Amex Business Gold review: a researched look for UK limited companies

Verdict: who it suits and who should skip it

Amex Business Gold is a points card with a first-year fee waiver. If your company spends heavily on things Amex is accepted for, pays in full every month and will actually use Membership Rewards points, particularly by transferring them to an airline or hotel scheme, it can earn its fee back. If your spend is modest, lands with suppliers who do not take Amex, or goes abroad in other currencies, the fee and the 2.99% non-sterling charge work against you.

• Suits: a limited company or LLP with steady UK spend at merchants who take Amex, a director who values points and travel perks, and a business happy to pay the balance in full each month.
• Suits, as a first-year trial: anyone curious about Membership Rewards, since the fee is £0 in year one, then £195. Put a note in the diary to decide before the fee arrives.
• Skip if: you are a sole trader (not eligible), most of your spend is non-sterling, your key suppliers do not accept Amex, or you want a simple cashback card with no fee to think about.

There are no scores or star ratings here. The honest summary is that this card is good at one thing, turning UK spend into flexible points, and weaker at being the only card in a business’s wallet.

Key facts

Every line below is taken from the American Express product page or its benefit terms on 28 October 2026.

The annual fee: free in year one, then a fee

American Express lists the fee as £0 in year one, then £195. The first year is a genuine free trial of the card, the points and the perks. The question is year two. A fee is only worth paying if what you get back, in points you will redeem and perks you will use, is worth more than the fee to you. That is a personal calculation: someone who transfers points to an airline for a long-haul flight gets far more from each point than someone who takes a statement credit.

One perk helps the sums directly for bigger spenders: £100 Amex Travel credit per £40,000 spent (up to £200 a year); Indeed and Dell credits; travel accident, purchase and refund protection (all subject to change). If your company already puts that much through a card, the travel credit offsets part of the fee. If it does not, it will not. Capital on Tap’s free card, by comparison, has a £0 annual fee in every year, earns 1 point per £1 and has no fee to justify.

Membership Rewards: earning, transferring and redeeming

The card earns 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 (2 per £1 with Amex Travel). Points go into Membership Rewards, American Express’s own scheme, rather than into a single airline or hotel programme. That flexibility is the main attraction.

Transfers. Points transfer to partners including British Airways, Marriott Bonvoy and Virgin Atlantic; minimums and increments vary. Transferring is where points usually go furthest, because an airline seat or hotel night can be worth more than the same points taken as credit. It also takes effort: you need an account with the partner scheme, you need to find availability, and you pay taxes and charges on reward flights. Our guide to Avios for business spend explains how that side works.

Other redemptions. Redeem points for travel, gift cards, to pay the bill or as a statement credit. These are simpler but, as a rule, give less value per point. We do not put a pence-per-point figure on Membership Rewards, because American Express does not publish one for the business cards and any figure depends entirely on what you redeem for.

For comparison, Capital on Tap earns 1 point per £1 and you can take it as balance credit, cash, gift cards, Avios, Virgin Points or Radisson Rewards. Its Avios conversion on the free card is 10 points = 8 Avios on the free card. That is a simpler scheme with fewer partners, but it has no annual fee attached.

Welcome bonus and its conditions

The advertised welcome offer is 40,000 points plus a £100 Selfridges eGift Card after £6,000 in 3 months (limited offer for applications by 12 January 2027; the page strikes through 20,000). Read the conditions before you count on it: not available if you have held a Membership Rewards business card in the last 24 months; bonus can take up to a month; offers can be withdrawn at any time. The look-back rule matters if you have held another Membership Rewards business card recently, Business Platinum included. Plan your spend so that you hit the target inside the window with purchases you were going to make anyway; buying things to reach a bonus rarely pays.

A charge card, with an optional line of credit

Business Gold is a charge card. The balance is due in full each month, and the product page states interest-free credit of up to 54 days on purchases (the balance must be paid in full). The interest line on the page reads: charge card: pay in full monthly. Optional Flexible Payment Option at 29.1% p.a. variable; no representative APR shown.

The borrowing option works like this: a line of credit via the Flexible Payment Option arrives with the card, at a 29.1% p.a. variable purchase rate. That is useful as a safety valve for a large purchase in a tight month, but it is an expensive way to borrow, and you should treat the card as pay-in-full by default. The credit card vs charge card guide covers the practical differences, including how each affects cash flow.

On spending power, American Express says: no pre-set spending limit; spending power is set by Amex and adjusts. That can suit a business with irregular large purchases, because there is no fixed ceiling to plan around, but it is not a promise that any particular transaction will be approved.

Capital on Tap is a credit card rather than a charge card. There is no interest on purchases if you pay the statement balance in full by the due date, and if you do carry a balance, Capital on Tap advertises rates as low as 13.86% APR (variable). It does not publish a representative APR.

Acceptance: the practical catch

Amex acceptance is narrower than Visa in the UK and abroad. As a general pattern, acceptance tends to be good at large retailers, airlines, hotels and big online services, and patchier with smaller suppliers, trades and some overseas merchants, which may choose not to take Amex for cost reasons. Before you apply, look at your last few months of card spend and ask how much of it went to places that accept Amex. If the answer is “most of it”, the card works. If it is “about half”, you will need a second card anyway.

Non-sterling fees

The product page’s benefit terms state a non-sterling transaction fee of 2.99%. For a business paying for US software, hosting or advertising in dollars, that adds up: on £1,000 a month of non-sterling spend, a 2.99% fee is about £30 a month. The fee comfortably outweighs the points earned on the same spend. Our list of business cards with no foreign transaction fee is the place to look if a meaningful share of your spend is in other currencies.

Perks and protections (subject to change)

American Express lists: £100 Amex Travel credit per £40,000 spent (up to £200 a year); Indeed and Dell credits; travel accident, purchase and refund protection (all subject to change). The travel credit is the one with a clear cash value, and only if your spend reaches the threshold. The Indeed and Dell credits are worth something only if you already buy from those companies. The protections are useful to have but read the policy terms for exclusions and claim limits. Treat every perk as something that could be changed or withdrawn; none of them is a reason on its own to take the card.

Eligibility and application

American Express lists the card as for a Ltd or LLP only; director or member; £20,000+ personal income. Sole traders are not eligible. To apply you need: current UK business bank account; aged 18+; permanent UK home address; £20,000+ personal income; director or member of a Ltd or LLP. The personal-income requirement applies to the director applying, not to the company.

On liability, the page says: company liability supported by a personal guarantee applies to Employee Card charges. In other words, a director is personally on the hook for employee spending. Capital on Tap’s terms are similar: personal guarantee required; the personal guarantee guide explains what signing one means.

Employee cards and accounting

Employee cards: up to 20 complimentary, with limits you set; the main Cardmember is liable for their spending. For most small companies that is plenty. Tools: expense reports and export to QuickBooks and Xero from the online account. That is an export rather than a live feed, which is fine for a monthly bookkeeping routine but more manual than a direct sync. Our page on business cards with employee cards compares how issuers handle this.

Capital on Tap offers unlimited free employee cards with per-card limits and syncs to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and more. I use its card controls and the accounting sync in my own agency; the feed does the reconciliation legwork without an export step.

How it pairs with a Visa

Because of the acceptance gap and the 2.99% non-sterling fee, a common set-up is Amex for UK spend where it is accepted, and a Visa for everything else. The ideal second card for that job has no annual fee (so it costs nothing to hold as a backup), no foreign transaction fee (so it handles dollar and euro spend), and its own rewards so the spend is not wasted.

Capital on Tap fits that description: £0 annual fee, 0% non-sterling transaction fee, 1 point per £1, on the Visa network. It is open to a Ltd, LLP or PLC and not available to sole traders, so it has the same audience as Amex Business Gold. Our Capital on Tap vs Amex Business comparison goes into the split in detail. It is the card I use, and we earn a referral bonus if you apply through our link.

Alternatives

• American Express Business Platinum: £650 a year, 1 point per £1 (2 per £1 with Amex Travel); £600 Amex Travel credit, £300 Indeed and £150 Dell statement credits, and a welcome offer of 100,000 points plus a £150 Selfridges eGift Card after £12,000 in 3 months (limited offer for applications by 12 January 2027; the page strikes through 50,000). It only makes sense if you will use the credits and travel benefits. See Amex Business Gold vs Platinum.
• British Airways Amex Accelerating Business: a credit card rather than a charge card, with a £250 fee, earning 1.25 Avios per £1 (cut from 1.5 on 7 October 2026); 10,000 bonus Avios per £20,000 spent (up to three times a year). It accepts sole traders, which Business Gold does not.
• Capital on Tap: £0 annual fee, 1 point per £1, 0% non-sterling transaction fee, unlimited free employee cards with per-card limits. Limited companies and LLPs only.

The full field, credit and charge cards together, is on our business credit cards hub, and our shortlist is on best business credit cards UK.