How to Set Up Wise Business for a UK Limited Company

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The Plan Decision, and the Fee That Is Not Monthly

Setting up Wise Business for a UK limited company turns on one choice made before you start, and the figure attached to it is widely misreported.

The Advanced plan costs £50 as a one-time set-up fee. It is not £50 a month. Wise Business has no monthly subscription on either plan — pricing is pay-as-you-go, so beyond that one charge you pay only for transfers and conversions you actually make.

The difference is not academic. £50 once against £50 a month is £50 against £600 in year one, and £50 against £1,200 by the end of year two. Any advice about whether the fee is affordable for an early-stage company, or how quickly transfer savings outweigh it, is built on sand if the number is twelve times too high.

The plan structure changed in November 2025, which is probably where the confusion comes from. What changed was the move to Essential and Advanced with a one-off unlock fee — not the introduction of a subscription.

The rest of this guide covers the documents, the verification, the steps, and one legal obligation that sits alongside Wise’s own checks and carries penalties if you miss it.

What Wise Business Is, and Is Not

Wise is an FCA-authorised Electronic Money Institution, not a bank. It holds your money in safeguarded accounts, segregated from its own operational funds in approved institutions.

That is not FSCS protection. The FSCS covers banks, building societies and credit unions to £120,000 per eligible depositor — the limit rose from £85,000 on 1 December 2025. Safeguarding means your money should be returned from the segregated pool, but through an administration process on an uncertain timetable with no guaranteed figure. For a company that lets cash accumulate against a VAT or Corporation Tax bill, that distinction is worth taking seriously.

Wise Business suits a UK limited company that:

Pays international suppliers, contractors or freelancers in foreign currencies
Receives payments in multiple currencies from overseas clients
Wants to hold EUR, USD or AUD balances without converting everything to GBP
Needs to issue spending cards to team members with limits

What you do not get: no overdraft, no business lending, no deposit protection, and no branch or relationship banking. Some businesses and government portals occasionally flag EMI accounts, which is uncommon but worth knowing if you invoice public-sector clients. Advanced does give you a GBP sort code and account number, so ordinary domestic receiving and direct debits work — the gaps are credit and protection, not basic payment plumbing.

Essential vs Advanced: Decide Before You Apply

Essential — Free

Costs nothing to open. It cannot receive payments. No GBP account details, no sort code, no account number, no direct debits. You can send money and hold currency balances, and that is the extent of it.

For a limited company intending to be paid into the account, Essential is not a starting point. It is a different product.

Advanced — £50 One-Off

One payment, charged after approval, unlocking:

GBP account number and sort code for receiving payments
Local account details in other currencies — EUR IBAN, USD routing details and others
Direct debit capability
Invoicing, payment links and QR codes
Team access and card management

Go straight to Advanced if you intend to be paid into the account. Starting on Essential to save money saves nothing, because the fee is one-off either way, and you will be blocked from receiving on day one.

Before You Start: What You Will Need

Wise runs thorough verification, as any FCA-regulated firm must. Having documents ready is the difference between two days and two weeks.

Director Verification

At least one director verifies. You will need:

A valid passport or UK driving licence
Proof of address dated within the last three months — bank statement, utility bill or HMRC letter
A selfie or short video for a biometric check, done in-app or via a link

Beneficial Owners

Anyone holding more than 25% of the shares or voting rights is a Person with Significant Control and verifies on the same basis as a director. Note the threshold is more than 25%, not 25% or more — a holder of exactly a quarter is not caught on the shareholding test alone.

Control without formal ownership also counts. The power to appoint or remove a majority of directors makes someone a PSC regardless of their shareholding, which catches more structures than people expect.

If a company owns your company, Wise will want the ownership traced to the ultimate individual beneficial owners. Have the structure documented.

The Companies House Requirement That Sits Alongside This

Worth separating out, because it is a separate legal obligation from Wise’s checks and it carries penalties.

Directors and PSCs must now verify their identity with Companies House, once, either through GOV.UK One Login or an Authorised Corporate Service Provider. You then supply your personal code for each role you hold.

The windows are tight and depend on who you are:

A PSC who is also a director has 14 days starting the day after the company’s confirmation statement date. For a 31 March statement date, that is 1 to 14 April.
A PSC who is not a director has 14 days starting on the first day of their birth month. A 24 February birthday gives a window of 1 to 14 February.
A new PSC supplies the code when first added to the register, or within 14 days of a direction letter.
Directors generally supply their code with the company’s next confirmation statement.

A 14-day extension can be requested online, but only before the deadline passes. Missing it may be an offence, exposing you to a financial penalty, and Companies House has indicated it may note non-compliance against your name on the public register.

Check your own dates on the register rather than assuming. This has nothing to do with Wise, but if you are gathering director and PSC identity documents to open an account, it is the obvious moment to deal with both.

Proof of Trading

Wise may ask for evidence the company is trading or preparing to:

A signed contract or client agreement
An invoice issued or received
A website or company profile showing activity
A description of planned activity if you are pre-revenue

Not every application needs it. Have something ready.

Setting Up Wise Business for a UK Limited Company: Step by Step

Step 1: Create the Account

Open a business account on Wise’s site. You create a personal Wise login first, or use an existing one, then attach the company to it.

Step 2: Enter Company Details

Give your Companies House number. Wise pulls company data from the register, so check the pre-populated name, address and incorporation date rather than retyping them.

Step 3: Choose Your Plan

Essential or Advanced. Choose Advanced if you need to receive payments. You are not charged until the account is approved and active.

Step 4: Verify Directors and Owners

Each director and PSC goes through their own flow — document scan, then a biometric check, largely automated through a third-party provider.

This is where applications stall. An expired document, a name that does not match the address proof, or a failed biometric check means going back and forth. Sort the documents before you start, and check that names match across documents exactly.

Step 5: Describe the Business

Wise asks what the company does, who pays you, who you pay, and expected volumes. Be specific. Vague answers trigger manual review and add days. “Software consultancy invoicing European clients monthly, typically four invoices of €3,000 to €8,000” moves faster than “consulting”.

Step 6: Approval

A simple structure with a UK director who verifies cleanly and a clear business activity typically clears in one to three business days. Multiple PSCs, overseas directors or unusual activity can run to two weeks or more. You will get email updates and can track progress in the dashboard.

Once You Are Approved

Open Your Currency Balances

Wise holds 40+ currencies. Open the ones you actually use — EUR, USD and AUD are the common choices for UK companies — rather than all of them, since each balance is one more thing to reconcile.

On Advanced you get local account details in a range of currencies, so overseas clients pay you domestically from their end rather than making an international transfer.

On conversion cost, understand the structure rather than a headline rate: Wise charges the mid-market rate plus a fee with a fixed and a variable component, and the variable part differs by currency pair and route. Published figures for major pairs sit in the region of 0.3% to 0.45%. Check your own pairs before you budget, because the spread between pairs is wider than the spread between providers at this level.

Add Team Members and Cards

You can invite team members by email and set permissions, with roles running from full administrative access down to read-only, and issue physical and virtual debit cards with per-card spending limits. Role names and the exact permission split are worth checking in your own dashboard, since Wise has revised them.

Connect Your Accounting Software

Wise integrates with Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent. Find them under Integrations in the dashboard.

Transactions pull through automatically, which is where the real time saving sits — reconciling multi-currency activity by hand at month end is the task this removes. For FreeAgent users, Wise balances appear as accounts inside FreeAgent with transactions syncing automatically. Our FreeAgent review covers the software itself.

Set Up Auto-Conversion

If you receive foreign currency and want it moved to GBP automatically, you can set rules in your balance settings against a threshold or trigger. Useful for managing FX exposure without watching rates, though it does mean converting at whatever the rate happens to be rather than on your judgement.

Making Tax Digital: What Actually Applies to Your Company

Worth being precise, because the two regimes get conflated.

MTD for VAT applies to your company if it is VAT-registered. Returns go through compatible software, and a Wise integration feeding Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent gives you the clean digital records that makes straightforward.

MTD for Income Tax does not apply to limited companies. It has applied since 6 April 2026 to sole traders and landlords with more than £50,000 of qualifying income, falling to £30,000 in April 2027 and £20,000 in April 2028. If you also trade personally alongside the company, it may catch you in that capacity — not through the company.

There is no MTD for Corporation Tax. Your CT600 obligations are unchanged.

Wise does not connect to HMRC directly in any of these cases. It feeds your accounting software, and the software files. Our guide to MTD for VAT against MTD for Income Tax sets out which applies to whom.

FAQ

How much does Wise Business actually cost?

Essential is free. Advanced is a £50 one-time set-up fee. There is no monthly subscription on either plan. After that you pay per transfer and conversion. The widely repeated “£50 a month” is wrong by a factor of twelve over a year.

Can I use Wise Business as my company’s only account?

You can, with two caveats. There is no FSCS protection, so large balances carry a different risk profile than at a bank. And there is no overdraft or lending, so any credit need goes elsewhere. Plenty of companies run Wise alongside a bank — Wise for international, the bank for domestic and credit.

Can the free plan receive payments?

No. Receiving money, direct debits and the getting-paid features are all unavailable on Essential. This is the single most common surprise.

How long does verification take?

One to three business days for a simple structure. Up to two weeks or more with multiple PSCs, overseas directors or unusual activity. Document quality is the main variable you control.

Who counts as a PSC?

Someone holding more than 25% of shares or voting rights, or who otherwise exercises significant control — including the power to appoint or remove a majority of the board. The threshold is more than a quarter, not a quarter exactly.

Do I need to verify my identity at Companies House as well?

Yes, and separately. Directors and PSCs must verify once via GOV.UK One Login or an Authorised Corporate Service Provider and supply a personal code for each role. The windows are 14 days and depend on whether you are also a director — tied to the confirmation statement date if you are, to your birth month if you are not. Extensions must be requested before the deadline, and missing it may be an offence.

Does Wise work with Making Tax Digital?

Indirectly. It feeds Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent, and those file. MTD for VAT applies to your VAT-registered company; MTD for Income Tax does not apply to limited companies at all.

Can a sole trader use Wise Business?

Yes, and verification is simpler with no company registration to check. The plan structure is the same — receiving payments still requires Advanced. Our comparisons of Wise against Monzo Business and Wise against Mettle cover that side.

The Bottom Line

Setting up Wise Business for a UK limited company is a prepared-documents exercise rather than a difficult one. Companies House number, director ID, PSC details and a clear description of what you do, and most applications clear in a few days.

Two things decide whether it goes smoothly.

The plan. Go to Advanced from the start if you need to be paid into the account, and know that the cost is £50 once, not £50 a month. There is no monthly subscription. If you had been put off by a £600 annual figure, that figure does not exist.

The verification, both of them. Wise’s checks and the Companies House identity requirement are separate obligations landing on the same people at roughly the same time. Wise’s will cost you days if documents are inconsistent. Companies House’s can cost you a penalty if you miss a 14-day window. Deal with them together.

Once running, the local account details, team cards and automatic accounting sync are genuinely good, and the fee structure is more favourable than most write-ups suggest. If you are still weighing accounts, our Monzo Business review covers the main domestic alternative.

Pricing and features correct at time of writing. Plans and capabilities are subject to change — always confirm current details on Wise’s website before signing up. Conversion fees vary by currency pair and route. This article is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice; confirm your own Companies House deadlines on the register and your tax obligations with HMRC or a qualified adviser before relying on anything here.