agencies in the UK each use and share personal data. The CRAIN is available on the credit reference agencies’ websites:
For more details on how the information is held by us, credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies may be used, please go to Barclays Privacy Hub or you can request a copy from us.
You're ready to apply
Here’s what we’ll need from you
- Your details, including your name, date of birth, phone number and address history for the last three years
- Your business details, including your trading information and tax information
- Your Companies House registration number
- The names, phone numbers and email addresses for any other directors, shareholders and company secretaries in your business.
Log in to Online Banking
We need you to log in so we can use the information we already have about you. This will help speed up your application.
Apply in the Barclays app
You can apply in our app if you’re over 18, a UK resident and a sole trader or the director of a limited company.
If you’re a limited company, you’ll also need to have a maximum of 10 directors, shareholders or company secretaries – including yourself. All of these must be individual people, not other businesses.
Frequently asked questions
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When you submit your application we might need you to send us some more documents so we can verify your trading address. If this is the case we’ll send you an email with a link to our secure portal, where you’ll need to upload one of the following documents
- A commercial lease/license/rental agreement completed and signed by both you and the landlord, and including start and end dates
- A scan of a commercial utility bill or reminder for gas or electricity from within the past three months that you received through the post – we can’t accept online bills
- A bank statement or credit card statement (not including store card statements) in the name of the business and sent to the trading address from within the past three months
- A current liability insurance contract that hasn’t expired, or a non-domestic rate demand from within the past 12 months
- A letter from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) relating to your business, from within the current tax year
- A letter from regulators – for example the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or Law Society – relating to your business, from within the past three months
- A letter from an accountant or solicitor on headed paper, confirming the trading address, from within the past three months (you can use this letter template). We can’t accept letters from the Institute of Certified Practicing Accountants (ICPA) and Certified Public Accountants Association (CPAA)
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When we process your application, we carry out credit and fraud checks on you and your business partners. These checks take into account your personal and business credit, and anything that might affect your ability to get short-term credit. If your application’s successful, we’ll share information with credit reference agencies about how you manage your account.
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We’ll review your application and carry out our checks. Once we’ve completed our checks, we’ll send a text to the mobile number you provided to let you know your account’s open.
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We aim to start processing all business account applications within seven workings days of receiving them – this could take longer if your business structure is more complex or if we’re receiving more applications than usual. We’ll update this page with information on any delays, so check here before you apply. We’ll also get in touch if any significant delays arise after you've submitted your application.
We'll send out your business account details and debit card within seven working days of your account opening.
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If you tell us within 14 days of opening your account that you want to cancel or switch to a different account, we’ll refund any account fees that you’ve paid. The 14 days will start from when you get your Business Customer Agreement or the date your account was opened, whichever comes later.