Business credit cards with free employee cards: costs, caps and controls compared

The short answer

• A limited company or LLP with several people who spend: Capital on Tap. It offers unlimited free employee cards with per-card limits, with limits per billing period or per transaction, on a card with £0 annual fee. There is no fee to add a tenth card or a thirtieth.
• An established company that wants unlimited free cards and a different lender: Funding Circle also offers employee cards that are unlimited and free (it labels the feature Beta), but needs a year of trading.
• A director who wants Amex points on staff spend: American Express Business Gold, with up to 20 complimentary employee cards, on a charge card with an annual fee of £0 in year one, then £195.
• A sole trader: Barclaycard Select Cashback has free employee cards and accepts sole traders; so do several bank cards, for a fee per card.
• A business that wants receipts and approvals more than credit: an expense platform such as Pleo, priced per user; see Capital on Tap vs Pleo.

I use Capital on Tap’s additional cards in my own small agency, on the free tier, and I have used its accounting sync for a few years. I have not held the other cards on this page; their sections are research from the issuers’ pages.

Employee cards compared

Of the 19 cards below Capital on Tap, 7 describe employee cards as free or complimentary, and for 3 (Metro Bank Business Credit Card, Zempler Bank Business Credit Card, iwoca Credit Card) our data does not state the terms. “Free” can still sit on top of an annual fee for the main card or account, which is why that column is shown separately.

What 10 employee cards cost a year

Per-card fees look small on a product page. Multiplied across a team they are not. The table below takes each issuer’s stated employee-card price and works out the cost of 10 cards. It is illustrative, and the assumptions are listed on each row: where a bank waives its fee in the first year or above a spending threshold, we show the cost once the free year has ended and assume the waiver is not met. Account-level fees for the main card are not included; they are in the table above.

The spread is the point. Capital on Tap, Funding Circle, Barclaycard and American Express charge nothing for the cards themselves; the bank cards that charge per card run to hundreds of pounds a year for a team of 10; Santander simply cannot issue that many; and an expense platform priced per user costs the most, because the subscription is the product. Our list of free business credit cards covers the account fees too.

Capital on Tap’s employee cards

Capital on Tap’s card page puts it simply: “Unlimited, free employee cards”. Its FAQ adds: “Yes, you can have an unlimited number of employee cards on your account at no extra cost.” Controls are limits per billing period or per transaction, so you can give a junior member of staff a small per-transaction cap and a manager a larger monthly one. Alongside the physical cards it offers instant virtual cards, which suit software subscriptions: one virtual card per supplier means you can cut one off without disrupting the rest. Our guide to virtual cards for subscriptions explains the set-up.

Employee spend sits on the company’s account and syncs to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and more, syncs every 12 hours. The account is the company’s, so there is one statement and one repayment; Capital on Tap charges no interest on purchases if you pay the statement balance in full by the due date. It advertises rates as low as 13.86% APR (variable) and does not publish a representative APR. It takes a Ltd, LLP or PLC and is not available to sole traders.

American Express and Barclaycard

American Express Business Gold: Up to 20 complimentary, with limits you set; the main Cardmember is liable for their spending. The card itself costs £0 in year one, then £195, and it is a charge card, so the whole balance, staff spend included, is due each month. Amex also notes that company liability supported by a personal guarantee applies to employee card charges. Business Platinum gives complimentary Business Gold employee cards plus one complimentary Platinum employee card, on a card costing £650. The two are compared on Amex Business Gold vs Platinum. Amex tools include expense reports and export to QuickBooks and Xero from the online account.

Barclaycard Select Cashback: employee cards are free; administrators set each cardholder’s limit; number not stated. Barclaycard’s customer guide lists: MyControls spending categories, card freezing and ATM controls, the Barclaycard for Business app, downloadable transaction reports; no accounting integration named. Premium Plus: employee cards are free, on an account costing £150 per account. Both accept sole traders, which Capital on Tap does not.

Bank cards: per-card fees and caps

Most high-street bank cards charge per card, and the fee applies to each employee card as well as yours. NatWest’s standard card is £30 per card; free in year one and waived with £6,000+ annual spend; the NatWest Business Plus card charges £70 a year per cardholder, with no free first year, including for startups. Lloyds charges £32 per cardholder; free for the first 12 months and waived with £6,000+ annual spend; Bank of Scotland £32 per cardholder after year one (same spend waiver); HSBC £32 per card after year one. Virgin Money: Unlimited, each with its own limit; £28 a card after year one. The Co-operative Bank offers additional cards on the same limit; cost not stated; its annual fee is £24, and the page does not say whether the fee is per card or per account.

Santander is the outlier in the other direction. Its Business Cashback card allows up to 3 additional cardholders (4 cards in total), no extra fee; every director or partner must hold one. That suits a two-director company and nothing larger; there is no way to give 10 staff their own cards. On personal guarantees, Santander says: Required from all directors or members of a Ltd or LLP. Our Santander Business Cashback review covers the rest.

Funding Circle: Unlimited and free (a feature Funding Circle labels Beta); only a director can issue them. iwoca: our data does not state employee-card terms. Pleo: 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. Wise Business: £3 one-off per team card, on a debit card that spends your own balance, with mid-market rate plus a conversion fee from 0.24%; free to spend a currency you already hold.

Physical or virtual: which card for which job

Free employee cards change how you think about them. When each card costs money, you ration them: one card for the office manager, everyone else claims expenses. When they cost nothing, the question becomes which kind of card suits each kind of spending.

• People who buy things in person (site visits, client lunches, travel) need a physical card in their own name, with a monthly limit that matches their role.
• Recurring software and online services are better on virtual cards, one per supplier. If a supplier is breached or you cancel the service, you cancel that card alone and nothing else breaks.
• One-off online purchases, such as a piece of equipment or a conference ticket, suit a virtual card with a tight per-transaction limit, cancelled afterwards.
• Contractors or temporary staff are better served with a low-limit card you can close when the engagement ends than with access to someone else’s card details.

On a card that charges per card, that approach is expensive, so businesses share cards and lose the audit trail. On a card with free, unlimited cards it costs nothing, and every transaction is tied to a person or a supplier. Our guide to employee cards and spend controls goes through setting limits and writing a simple card policy.

Spend controls, receipts and accounting sync

Free cards are only useful if you can control them. The controls worth checking are per-card limits, the ability to freeze a card instantly, merchant or category restrictions, and how transactions reach your accounts.

• Capital on Tap: limits per billing period or per transaction, set per card in the portal; instant virtual cards; sync to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and more, syncs every 12 hours.
• Barclaycard: MyControls spending categories, card freezing and ATM controls, the Barclaycard for Business app, downloadable transaction reports; no accounting integration named.
• American Express: Expense reports and export to QuickBooks and Xero from the online account; employee card limits you set.
• Virgin Money: each employee card has its own limit. Co-operative Bank: additional cards share the same limit.
• Funding Circle: only a director can issue them; integrations with FreeAgent, Xero, Sage.
• Pleo: Accounting integrations (Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and others listed on Pleo's site) (not yet verified against Pleo’s own page).

Receipt capture differs a lot between providers, and it is where expense platforms such as Pleo earn their subscription. For a credit card, the practical question is whether transactions land in your accounting software automatically so that you or your bookkeeper can attach receipts there; our guide to syncing cards with Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent covers how each package handles it.

Who pays if an employee misuses a card

On a business credit card, the account belongs to the company, so everything an employee spends is the company’s debt. If the company cannot pay, a personal guarantee moves that debt to the director. Capital on Tap: personal guarantee required. American Express, for Business Gold, says the main Cardmember is liable for their spending, and company liability supported by a personal guarantee applies to employee card charges. Santander: Required from all directors or members of a Ltd or LLP.

So an employee card is a slice of your own credit, and a limit is the only real protection. Set per-card limits to what the job needs, use virtual cards for recurring payments so a leaked number can be killed without replacing anything else, cancel cards the day someone leaves, and have a written card policy that staff sign. Misuse by an employee is an employment matter between you and them; it does not usually change what the company owes the card issuer. The guide to director personal guarantees explains what you are signing.

Who should choose which

For a limited company with a growing team, the cost difference is structural: unlimited free employee cards on Capital on Tap against a fee per card, every year, on most bank cards. That is why it is the card I use. The full field of cards is on compare UK business credit cards; iwoca, the other new lender, is there too, although our data does not yet cover its employee cards.