Best business credit cards UK: an honest roundup for September 2026

The short list

If you want the answer without the reasoning, here it is. Each pick links to the section that explains it, and the full table puts nine cards side by side.

• Our pick for Ltd companies and LLPs: Capital on Tap. £0 annual fee, 1% cashback uncapped, 0% non-sterling transaction fee, unlimited free employee cards. Caveat: the credit limit.
• Best for sole traders: Barclaycard Select Cashback for a free card with cashback, or the BA Amex Accelerating Business card if you want Avios and will use the fee.
• Best for Avios: BA Amex Accelerating Business, with an earn-rate cut coming on 7 October 2026, or Capital on Tap Pro if you want Visa acceptance and 1:1 conversion.
• Best premium travel perks: Amex Business Platinum, if you will actually use £650 of benefits.
• Best no-FX card from a bank: Santander Business Cashback or NatWest Business Plus, for existing customers only.
• Best for multi-currency debit: Revolut Business, with Starling and Monzo as free no-FX debit alternatives. None of them offers credit.
• Best for expense management: Pleo, priced per user, for teams that need receipts and approvals more than they need credit.

All the cards side by side

Nine cards, thirteen rows, every figure from the issuer’s own product page on 15 September 2026. “Not stated” means the page we checked does not say, not that the answer is no. Scroll sideways on a phone.

Two cards are missing from the table on purpose. Pleo is not a credit card, it is a prepaid expense card with an optional credit limit, and Revolut Business is a debit card. Both get their own sections below because businesses keep asking about them in the same breath.

Our pick: Capital on Tap

Capital on Tap wins for a plain reason: it is the only card in the table that combines no annual fee, uncapped 1% back on every pound, no non-sterling fee and unlimited free employee cards without requiring you to bank anywhere in particular. Each of the bank cards gives up at least one of those. Barclaycard Select gives up the FX fee and only pays cashback above a monthly threshold. Santander gives up the free annual fee and needs a Santander account. Amex gives up Visa acceptance and charges 2.99% abroad.

I have used the free card for a few years in a small agency. The parts that matter day to day are the boring ones: staff have their own cards with limits, each software subscription sits on its own virtual card, and the accounting sync pushes transactions across syncs every 12 hours so reconciliation is mostly matching rather than typing. The points have paid out as cash and as balance credit without fuss. The full first-hand account is in the Capital on Tap review.

Two more honest points. Capital on Tap advertises rates as low as 13.86% APR (variable) and does not publish a representative APR; your rate depends on your personal and business credit history and the Bank of England base rate. If you expect to carry a balance, a bank card with a published representative APR is easier to compare. And the card is not available to sole traders, which takes it off the table for a large share of UK businesses. Details are on the eligibility page, or run the two-minute checker.

Best for sole traders: Barclaycard Select Cashback and BA Amex Accelerating Business

Sole traders are shut out of Capital on Tap, Funding Circle, Tide’s brokered card and the Amex Business Gold and Platinum cards. Two cards stand out among those that do accept them.

Barclaycard Select Cashback has a £0 annual fee, a published 25.5% APR representative (variable), and pays 1% cashback, uncapped, but only in months when you spend more than £2,000. That monthly threshold is the catch: a sole trader who spends £1,500 in a quiet month gets nothing for it. The non-sterling fee is 2.99%, so it is a poor card for overseas suppliers or dollar-priced software. Eligibility is Business owner or director, UK-based, turnover £10,000 to £6.5 million; sole traders accepted. Barclaycard does not state on the product page whether a personal guarantee is required.

The British Airways Amex Accelerating Business card is the one Amex itself points sole traders towards. It costs £250 a year, earns 1.5 Avios per £1 until 6 October 2026, then 1.25 Avios per £1; 10,000 bonus Avios per £20,000 spent (up to three times a year), and the current welcome offer is 40,000 Avios after £5,000 in 3 months (offer ends 6 October 2026; normally 30,000). Eligibility is Sole traders and small businesses with a UK business bank account; £20,000+ personal income. The representative APR is 104.9% APR representative (variable), including the fee, which is what happens when a £250 fee is folded into the calculation on an assumed limit, and it is a good reminder that this is a card to pay off in full every month. Amex charges 2.99% on non-sterling spend.

Our sole trader guide covers the rest of the field, including Zempler and the debit-card route.

Best for Avios: BA Amex Accelerating Business and Capital on Tap Pro

If Avios is the point, the BA Amex Accelerating Business card earns more per pound than anything else here, but its rate is about to fall. Amex’s page states the earn rate is 1.5 Avios per £1 until 6 October 2026, then 1.25 Avios per £1; 10,000 bonus Avios per £20,000 spent (up to three times a year). On Business points also end on 7 October 2026. Anyone comparing the two cards should do the sums on 1.25 Avios, not 1.5, because the higher rate has three weeks left as we publish. Our Avios for business spend guide works the numbers through, using the industry ball-park of about 1p per Avios.

Capital on Tap converts points to Avios rather than earning them directly. On the free card the rate is 10 points = 8 Avios on the free card, so £1 of spend becomes 0.8 Avios. On Capital on Tap Pro, which costs £299 a year, the rate is 10 points = 10 Avios on Pro, so £1 becomes 1 Avios, and Pro adds unlimited Priority Pass lounge access for the main cardholder, 10,000 bonus points when you spend £5,000 in the first 3 months, and 1.25% on preloaded spend (and Daily Repay via Smart Repay). That still trails the BA card’s 1.25 after October, but you get Visa acceptance, 0% non-sterling transaction fee and the option to take cash instead in a lean year. The BA card is the better Avios card; Capital on Tap Pro is the better all-round card that also does Avios.

Best for premium travel perks: Amex Business Platinum

The American Express Business Platinum is a £650-a-year charge card, and it is only worth considering if you will use its credits. Amex lists 1 point per £1 (2 per £1 with Amex Travel); £600 Amex Travel credit, £300 Indeed and £150 Dell statement credits. The welcome bonus is 50,000 points after £6,000 in 3 months. Employee cards are Complimentary Business Gold employee cards plus one complimentary Platinum employee card. Eligibility is Ltd or LLP only; £35,000+ personal income. Sole traders are not eligible.

Against that: it is a charge card, so the balance clears monthly unless you opt into Amex’s separate credit option; it charges 2.99% on non-sterling spend; and Amex acceptance is narrower than Visa in the UK and abroad. If the travel credit and lounge access would go unused, Capital on Tap Pro at £299 a year with unlimited Priority Pass lounge access for the main cardholder is the cheaper way to get into a lounge. The Capital on Tap vs Amex Business comparison goes card by card.

Best no-FX card from a bank: Santander Business Cashback and NatWest Business Plus

Most high-street business credit cards charge 2.95% to 2.99% on non-sterling spend, which is why our FX fee calculator exists. Two bank cards break the pattern.

The Santander Business Cashback Credit Card charges 0% on purchases in the local currency, pays 1% cashback, uncapped, paid monthly, and costs £30 a year. Representative APR is 23.7% APR representative (variable); purchase rate 18.9%. Additional cards are Free. The constraint is eligibility: Existing Santander business current account; sole trader, partnership, LLP or Ltd with up to two partners or directors. Limits £500 to £25,000. A personal guarantee is Required from all directors or members of a Ltd or LLP.

The NatWest Business Plus Credit Card charges 0% on purchases, with cashback of 3% fuel and EV, 2% trade supplies, 1% travel, 0.5% other; capped at £600 a year per account. The fee is £70 per card and the representative APR is 29% APR representative (variable); purchase rate 13.9%. Eligibility: NatWest business current account required; turnover up to £2 million. The tiered cashback rewards fuel and trade purchases, so an office-based business earns mostly at the 0.5% rate and hits neither the cap nor Capital on Tap’s flat 1%.

Both are good cards for a business that already banks there and wants everything in one place. Neither is worth switching bank for. The wider set of bank cards is in Capital on Tap vs high-street banks.

Best for multi-currency debit rather than credit: Revolut, Starling and Monzo

A lot of searches for “business credit card” end at a debit card, so it is worth being clear about what these three offer. None of them lends. Revolut’s help centre says: “we don't provide credit, credit cards, or overdrafts”. Monzo and Starling do not offer a business credit card either.

Revolut Business is the strongest multi-currency account. Plans are Plans: Basic £10, Grow from £30, Scale from £90 a month. Currency exchange is at the Interbank rate within a monthly allowance (Basic £1,000, Grow £15,000, Scale £60,000), then 0.6%; +1% outside market hours. ATM withdrawals cost 2% per ATM withdrawal. Rewards on card spend: none on card spend. Revolut blocks automated checks, so these figures were read in a browser on 15 September 2026; verify them on the plans page before relying on them. Capital on Tap vs Revolut Business explains when a business wants both.

Starling Business has a £0 account fee and its card charges 0%, Mastercard rate (read in a browser; verify). Monzo Business plans are Lite free; Pro £9 a month; Team from £25 a month, with 0% on card spend. Both accept sole traders and limited companies. If your problem is paying overseas suppliers cheaply from money you already have, any of the three solves it. If your problem is a month of cash-flow slack while invoices clear, none of them does, and a credit card does.

Best for expense management: Pleo

Pleo is a different product category: prepaid / expense card cards run by an e-money institution, priced per user. Plans are Start £8, Build £14, Optimise £18 per user per month (Build and Optimise billed yearly, 3-user minimum). The cards are Prepaid e-money cards funded from your bank; an optional credit limit (£5k / £20k / £100k by plan) for eligible customers. Non-sterling fees are 2.00% / 1.75% / 1.49% by plan, ATM fees are £5 per withdrawal on Start; free on Build and Optimise, and there are no rewards on spend.

What you get for the per-seat fee is the workflow: receipt capture at the point of purchase, approvals, per-person budgets and a bookkeeping export. For a company with ten or more staff spending regularly and a finance person enforcing a policy, that workflow can be worth more than 1% cashback. For a team of three, Capital on Tap’s free employee cards with limits per billing period or per transaction do most of the job at no cost. Capital on Tap vs Pleo sets out the break-even.

Also considered: Funding Circle Cashback, Zempler and Metro Bank

Funding Circle Cashback Business Credit Card. The closest like-for-like rival to Capital on Tap: £0 fee, 0% non-sterling fee, and 2% cashback for 6 months (capped at £2,000), then 1% uncapped. Eligibility is tighter: Limited companies only; at least one year trading; £30,000+ turnover, with a personal guarantee. The representative APR is 34.9% APR representative (variable); from 14.9%, which is published, unlike Capital on Tap’s. Cash withdrawals are not permitted. Integrations listed are FreeAgent, Xero, Sage. If the 2% introductory rate matters to you and you have a year of accounts, it is worth a look; after six months the two cards earn the same.

Zempler Bank Business Credit Card. £0 fee, 1% cashback on the first £100,000 of eligible spend a month, and sole traders accepted. The interest figures are muddled: the web page and its own summary box disagree (21.9% APR representative (variable) on the web page; the linked summary box says 29.9% representative and a maximum limit of £5,000). The non-sterling fee is 2.99%. We have seen reports that applications are closed; check the page before you plan around it.

Metro Bank Business Credit Card. £0 fee, 18.9% APR representative (variable), no rewards, and a non-sterling fee of 0% in SEPA Europe; 2.99% elsewhere. Eligibility: Metro Bank business or commercial current account required. A sensible no-frills card for Metro customers who travel in Europe; the lack of any cashback rules it out as a first choice.

Tide is often listed alongside these, but Tide does not issue a credit card. Its “business credit card” page offers the Capital on Tap card through Tide as a credit broker. That has a consequence for the referral bonus, which we explain in Capital on Tap vs Tide.

Who should choose which

A last word on carrying a balance. Whatever card you pick, the cheapest interest rate is the one you never pay. The guide to avoiding card interest is short and applies to every card on this page.

How we chose

Every figure on this page was read from the issuer’s own website on 15 September 2026: product pages, summary boxes and, for Capital on Tap, the credit agreement and rewards terms. We do not use comparison-site data or press coverage as a source for a number. Where a site blocked automated reading (Revolut, parts of Starling) we read the page in a browser and say so. Where a product page does not state something, the table says “not stated” rather than guessing.

We do not take paid placements, we have no affiliate relationship with any issuer, and the only commercial link on this site is a single Capital on Tap referral link that pays 7,500 points to each side after a first transaction. That bonus is the same whatever we write about the card, which is why the credit-limit problem gets its own page. Capital on Tap figures were checked on 15 September 2026. Our editorial policy covers how we re-check and correct. If you spot a change in any card’s terms, tell us.