“Your money is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). That’s because it’s safeguarded instead.”
That sentence is Revolut’s, taken from its own help centre page on how business money is protected, checked this morning. It is the whole review in one line, and it is the thing a freelancer comparing Revolut against Starling or Monzo has to weigh before looking at a single feature.
Revolut won its full UK banking licence and left the mobilisation stage earlier this year, and its personal current accounts are moving onto the bank entity with FSCS cover up to £120,000. Business is a different story. Revolut’s list of FSCS-covered products runs to current accounts, Kids and Teens accounts, Pockets, joint accounts and Pro accounts. Business accounts are not on it.
So this is a review of a very good payments tool that is not, for business customers, a protected deposit account. Both halves of that are true and both matter.
Safeguarding versus FSCS, in plain terms
Safeguarding means Revolut places an amount equivalent to your balance either in a dedicated client money account held with a large global bank, or in low-risk liquid assets held in a dedicated client asset account. Your money is legally separated from Revolut’s own funds. If Revolut failed, that pool is meant to be returned to customers.
FSCS is different in one specific way that matters when things go wrong: speed and certainty. The FSCS pays eligible depositors up to £120,000 per person per banking firm, usually within days, and you are not waiting on an administrator to unpick a client money pool. Safeguarded funds are not compensated by a scheme. They are recovered through an insolvency process, minus costs, on someone else’s timetable.
Nobody is predicting a Revolut failure. The point is narrower: two accounts that look identical in an app can behave very differently on the worst day of your business life. We set the distinction out at length in e-money accounts versus bank accounts, and the mechanics of the compensation limit in FSCS protection on business accounts.
Practical takeaway. Do not park your Self Assessment reserve in Revolut Business. Keep the tax money in an FSCS-covered account and use Revolut for what it is genuinely excellent at.
The free plan has gone
For years the standard advice was that a freelancer could run Revolut Business on the free tier and pay only for what they used. That advice is out of date. On 27 August 2026 Revolut’s UK business pricing page lists four tiers and the cheapest of them costs £10 a month. There is no free option displayed anywhere on it.
If you read a comparison article that still shows a Revolut Business “Free” plan, it was written against an older price list. Check the live page before you plan around it.
Plans and prices
| Plan | Advertised price | Interbank FX allowance | Free local transfers | Free international transfers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | £10 a month | £1,000 a month | 10 | 0 |
| Grow | From £30 a month | £15,000 a month | 100 | 5 |
| Scale | From £90 a month | £60,000 a month | 1,000 | 25 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
One caveat on those “from” figures. The plans page advertises Grow from £30 and Scale from £90, which reflects an annual commitment. Revolut’s own help centre article on its newer business pricing lists Grow at £35 a month and Scale at £125 a month. Both pages were live today. If you pay monthly, budget for the higher numbers.
Basic at £10 a month is £120 a year for an account with no deposit protection, no interest, and ten free local transfers. Starling and Mettle cost nothing and are covered by the FSCS. That comparison is brutal, and it is the honest one to draw for a UK-only freelancer.
How that stacks up against the free UK accounts
Side by side, the gap is not subtle. Two of Revolut’s closest UK rivals charge nothing at all for the core account and carry full deposit protection.
| Account | Entry monthly fee | Deposit protection | Cash deposits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revolut Business Basic | £10 | Safeguarded, not FSCS | No standard route |
| Starling sole trader | £0 | FSCS up to £120,000 | £3 or 0.7%, whichever is higher |
| Monzo Business Lite | £0 | FSCS up to £120,000 | £1 per deposit, £3,000 a month for sole traders |
| Mettle | £0 | FSCS up to £120,000 | £2.75 per Post Office deposit |
Revolut loses that table on every column except the one it was built for, which is the next section.
Where Revolut earns its fee: foreign exchange
The FX allowance is the product. Within your monthly allowance, Revolut converts at the interbank rate — the rate banks quote each other, with no spread bolted on. Basic gives you £1,000 of that a month, Grow £15,000, Scale £60,000. Go past the allowance and a markup applies.
Put a number on it. A designer invoicing a US client $4,000 a month is converting roughly £3,000. High street business accounts commonly take a spread of around 2 to 3 per cent on that conversion, which is £60 to £90 gone every month before any transfer fee. Grow’s £15,000 allowance swallows that conversion whole. At £35 a month you are ahead, and comfortably.
Flip the same maths for a UK copywriter billing UK clients in sterling. FX allowance used: zero. Value of the plan: ten transfers and an app. Paying £120 a year for that is money set on fire.
If you do bill abroad, the tax treatment of that income is a separate question with its own traps, see foreign income for self-employed UK freelancers before your next return.
What Revolut Business is good at
- Multi-currency balances held in one place, so you can hold dollars or euros instead of converting at the worst moment
- Interbank conversion inside the allowance, which is the cheapest rate most freelancers will ever see
- Fast, sane expense and card controls if you eventually have a subcontractor or two
- Genuinely good app design — the payment flow is quicker than any high street business banking app
What it is not good at
- Deposit protection. Safeguarded, not FSCS covered, for business customers
- Cash. There is no realistic route for a business taking notes and coins
- Being your only account. The safeguarding position alone argues for a second, protected account
- Cheap sterling-only banking. Two free rivals do that job better
The verdict
Use Revolut Business as a second account, not a first one. If a meaningful share of your invoices are in dollars or euros, Grow pays for itself several times over and the FX saving is real money you can measure on your next bank statement.
If every client pays you in sterling, skip it. A free FSCS-covered account does everything you need, and our roundup of the best business bank accounts for UK sole traders is the better place to start. Freelancers weighing Revolut chiefly for cross-border work should also read our Wise Business review, which competes for exactly the same job with a different fee model.
Common questions
Is Revolut Business FSCS protected?
No. Revolut’s help centre states plainly that business money is not covered by the FSCS and is safeguarded instead. Revolut’s list of FSCS-covered products does not include business accounts, even though it now holds a full UK banking licence.
Is there still a free Revolut Business plan in the UK?
Not on the live UK pricing page as at 27 August 2026. The cheapest listed plan is Basic at £10 a month.
How much does Revolut Business cost per month?
Basic is £10. Grow is advertised from £30 and listed at £35 in Revolut’s help centre. Scale is advertised from £90 and listed at £125. Enterprise is quoted individually.
Can a sole trader open a Revolut Business account?
Yes, Revolut accepts UK freelancers and sole traders as well as registered companies. The onboarding asks about your trade, your turnover and the countries you deal with.
Should I keep my tax money in Revolut?
Our view is no. Money you are holding on HMRC’s behalf belongs somewhere covered by the FSCS, and Revolut Business is not.
Does Revolut Business take cash deposits?
There is no Post Office or PayPoint cash-in route of the kind Starling, Monzo, Mettle and Tide offer. If you handle notes, this is not your account.
Revolut Business is the outlier here because it is not a bank. Compare it with the FSCS-protected options in our Starling, Monzo and Mettle reviews.
Want to pay yourself a salary from irregular income?
Freelancer Money System 2026/27. Seven modules and five working sheets that pay you a predictable monthly amount out of unpredictable income: the account structure, the percentages, and where every pot should sit.
- A salary set from your trailing twelve-month low, not the average, with the calculator that finds it
- The day-it-lands allocation split, so tax and costs are moved before you can spend them
- The written drought plan for a bad quarter, the FSCS licence checker, and the surplus waterfall for a good year
Normal budgeting assumes a payday. Freelance income does not have one. The fix is not discipline, it is structure, and structure is a one-afternoon job.
Buying more than one? All ten 2026/27 courses for £107, against £328 at full price.
Sources
- Revolut, how is my money protected? (Business) (checked 27 August 2026)
- Revolut Business — account plans and pricing (checked 27 August 2026)
- Revolut — new business pricing plans (checked 27 August 2026)
- Revolut, is Revolut a fully licensed bank in the UK? (checked 27 August 2026)
- FSCS — banks and building societies deposit limit (checked 27 August 2026)
This is general information about Revolut Business, not financial or tax advice. Every price and limit above links to the provider’s own page, with the date it was checked; terms change, so confirm on the live page before you sign up. For your own circumstances, speak to an accountant.