Best Business Bank Accounts for LLCs

We started with the business bank accounts LLC owners in the United States actually use. Both kinds counted. That means online only neobanks and traditional institutions with branch networks. For each one we read the published fee schedule, the interest terms, the FDIC coverage limit, the transfer policy and the mobile app ratings.

Each account was scored across four categories. Pricing and value carries 35%. Features such as wire transfers and interest rates carry 25%, ease of use including app quality and onboarding speed carries 20%, and customer support carries the last 20%. We read user reviews on Trustpilot, the BBB, Google Play and the App Store to test the marketing against real experience.

Free with no minimum won heavy preference. Most new LLCs cannot promise a steady daily balance, so a waiver condition is a fee waiting to happen. We also marked providers down for documented patterns of sudden freezes or closures. Losing access to your operating funds can shut a business overnight.

Every LLC needs its own bank account. Mixing personal and business money is the fastest way to lose the liability protection you formed the LLC for. Courts call that piercing the corporate veil, and it puts your personal assets in reach in a lawsuit. A separate business checking account is the paper trail that keeps the two apart.

The protection is not the only reason. A business account makes tax filing simpler and bookkeeping far easier, and most payment processors, payroll providers and accounting tools require one. If you plan to take payments, hire contractors or apply for a business credit card, you need an account linked to your EIN.

There is one exception. A sole proprietor who has not formed an LLC, and who handles very few transactions, can technically run on a personal account. But the week you file LLC paperwork with your state, open the business account. It costs $0 at all four picks here, so waiting buys you nothing.

Non residents have an extra problem. A US business bank account is what stands between a new US LLC and a working Stripe account, which is why our guide to accepting payments when Stripe is not supported in your country treats the bank account as the hard part rather than the formation.

Eligibility is the first filter from abroad, and the four accounts do not agree on it. Mercury names 48 prohibited countries. Relay names 31, and Bluevine runs an allowlist of 25. Our guide to a US business bank account for non residents puts all three lists side by side.

Novo and Mercury are the two strongest options here. They solve different problems. Novo wins on what it does for you. It costs $0 a month. The account brings invoicing, expense categorization, Reserves for tax money, and profit and loss reports. For a founder with no bookkeeper, that is a whole back office inside the banking app.

Mercury wins on where money sits. It is also free monthly. Its domestic and international USD wires cost nothing, and FDIC coverage runs to $5M through its partner bank sweep network. Novo tops out at $250,000 through Middlesex Federal Savings. Below that ceiling the difference is theoretical. Above it, Mercury is the safer home.

Relay suits owners who need granular organization. Its free plan creates up to 20 separate checking accounts under one business. That fits profit first budgeting, or splitting funds by project. It does not match Novo's built in bookkeeping or Mercury's wire savings.

Bluevine fills a narrower niche. Its checking pays interest with no monthly fee, which suits businesses holding moderate balances. It is also the only account here that takes cash at all, through Green Dot retail locations for a fee.

All four start at $0, so the real question is what sits above free. Only Novo has nothing above it. Mercury, Relay and Bluevine all publish paid tiers. Mercury Pro is $299 a month, which buys a relationship manager and unlimited invoicing that almost no new LLC needs. The tier worth knowing about is the one directly above free, and on all three that sits at about $30.

One gap none of these fills. Daily cash businesses are not served well by any online account. Pair one of these with a local bank that has branches. Use the online account for everything else.

Watch the monthly maintenance fee. Chase Business Complete Banking charges $15 a month and waives it in any month you hold a $2,000 minimum daily balance, take deposits through Chase QuickAccept, or spend on a Chase business credit card. The charge is monthly, so one quiet month costs $15, not a year of fees. Miss the bar every month and it is $180 a year. Branch banks price this way as a rule, so read the waiver conditions before you open anything.

Account closures are the other risk. Mercury, despite its fee structure, has documented cases of closing accounts with no warning and no explanation. Users on Reddit and Trustpilot report being locked out of funds for weeks. If your LLC needs fast access to every dollar, keep a backup account at a second institution. Never put all of your operating capital in one place, especially one with no branches.

Sometimes none of the four is the answer. The clearest case is cash. All 4 picks here are online only, so if your LLC takes physical currency most weeks, no amount of free features will serve you. Do both. Open one of the four for everything else, and pair it with a bank that has a branch near you. The branch account takes the deposits. The online account does the rest.

We do not name a branch bank pick here, and that is deliberate. We rank only what we have put through the comparison above, and every account in it is one we can check against a published fee schedule. A branch bank is a local decision. The right one is usually whichever has a branch you can walk to and terms you have actually read.

Cost may be all you care about. If what you want is the cheapest account rather than the best fit, our guide to free business checking works the same question from the fee side, including what the free accounts still charge for wires, express ACH and cash.

Bookkeeping is the next job. If you would rather have AI categorize and reconcile transactions than do it by hand, our guide to AI bookkeeping for small business covers the tools that connect straight to your bank feeds.