Capital on Tap review: a few years on the free card, honestly

Verdict, up front

Two disclosures before anything else. First, if you apply through this site’s link or code, Capital on Tap pays us 7,500 points and pays you the same; that is our only income and the referral code page explains it in full. Second, this review covers the free card only. Where I talk about Pro, I am working from Capital on Tap’s published figures, not experience, and I say so.

Every figure below is taken from Capital on Tap’s own pages, terms and credit agreement, with the date we last checked at the bottom of the page. Where a figure is not published, such as a representative APR, I say that rather than borrowing one from another site.

Who it is for, and who should look elsewhere

It suits you if:

• You run a UK Ltd, LLP or PLC with £24,000 minimum annual turnover, and a director or 25%+ shareholder is willing to give a personal guarantee.
• You pay the statement in full every month, so the interest rate is irrelevant and the 1% cashback is pure margin.
• A meaningful share of your spend is in foreign currency: US software, overseas contractors, ad platforms billing in dollars. 0% non-sterling transaction fee on a free card is unusual.
• You have staff who need to spend, or a pile of subscriptions you want to separate onto individual cards with individual limits.
• You want card transactions to land in Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent or Sage without anyone typing.

It does not suit you if:

• You are a sole trader or ordinary partnership. Capital on Tap is not available to sole traders; the sole trader guide covers the cards that are.
• You need a five-figure limit immediately to fund stock or a large project. You might get it, but you should not plan on it.
• You expect to carry a balance for months at a time. The rate is variable, unpublished until you are offered it, and there are cheaper ways to borrow.
• Your spending is mostly on things where you value Section 75 protection, or where suppliers only take Amex-style charge card arrangements.
• You want premium travel perks. Those live on Pro at £299 a year, and the maths only works at a certain spend.

Applying: what to expect

The application is online and short. Capital on Tap asks for “basic personal and business details, including your registered Companies House number”, plus your average monthly turnover and business bank details. The headline claim is a decision in around two minutes; the FAQ qualifies it with “In some cases, we may email you within one business day to request further information to complete our review.” Identity verification uses a passport or driving licence and works best on a phone.

On credit searches, the FAQ is precise, and it is worth quoting because a lot of third-party pages get it wrong: “We only need to conduct a soft search on your personal credit file at application, which only you can see and which doesn’t affect your score. We carry out a hard search on your business’s credit file when you sign your credit agreement.” So the hard mark is on the company, and only once you have accepted an offer.

You sign two things: the revolving credit facility agreement and, for anyone who joined after May 2024, the E-Money Facility Agreement that enables preloading. You also give a personal guarantee; the FAQ defines it as “a legally binding agreement from a company director or shareholder to be personally responsible for repaying the company’s credit card debt if the business is unable to.” Our guarantee guide goes into what that means in practice.

Once approved, you can create a virtual card in the portal and spend immediately. The physical card arrives in physical card in 2 to 5 business days, you activate it in the portal, and the FAQ notes you must “complete a chip and PIN transaction before using contactless”. The full walk-through, including where the referral code goes, is in the application guide.

Cashback and redemption

The earning rule is simple: 1 point per £1, and 1 point = 1p (1,000 points = £10). Capital on Tap markets this as 1% cashback with no cap, and that is accurate. The details are in the Rewards Terms and Conditions, and a few of them matter more than the headline.

• Rounding. Points are calculated with each transaction rounded down to the nearest pound. A £9.99 subscription earns 9 points, not 10. Across hundreds of small transactions that is a small, permanent haircut.
• What does not earn. no points on cash withdrawals or fees. Bill Pay earns only on the 2% fee option.
• Refunds. points are cancelled on refunded purchases, and the terms warn this “may result in a negative Points balance”.
• Expiry and forfeiture. Points expire after 24 months with no earning or redeeming, and points can be lost if you are more than 14 days late. Redemptions are irreversible.

Redemption options are balance credit, cash, gift cards, Avios, Virgin Points or Radisson Rewards. Cash to your bank account needs £10 minimum for cash to a bank account and is paid within two business days. Airline conversion on the free card is 10 points = 8 Avios on the free card; the 1:1 rate is a Pro benefit. The rewards page compares the options and the cashback calculator turns your monthly spend into a yearly figure.

Employee cards and virtual cards

This is the feature that makes the card worth having for a business with more than one person. Capital on Tap offers unlimited free employee cards with per-card limits, with limits per billing period or per transaction. Virtual cards are created in the portal and usable at once. There is no per-card fee, no cap on the number, and no separate application for each cardholder.

Controls are per card. You can set a spending limit for a billing period or a per-transaction maximum, block ATM withdrawals on a card, freeze it, and view or change its PIN. Employees activate their own physical card by logging into their own Capital on Tap account, which the FAQ notes lets them “view their PIN and transaction history” but, on the Employee role, “only see their own activity”. There are three roles: Administrator, Accounts (for a bookkeeper, who can manage the accounting integration but not business settings) and Employee.

A newer addition is Receipt Chaser, which sends cardholders reminders to upload receipts, daily or every Monday. Transactions without a receipt can be marked as lost, though the FAQ is careful to say that “may not meet official tax or regulatory requirements”.

Accounting sync

Capital on Tap connects directly to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and more. The FAQ describes what the connection does: it “creates an automatic data feed that syncs all your financial activity (card payments, refunds, interest charges, etc.) to your accounting software every 12 hours”. You set it up from the Accounting page in the portal, and you disconnect it from the accounting package’s side. There is also a CSV export for anything else, and the Instant Savings account can be linked to Xero, Sage and FreeAgent alongside the card.

First-time Xero subscribers are offered 6 months of Xero free for first-time subscribers through Capital on Tap, which is a genuine saving if you were going to buy Xero anyway and irrelevant if you were not.

Bill Pay

Bill Pay lets you pay a supplier who does not take cards from your credit line. In Capital on Tap’s words: “Bill Pay is a feature that allows you to pay suppliers and bills via bank transfer directly from your Capital on Tap account, even if the recipient doesn’t accept card payments.” You upload an invoice, confirm the extracted details, and schedule the payment, which goes out as a BACS transfer.

It costs money. The two options are 2% fee, earning 1% back in points (net 1%) or 1% fee with no points (net 1%); either way the net cost is 1% of the invoice. Pro customers get to net 0.75% for Pro on preloaded spend or Daily Repay. There are two structural warnings in the FAQ: Bill Pay payments have no chargeback rights, and “once a Bill Pay payment has been authorised by you for immediate processing, it cannot be cancelled”. It also has its own agreement to sign.

Whether the fee is worth paying depends on what you are buying: the gap between paying the supplier and your statement due date on a big invoice, plus the points, against a net 1% cost. Our HMRC and suppliers guide runs the numbers, including what HMRC itself charges for card payments.

The app and the portal

There is an iOS and Android app and a web portal, and they do the same things: balance and available credit, transactions with receipt upload, card controls, PIN viewing, freezing, Apple Pay and Google Pay setup, statements as PDF or CSV, a points history, repayments and, if you run more than one company through Capital on Tap, a switcher between them without logging out. Capital on Tap quotes 4.9/5 on the App Store and Google Play (Capital on Tap's own figure); treat that as its number, not ours.

One security feature is worth knowing before you need it. If someone calls claiming to be Capital on Tap, the FAQ says “A security banner will appear at the top of the app screen to confirm you are on a genuine call with us. If you do not see this banner, hang up and call the number on the back of your card.” Capital on Tap also states it will never ask for your password or one-time passcodes.

Fees

The free card has very few charges, and the ones it has are in the credit agreement rather than a marketing page. The fees and APR page has the complete table; these are the ones that come up.

Two things to read carefully. The late payment charge is £0 charge for missing the minimum payment, but that is not the same as no consequence: points can be forfeited after 14 days in arrears, the account can be suspended, and the agreement passes on reasonable enforcement, legal and tracing costs. And the £0 ATM fee is real, but interest on cash withdrawals from the day you take them, so cash is never free.

Interest, and the representative APR that does not exist

Capital on Tap advertises rates as low as 13.86% APR (variable) and does not publish a representative APR. We checked the homepage, card page, cashback page, Pro page, FAQ, rates guide and the credit agreement; none states one. Third-party sites quote a range of conflicting figures, and we do not repeat any of them. Your rate depends on your personal and business credit history and the Bank of England base rate, and you see it when you are offered the card, not before.

The rate is built as your fixed business rate plus the Bank of England Bank Rate. The FAQ adds that it “can only change at the start of a new billing period” and that Capital on Tap will “never pass on a negative Bank Rate”. None of it matters if you pay in full: the credit agreement says there is no interest on purchases if you pay the statement balance in full by the due date. Repayment is by Direct Debit, monthly on the due date or weekly, with a choice of minimum, fixed amount or full balance, and Smart Repay can run daily bank-transfer repayments for eligible accounts. You cannot change the payment due date.

Why no representative APR? Lending to limited companies is not regulated consumer credit, so the rule that requires a representative rate does not apply in the way it does to a personal card. That is the same reason Section 75 does not apply. The avoid interest guide covers how to make sure the rate is never your problem.

The credit limit: the part most reviews skip

Capital on Tap advertises credit limits up to £250,000. That is the top of the range, and it is the number that sticks in people’s heads. What you are actually offered is set from your turnover, affordability and credit history at application, and for a small business it can be a good deal smaller than you were picturing.

Here is what Capital on Tap itself says about how limits move, because it is more candid than most of the third-party coverage.

• Automatic reviews. automatic account reviews for higher limits: “We automatically review your account on a regular basis to see if we can offer a higher credit limit or a lower interest rate. These reviews consider factors like timely repayments and affordability. We will always email you if we can improve your account terms.”
• Manual reviews. You can ask, in the portal under Your account, then Credit limits and rates, or by phone. But a manual review can lower your limit as well as raise it: “Please be aware that a manual review may result in a higher limit, a lower limit, or a change in your interest rate.” That sentence should give anyone pause before asking on a whim.
• Timing. Capital on Tap’s own credit-limit guide says lenders, including Capital on Tap, “prefer to see at least 3 to 6 months of consistent, on-time payment history” between requests.
• What helps. The same guide lists regular use, on-time repayments, an active Direct Debit, current Companies House filings, an Open Banking connection and a clean record elsewhere. Open Banking in particular: Open Banking data is used to assess limit increases, and the FAQ says linked accounts help Capital on Tap “assess your account for automatic credit limit increases”.

The workaround Capital on Tap offers is preloading: Preloading lets you spend beyond your limit with your own money. You transfer money from your business account to your Capital on Tap account and spend it through the card, earning points on the way. It solves the practical problem of a big purchase that will not fit under the limit. It does not solve the problem of wanting credit, because it is your own money. There is also no over-limit fee (the card is declined instead), which is better than a fee but still a declined card at the till.

The whole subject has its own page: Capital on Tap credit limit: why it starts low and how increases really work. If you are borrowing rather than spending, the card vs loan vs overdraft guide is the more important read.

Support

Capital on Tap advertises 24/7 UK-based phone support on 020 8962 7401, plus live chat and email at contact@capitalontap.com, with an emailed reply promised within four business hours. Chat hours are stated differently in different places on Capital on Tap’s own site: the FAQ footer says 24/7, the complaints page says in-app chat runs 8am to 8pm. Phone is the channel that is consistently described as round the clock, and it is also the fraud line.

Complaints have a defined route: final response within 15 business days (35 in exceptional cases), and complaints can go to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The is Capital on Tap legit page covers the complaints procedure, the regulatory position and who the company actually is.

Pro, from the numbers rather than experience

I have not held Pro, so this is research. Pro costs £299 a year, billed annually. For that you get 1.25% on preloaded spend (and Daily Repay via Smart Repay) while ordinary credit spend stays at 1% on ordinary credit spend, same as the free card; a 1:1 rate into Avios and Virgin Points instead of the free card’s 10:8; unlimited Priority Pass lounge access for the main cardholder with two free guest passes a year, then £30 per guest per visit; a metal card; and Times digital subscription, Radisson Rewards VIP, Go Privilege Silver and priority support. New Pro customers can earn 10,000 bonus points when you spend £5,000 in the first 3 months.

Capital on Tap’s own break-even figures are £23,920 of preloaded or Daily Repay spend at 1.25% or £29,900 of ordinary credit spend at 1%. Those cover the fee through cashback alone, which is a generous way to frame it, because the extra quarter-point only applies to preloaded spend, meaning money you have already put in. The honest way to value Pro is: how many lounge visits would you actually make, how much do you value 1:1 Avios over 10:8, and do you already have Priority Pass through something else? The Pro break-even page does that properly.

Alternatives, and who should pick them

No card is right for everyone, and the honest thing is to say who should choose something else.

• American Express Business Gold, for points chasers who pay in full. A charge card designed to be paid in full each month, with a stronger points ecosystem and a welcome bonus. The trade-offs are a fee (£0 in year one, then £195), a 2.99% non-sterling fee, and narrower acceptance. Ltd and LLP only, like Capital on Tap. Full comparison: Capital on Tap vs Amex Business.
• Barclaycard Select Cashback, for sole traders. £0 fee, accepts sole traders, and a published representative APR (25.5% APR representative (variable)). The cashback is 1% cashback, uncapped, but only in months when you spend more than £2,000, and the non-sterling fee is 2.99%. If you are a sole trader this is the closest like-for-like. Comparison: Capital on Tap vs Barclaycard Business.
• Revolut Business or Starling, for multi-currency debit. Not credit cards. If your real need is holding and spending in several currencies, or paying overseas suppliers by transfer, a multi-currency business account solves it better than any credit card, and you can run one alongside Capital on Tap. Revolut states it does not provide credit at all. Comparison: Capital on Tap vs Revolut Business.
• Your bank’s card, for simplicity. NatWest, Lloyds and HSBC business cards are easier if you already bank there and do not care about rewards or FX, but most charge a per-card fee and a non-sterling fee. Comparison: Capital on Tap vs high-street banks.

The best business credit cards UK roundup puts all of these side by side, and says plainly where Capital on Tap is not the pick.

Pros and cons

Final verdict

For a UK limited company that pays its statement in full and spends on software, advertising, travel and suppliers, the free Capital on Tap card is very hard to beat on cost: it charges nothing, gives 1% cashback back, and adds nothing on foreign currency. The employee and virtual cards, and the accounting feed, are the features that make it a working tool rather than a piece of plastic. I have used it for a few years and would apply again.

The caveat is the one I keep returning to. If a large credit line is the point, this card may disappoint you, and you should read the credit limit page before applying rather than after. If it is not, and you want a free card that does the boring things well, apply, put the Direct Debit on full balance, and check the referral code is in the box so we both get the 7,500 points.

Credit is subject to status and eligibility. 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. Lender: New Wave Capital Limited (trading as Capital on Tap).