Which sort of businesses can get a Tide account?

If your client is the director of a company registered with UK Companies House, your client will be eligible for a Registered Business account. UK-based sole traders and freelancers with a valid UK residential address who are registered with HMRC are eligible for a Sole Trader account. For both account types, your client needs to be aged 18 or above, have a valid UK phone number, and hold a device registered to a UK App or Google Play store. We’re on a mission to help businesses owners spend less time on money admin, and we want to enable as many small businesses as possible to do that.

But it’s a balancing act: we can’t take on too many accounts that are in high risk industries as that means we’re not able to focus our time and energy on the rest of our members. As a result and going forwards, we will not be offering current accounts to businesses in the following industries:

• Trading of cryptocurrencies

• Trading of precious metals and stones

• 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

• Unregistered charities and charities that aren’t incorporate

You can read more about this in our blog post: Providing financial security for our members.