We offer business accounts to directors of limited companies and sole traders.
If you're a director of a limited company, your company must be registered with Companies House. If you haven't done this yet, we can register your company for you. We'll handle the process and you'll only have to pay £9.99 of the £50 fee charged by Companies House. We'll cover the rest.
If you're a sole trader or freelancer, you must have a valid UK home address and be registered with HMRC. To register with HMRC, you just need to get in touch at gov.uk and follow the site navigation to let HMRC know you're now self-employed.
We welcome everyone to apply for a Tide account. Our mission is to empower diverse and often under-represented small and medium business owners who lack access to financial services. We don’t discriminate against anyone on the basis of political beliefs, religion, race, or any other characteristic protected by law.
However, we can’t provide services for everyone.
When someone wishes to join Tide, we calculate their risk factors. These risk factors include what type of business they have, how their business makes money and which industry it operates in. If this risk is too high for us to support, we won’t accept their application.
This is to make sure that we keep Tide members safe, that we have the resources to fully support them and their businesses, and that we do our best to support ethical business practices in line with our regulatory requirements.
As a result, we can’t accept anyone whose business is funded fully or in part by regular donations, as these carry specific risks that we are not currently able to service. This is especially true if we or the business owner is unable to trace where these funds are coming from.
We are also unfortunately unable to accept businesses in the following industries:
The holding, managing and/or controlling of a third party’s (client’s/customer’s) funds in the Tide account. This includes using the funds on behalf of other individuals Insurance companies (incl. insurance brokers)
Trading of cryptocurrencies
The wholesale of precious metals and stones
Investments (incl. real estate investments)
Money services (such as foreign exchange, loan providers, money transfers)
Casinos, prize draws and other betting or gambling activities
Sale of unlicensed pharmaceuticals
Sale or trade of cannabidiol (CBD) products
Trading of weapons, explosives or armaments
Unlicensed trading and processing of scrap metal
Unlicensed waste management
Sale, import and export of used vehicles or heavy machinery
Escort services and other services in the adult industry
Bidding fee auctions
Non-profit organisations, including charities CICs and CIOs
We understand that this won’t be good news for some people. But we have to do this so we can fully support the financial strength and safety of our new and existing members.
You’re always welcome to get in touch with us at hello@tide.co if you have any questions or comments about this.
