Top business credit cards compared

About Top business credit cards compared

Business credit cards carry a running cost and a borrowing cost, and this ranking weighs both. It covers 95 of them, and the main trade-off runs straight through the list. Some entries charge an annual fee and pay points or cashback for spending, while others are free to hold and compete on support, currency costs and what sits behind the balance. A business card is a different decision from a personal one, because the statement has to be explained to someone else. You are weighing what a fee does to a monthly bill, what happens when a card is used abroad, and how fast a blocked payment gets sorted. Those questions shape every entry here. All the entries are credit cards aimed at business use, and each one says what it costs, what it returns and how help is handled. Fees appear as the provider lists them, in the currency the provider uses, so a euro amount and a pound amount are not directly comparable, and the ranking does not pretend otherwise.

How we picked

Cost carries the heaviest weight at 35%, trust follows at 40%, and the offer a card makes carries 25%. Those weights are the only inputs, so a card that is cheap to run and well backed outranks one with richer perks and a thinner provider behind it. Trust here means the strength of the entity that issues the card and how clearly it publishes what it charges. Sources are the providers themselves. Fee and tariff pages give the annual fee, any balance transfer terms and the foreign currency charge. Product pages give the perks, the reward type and the features. Support pages give the channels. Provider names come from public registers of payment institutions and banks, and founding dates come from company histories. Figures stay in the currency the provider publishes, because converting them would hide how a real bill is shaped in the market where the card is used. Partners are listed first, in the order supplied, and the remaining brands follow by score. A partner position is a commercial arrangement rather than a judgement that the card leads the market, and the scoring behind the order is the same for every entry.

Our top picks

1. 3. Qonto

   Qonto is third in this ranking and earns the place on breadth rather than cost. The annual fee is €0, the card runs on a model with no annual fee, and the reward type is none, so nothing comes back on spend. What Qonto does add is card insurance covering travel, business purchases and fraud, a deferred debit option on the Plus and X Cards at no extra cost, and Apple Pay and Google Pay compatibility. Support runs on chat, phone and email, with round-the-clock cover in France and cover every day elsewhere, which is the strongest reach in this ranking. Set against Paysera next, Qonto says more about the card itself, while Paysera's published detail leans on the account and on multi-currency, virtual card and travel features.

   • Monthly fee: €9
   • Currency conversion fee: 2%
   • Free ATM withdrawals: €0

   Pros

   • Card insurance for travel, business purchases and fraud comes with the card.
   • Multi-currency, virtual cards and travel use all sit inside the offer, so foreign buying needs no separate product (multi currency, virtual card and travel).

   Cons

   • The account charges a monthly fee of €9, while Wise charges £0 for the same job of holding money.
   • Card conversion costs 2%, and the ranking on that measure is 160 of 259.
   • Free ATM withdrawals come to €0, so cash at home or abroad is a charge rather than an included allowance.
   • The rewards type is none and the audience is business, so nothing comes back on card spend and there is no personal account.

2. 8. ether.fi

   ether.fi is ninth in this ranking and trades a conventional card for a long protection list. The annual fee is $0 and the model carries no annual fee, so holding cost is not the issue. Rewards are cashback at 3% cashback, up to $2K monthly spend (Core), paid in ETHFI, and the foreign currency fee runs 0% to 0.5%. The perks do the selling: a global eSIM, Visa concierge, airport lounge access, flight and medical coverage, baggage delay and loss protection, auto rental cover, purchase and price protection, identity theft protection, insurance-backed balance protection, a free virtual card and travel cashback. Support runs on email, chat and help centre, which is the widest set of channels in this ranking. Compared with Leobank above, ether.fi adds cover and pays rewards in token form. Set against Meow next, its protection list is far longer than Meow's focus on eligible AI spend.

   • Annual fee: $0
   • Currency conversion fee: 0% to 0.5%
   • Rewards type: Cashback

   Pros

   • Currency conversion fees run 0% to 0.5%, against a 1% median across the site and a 1.85% median in the credit card ranking.
   • Support runs on email, chat and help centre, so a service problem has chat, email, a help centre and community behind it.
   • The card is aimed at business users, so it fits a company expense run rather than a personal wallet.
   • Global eSIM, Visa concierge and Airport lounge access carries insurance-backed account balance protection, purchase and price protection, identity theft protection and a virtual card, so the money side holds more cover than the cashback rate suggests.

   Cons

   • Support runs on email, chat and help centre, which lists no phone line, so a blocked payment or disputed charge waits on a chat reply or an email answer.
   • Currency conversion fees run 0% to 0.5%, and the top of that range sits above the 0% Varo charges and the 0% Chime charges, so a card used mainly on foreign purchases costs more to run here.
   • 3% cashback, up to $2K monthly spend (Core), paid in ETHFI caps the cashback at a monthly spending ceiling on the Core tier and pays it in ETHFI, so the reward neither grows with heavy spend nor holds a fixed cash value.
   • It is a credit card, credit, so spending builds a balance to settle rather than drawing straight from a current account.

What to look for

What it costs to hold the card

The median annual fee across this ranking is €0, and the top of the range reaches €37.50. A card that is free to hold is the norm, so any entry with a fee has to earn it back through rewards. Check the currency as well, since amounts are not converted.

What it costs to borrow

Representative APR here sits at a median of 17.5%, with the middle of the range between 17.12% and 22.1%, and the full spread running 13.86% to 29.9%. Where a card publishes its own rate, that is the figure to use for a repayment plan.

Foreign currency spend

The median foreign currency fee in this ranking is 1.93%, the lower quarter of cards charge 0%, the upper quarter sit at 2.5% and the top of the range is 3%. For a company buying abroad this line is often larger than the annual fee.

What the card gives back

Cashback is the most common reward structure in this ranking at 42.6%, while cards that pay nothing back still account for 39.3% and points sit at 13.1%. Read the rate closely, since a headline figure often applies to one category rather than to all spend.

How the account works day to day

A virtual card appears on 46.6% of the entries and multi-currency on 37%, with travel features on 41.1%. For a business, sub-accounts, free transfers and splitting activity by project can matter more than a lounge. Every card here is a credit card.

Getting help when a payment is blocked

A help centre covers 81.2% of the entries, phone support 58.8% and email 57.5%, with chat on 35%. A blocked payment on a company card is urgent, so the spread of channels is a practical measure.

Frequently asked questions

Top business credit cards compared by country

• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• France
• Germany
• India
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Netherlands
• Singapore
• South Africa
• United Kingdom
• United States

The data behind this ranking

All data and the CSV