Choosing a business bank account for cafes and restaurants

A week of money in a café

Before you compare any business bank account for cafes, picture how money moves through your week:

1. 1

   Morning: the till float

   You start with a cash float, so you need a source of small change.

2. 2

   Service: cards and cash

   Most customers tap a card or phone. Some pay cash or leave a tip.

3. 3

   A day or two later: card money lands

   Your card provider pays takings into your business bank account for cafes, usually minus its fees.

4. 4

   Once or twice a week: banking the cash

   Someone takes the cash to a Post Office. Fees quietly add up here.

5. 5

   Through the month: suppliers, rent and wages

   Milk, coffee, produce, energy, rent and wages go out by Direct Debit or transfer.

6. 6

   Month end: tips paid out

   Tips must reach staff by a legal deadline.

A business bank account for cafes should make steps 3 to 6 cheap and easy to track. The monthly fee is often the smaller part of the cost.

Cash deposits: what a business bank account for cafes charges

Cash is the biggest difference between a business bank account for cafes and one for, say, a freelance designer. App-based accounts usually let you pay cash in at the Post Office or PayPoint, but they charge for it in different ways: a flat fee, a percentage, or a percentage with a minimum.

Take a café that banks £1,200 of cash twice a week: eight deposits and £9,600 a month.

Flat fees favour banking larger sums less often. Percentage fees don't reward that at all. The order changes with your own numbers, so run your real takings through each tariff before you pick a business bank account for cafes.

Also check deposit limits, not just fees. Zempler lists a £6,000 daily Post Office limit. Starling's own pages give different annual limits in different places, and Starling's eligibility rules exclude some businesses that make "significant cash deposits", so a busy cash café should ask before applying. Tide says PayPoint deposits cost 3%, so the Post Office is usually the cheaper Tide route. Our Tide fees guide lists every Tide cash charge.

Card takings and settlement

Your card machine provider and your bank are often separate businesses. The card provider collects your takings and pays them into whichever account you choose. When you set up a business bank account for cafes, check three things:

• Payout timing. A gap of two or three days matters when suppliers want paying on delivery.
• Net or gross. If fees are removed before payout, your statement shows less than you sold, so keep the provider's reports.
• Incoming payment charges. Tide counts incoming Faster Payments against the Free plan's 5 free transactions a month, then charges 20p each. Daily card payouts could mean 25 to 30 a month, so check this on any business bank account for cafes.

Some business accounts include their own ways to take payment. Tide offers Tap to Pay on your phone on every plan and an optional card reader, and ANNA lists a Dojo card machine partnership. These suit a pop-up stall, though a busy counter may need a dedicated terminal. Our guide to card machines for small business explains the fees.

Tips, the law and your business bank account for cafes

Since 1 October 2024, the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 has applied in England, Scotland and Wales, backed by a statutory code of practice. According to GOV.UK, "By law, all tips must be given to workers without deductions." The code says employers must:

• pass on all tips and service charges to workers without deductions, except in very limited cases such as tax
• pay tips out by the end of the month after the month the customer paid them
• have a written tipping policy if tips are received regularly, and make it available to all workers
• keep records of tips for three years from the date each tip was paid

Workers can request to see the tipping record in writing, once every three months. GOV.UK also notes that workers still pay Income Tax on tips and may pay National Insurance. A revised code was published in 2026 but withdrawn for a new consultation, and GOV.UK says employers should keep following the existing code until further notice.

So how does this affect your business bank account for cafes? Card tips arrive mixed in with your takings. Moving the tip total into a separate pot each week means it's never spent on stock by accident, and a business bank account for cafes with pots makes the three-year record easy to show. Tide's Smart plan adds a second current account. Starling has Spaces, and Mettle and Zempler offer pots. Ask Acas or an accountant about the tax side, including tronc schemes.

Suppliers, staff and a business bank account for cafes

A typical month might include a dairy, a coffee roaster, a bakery, a wholesaler, a waste collector, energy, rent and payroll. For a business bank account for cafes, that volume matters:

Starling and Monzo Business include free UK transfers on their no-fee plans, which suits a café with many suppliers. Monzo's paid Team plan adds expense cards and payment approvals. Tide's Smart plan includes a team card, and Pro and Max include unlimited UK transfers under a fair use policy. To weigh these up side by side, compare business bank accounts using your own monthly counts.

Tide is our featured partner. We may earn commission from referrals. Disclosure

VAT on food and why records matter

VAT on food is tricky, and a reason to run a business bank account for cafes with clean records from day one. HMRC's VAT Notice 709/1 says food and drink for consumption on the premises is standard-rated. Cold takeaway food is generally zero-rated, unless it's a type that's always standard-rated, such as crisps, sweets or bottled water. Hot takeaway food that meets HMRC's tests is standard-rated, and hot takeaway drinks always are.

You only charge VAT once you're registered. GOV.UK says you must register if your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or if you expect it to go over that in the next 30 days alone. A busy café can reach that sooner than expected. Our guide on when to register for VAT covers the tests in more detail.

A separate business bank account for cafes keeps every sale and supplier bill in one place, so eat-in and takeaway splits are easier for your accountant to check. If you're registered, a weekly VAT pot avoids a shock at quarter end.

Checklist for a business bank account for cafes

• I know how much cash I bank each week.
• I've worked out the monthly deposit cost at each provider I'm considering.
• I've checked deposit limits and eligibility.
• I know how often my card provider pays out.
• I have a plan for holding tips separately and paying them out on time.
• I've counted supplier payments and Direct Debits.
• I know how many staff need a card.
• I'm tracking my rolling 12-month turnover against the VAT threshold.

If you already bank elsewhere, our guide to switching business bank account explains how to move without missing a supplier payment.

Business bank account for cafes: FAQs

Sources

• GOV.UK: Code of practice on fair and transparent distribution of tips (checked 25 October 2026)
• GOV.UK: Tips at work and the revised code of practice page (checked 25 October 2026)
• HMRC: Catering, takeaway food (VAT Notice 709/1) (checked 25 October 2026)
• GOV.UK: Starting a food business and Register for VAT (checked 25 October 2026)
• Tide help centre and pricing; Starling, Zempler, Mettle, Monzo and ANNA fee and feature pages (checked 25 October 2026)