In short:
- One account, no plan puzzle: the ING business account runs on a German IBAN and comes with the Rechnungsmanager invoicing tool, up to 5 sub-accounts each with its own IBAN and a VISA Business debit card. You do not pick a tariff, because ING bills the cheapest one retroactively at the end of every month.
- What really drives the bill: the first 6 months are free of charge, 12 months for founders. After that every movement counts: Tarif S has a €0 monthly price but costs €0.30 per transaction, and a transaction is any incoming or outgoing transfer, including standing orders and the direct debits others collect from the account. So there is no permanently free tariff. Add the two hard walls: a GbR and companies still in formation cannot open the account at all, and there is exactly one online banking login and one card per account.
- Vivid as an alternative: €0 a month on Free Start, open to every legal form including GmbH and UG, SEPA transfers with no price per transfer, unlimited sub-accounts each with its own IBAN, unlimited team members at no extra cost.
You have seen the banner: six months without a monthly price, plus a bonus. The more interesting question is what happens in month seven. With the ING business account the answer hangs on one number, and it is not the price of a tariff but the number of movements through your account. Someone writing twenty invoices a month pays more here than someone writing five, even though both hold the same account. That calculation is not in the advertising, it is on the conditions page.
This is about the business account of ING for self-employed people and small companies, not about the private current account and not about ING Business Banking as a login portal. Formally the institution is called ING-DiBa AG and trades as ING: if you are searching for the ING DiBa business account, this is the account you mean. Every figure here comes from ING's own product and conditions pages, read in August 2026. Promotions are marked as such, because they expire.
What is the ING business account?
Who ING opens the account for
Before you compare prices, look at your legal form, because for some readers the search ends right here. The ING business account is available to freelancers, small-scale traders and commercial businesses that operate as a natural person under their own name, and to a registered merchant (eingetragener Kaufmann, e. K.) as well. Capital companies are included too: a GmbH, UG, KG or OHG can open the account, provided there is an entry in the Handelsregister, the German commercial register. The company seat has to be in Germany.
And then the sentence that sits on the product page without any hedging: other legal forms such as a GbR, a GmbH & Co. KG or a GmbH in formation are not possible. A GbR run by two photographers is out. So is anyone who has founded a GmbH and is waiting for the register entry, because there is no formation account here for paying in the share capital. For an e. K., GmbH, OHG, KG and UG a second condition applies: the company has to be registered with KYCnow, a service run by SCHUFA. That sounds like a formality, but it decides whether the application goes through at all.
One login, one card
The second structural fact sits on the same page as a friendly note and is often skipped: at the moment there is one online banking login and one VISA Business debit card per account. With the ING business konto everyone involved therefore shares a single login. Two managing directors of a GmbH do not get separate access or their own cards, and the assistant who usually prepares payments works with the same credentials as you. Only one person can pay with the card.
ING lists both in its features overview under upcoming functions: additional logins for managing directors and employees, plus further VISA Business debit cards. It does not give a date. For today that means one account, one login, one card. Plan with what exists.
Three more points belong in the picture, so it is clear later what we are comparing. There is no cashback: the word does not appear on any of the ten pages we read. You cannot buy securities from the account, neither shares nor ETFs. And the account holds euros only, a foreign-currency account is not part of the offer.
What the ING business account costs
The best price and the three tariffs
The costs of the ING business account work differently from the rest of the market, and that is the most interesting part of the product. With the ING business account you do not pick a tariff. ING calls it your personal best price: the bill is calculated at the end of the month. It looks at how many transactions ran through the account and retroactively charges the cheapest combination of monthly price and transaction costs. The principle is the cheapest tariff, determined retroactively, in their words: you pay every month, in arrears, only the cheapest combination of monthly price and transaction costs. The tariffs differ in price alone, because services and features are the same in all of them. Before that comes the promotional phase: 6 months with no monthly price and no transaction costs, and 12 months for founders in their first business year. The fees of the ING business account therefore only start afterwards, and the conditions then look like this:
| Plan | Price per month | Price per transaction | Best price at | Enough for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tarif S | €0 | €0.30 | up to 50 transactions | getting started with few transactions |
| Tarif M | €4.90 | €0.20 | 50 to 100 transactions | a running business with regular invoices |
| Tarif L | €14.90 | €0.10 | more than 100 transactions | a lot of payment traffic per month |
Now the part most overviews leave out. A transaction is any outgoing or incoming transfer, ING writes, and a standing order counts just as much as a direct debit collected by your insurer. Incoming payments count too. Run the numbers for a normal month: twenty invoices issued and paid are forty movements, then rent, insurance, two subscriptions and a handful of your own transfers. You land at around 45 transactions, which is €13.50 in Tarif S, and the best-price mechanism only moves you up to Tarif M above that. On its own page ING works with 27 transactions for €8.10 and with 67 for €18.30.
The €0 monthly price is therefore a starting value, not a permanently free account: the more you invoice, the higher the bank bill. The other half of the model is fair all the same, and it belongs here. Transfers between ING business accounts cost nothing, and card payments with the VISA Business debit card inside the euro area do not count as a transaction at all. Anyone who pays a lot by card and transfers little gets a cheap deal here.
What the monthly price covers
The scope is identical in all three tariffs, and for an account in this price range it is decently equipped:
Alongside that, the conditions page lists what comes on top. You can withdraw cash from an ATM three times a month free of charge, after which each withdrawal costs €2.00, and nothing under €50 works anyway. In a foreign currency, 2.20% is charged both when paying by card and when withdrawing; in casinos, lotteries and betting shops it is 3%, at least €3.90. A replacement card costs €10, and a transfer or direct debit rejected for lack of funds costs €1 each. And one item that surprises: if you book no transaction at all in the first 12 months, ING charges a non-usage fee of €4.90 per month.
The automatic tariff takes a decision off your hands, and that is a genuine advantage over providers with three price levels to choose between yourself. The basis of the calculation, though, stays the number of movements including incoming payments. Which is exactly why the same account costs one reader €8 and another €20 a month.
Features of the ING business account
Payments in real time
Day to day the account covers what a business current account has to cover, and on payments ING writes that with its business account all transfers go out in real time. There are standing orders and scheduled transfers, templates and an address book, transfers by photo and QR code straight from the app, a preview of the next 30 days and a verification of the payee details. You set limits per calendar day or per transfer. The online banking is called Business Banking Home, the app is ING Business, and both work on the same account.
One gap belongs at this point, and it hits everyone with recurring income. Collecting direct debits from your own customers is not provided for. The FAQ says it literally: it is currently not possible to take part in the SEPA B2B direct debit scheme with the business account, and they are working on it. If you bill subscriptions, memberships or maintenance contracts, you need a second route for that today, such as a payment service provider.
VISA Business debit card and cash
With the ING business account you get a VISA Business debit card at no card price, usable with Apple Pay and Google Pay and accepted worldwide wherever VISA is. You set the card limits yourself, you block the card in the app if it goes missing, and the app shows how many free withdrawals the month has left. It is not a credit card: it stays a debit card that charges immediately. Paying costs nothing in Germany and the euro area. Outside it, ING charges 2.20% of the amount.
Withdrawing is the easy half, depositing the laborious one, and that follows from the business model: a direct bank has no counter. Cash is taken by its partner Reisebank. First you fill in a self-declaration and send it in, the check takes up to 14 days, then you receive a deposit slip that you bring printed and signed to every deposit, together with your ID. Up to €25,000 is possible per deposit, Reisebank does not take coins, and it charges €9.50 per €5,000 started. Above €10,000 a proof of origin is added. For a bakery with a till this route is laborious; a consultancy will never notice any of it.
Rechnungsmanager, bookkeeping and DATEV
Invoicing sits inside the account: the ING Rechnungsmanager is included and costs nothing extra. You can create and manage invoices, digitise receipts, track expenses in real time and share documents with your tax adviser. For an account in this price range that is a tool which usually sits next to it as a subscription. The route into bookkeeping runs through an interface afterwards, and precision pays here: there is no native DATEV interface. DATEV Unternehmen Online, Lexware Office, Sevdesk and Buchhaltungsbutler connect through ING's PSD2 interface, which synchronises account information and can trigger payments. On top of that there is a CSV export tailored to exactly those programmes. For your month-end that means the data arrives, and the way it gets there differs from a native connection.
Sub-accounts and the Business Extra-Konto
Up to 5 sub-accounts are free, each with its own IBAN, and ING charges no additional monthly price for them. At the end of the month it adds up the transactions of all sub-accounts and the main account and calculates one best price from the total. One sub-account with its own IBAN for VAT, one for reserves, two for projects: that is enough. If you want an account per client, five runs out quickly.
The business account itself pays no interest. For that there is the ING Business Extra-Konto, a free instant-access savings account you open alongside it. The interest on that deposit is 3.75% a year for the first four months on balances up to €1,000,000, then the variable base rate, currently 1% a year. Both are promotional or variable figures, read in August 2026. Securities stay outside: no securities account, no shares, no ETFs from the business account.
Business loan up to €250,000
Exclusively for customers with a business account, ING offers a business loan of up to €250,000, applied for digitally. Founders also get certified start-up advice and a referral for tax questions. That is a capability a full bank brings along, and on this page it simply stands as it is: Vivid does not lend, so no comparison is drawn on that axis.
Limits of the ING business account
Anyone weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of the ING company account finds no defects but a particular cut. ING builds a lean account for one person who pays and writes invoices. Six points carry weight:
Then the legal forms that cannot even start: a GbR, a GmbH & Co. KG and any company still in formation. And collecting direct debits from customers is not possible today. This account is built for freelancers and sole traders with a manageable volume of payments, who want invoicing and banking in one place and value having the credit line of a full bank behind them.
The limits are not a question of quality but of cut: a cleanly built single-user account from a direct bank. Everything that needs several hands, several currencies or money that earns sits outside it.
Opening an ING business account
You can open an ING business account entirely online, and the online account opening runs through business.ing.de. Three things need clearing first: the company seat is in Germany, capital companies are already in the Handelsregister, and for an e. K., GmbH, OHG, KG and UG registration with KYCnow, the SCHUFA service, is required. If you are coming from another institution, you can use the free account switching service: it informs business partners and exports existing standing orders. ING does not state a duration in minutes, and we are not inventing one here.
The entry is cheap at the time of writing: 6 months with no account management fees per month and no transaction costs, 12 months for founders in their first business year, plus a credit of up to €200 in four steps of €50, for the first transfer or for using the Rechnungsmanager, for instance. These are promotions with an end date. Check what is running before you apply.
Alternatives to the ING business account
Which leaves the question of what the account does not cover. ING is built for one person who transfers money and issues invoices. Several people with their own access, more than five accounts, a second currency, money that works while it sits: there is room for that elsewhere. That is exactly the gap the next section fills, and the table shows the differences in one row first.
| Provider | Monthly price | IBAN | Cashback | Investing | Accounts & IBANs | Currencies | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vivid | €0 (Free Start), all legal forms incl. GmbH and UG | German IBAN | 0.1% to 1% by plan, no monthly cap (all purchases), up to 10% in categories | stocks, ETFs, iBonds, money market funds, crypto | unlimited, each with its own IBAN | 22 currencies | Freelancers to GmbH/UG |
| ING | €0 (Tarif S) but €0.30 per transaction, incoming payments included · €4.90 (M) and €14.90 (L) with lower per-transaction prices | German IBAN | no cashback | no securities, interest only via the Business Extra-Konto | up to 5 sub-accounts, each with its own IBAN | EUR only | Freelancers & sole traders |
Vivid as an alternative to ING
Vivid calculates from the other end. Not a monthly price plus a price per movement, but a scope that is already in the cheapest plan. The business account runs on a German IBAN and brings payments, cards, several accounts and investing together in one app.
What Vivid Business offers
The Free Start plan costs €0 a month, permanently, with no promotional deadline. It is open to every legal form, from freelancers through a GbR to a GmbH and UG, which means the three forms ING turns away as well. SEPA transfers are included in it with no price per transfer, incoming and outgoing.
For the calculation from the costs section that means the 45 movements no longer matter. Twenty invoices cost as much as two, namely nothing, and a strong month does not get more expensive than a quiet one. The price depends on the plan, not on your turnover.
On teams the difference is largest. At Vivid an unlimited number of team members work on the account, with no extra charge per user, in four roles from owner to employee. Every person gets their own cards for the team with their own limits, and limit increases run through an approval instead of a phone call. Two managing directors, an assistant for the payment runs, a working student with a capped card: here that is a setting, not a waiting question.
The ceiling on accounts falls away too. You create as many accounts with their own IBAN as you need, not up to five. One account for VAT, one for reserves, one per project or per client: the money is separated where it arrives, and the statement tells you immediately where it belongs.
The fourth difference concerns money that is not needed right now. You buy shares, ETFs, iBonds, money market funds and crypto straight from the business account, and the interest account sits beside it. It takes no second account and no second provider. Cashback runs along from the start, with no monthly cap on all purchases, up to 1% depending on the plan and up to 10% in selected categories.
The Vivid plans at a glance
Three plans, fixed prices, no tiering by number of transactions:
| Plan | Price per month | Cashback on all purchases | Accounts with own IBAN | Enough for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Start | €0 | 0.1% | unlimited | getting started, all legal forms incl. GmbH and UG |
| Basic | €6.90 | 0.2% | unlimited | working in several currencies |
| Pro | €18.90 | 0.5% | unlimited | teams with card rules and approvals |
The €6.90 and €18.90 apply with annual billing; paid monthly it is €8.90 on Basic and €24.90 on Pro. What is shown is what is charged, with no VAT added on top. Free Start stays at €0 whichever way you pay.
What the €0 plan contains
Free Start is not a taster plan with locks but the entry with the full payment scope: SEPA in and out with no price per transfer, Visa cards both physical and virtual, as many accounts as you want each with its own IBAN, unlimited team members and guaranteed cashback from this plan on. There is no end date.
For a new business that is the calmer start. Nothing expires after six months, and no upgrade is forced on you by the number of invoices. You decide by features, not by transaction counts.
Basic and Pro: what comes on top
From Basic, accounts in 22 currencies and international transfers come on top, which makes the difference for everyone buying or invoicing outside the eurozone. From Pro, advanced card limits are added, with rules by category, merchant and country, along with corporate cards and the better rate for accepting card payments. Both build on the same account, so no change of provider is needed for them.
Investing and interest from the account
Reserves do not have to move to a second, separate account. From the Vivid business account you buy shares, ETFs, iBonds and money market funds, there are model portfolios for companies, and the interest account sits next to them. The rates per plan are in the plan overview, not in this text, because they change.
The difference is less about the return than about the route. One account instead of a main account plus an extra account, no second onboarding, no reference account that has to be registered first. For reserves that is one step fewer.
Opening an account with Vivid
Opening runs online: fill in the application, photograph your ID, take a selfie for the identity check, done. Standing orders and direct debits move over gradually, which you can handle in parallel with the old account. The German IBAN is then available to you for incoming payments.
If payments, several people with their own access, as many accounts with their own IBAN as you need and investing are meant to sit in one account, Vivid covers that from €0 a month, for every legal form including GmbH and UG.
Which business account fits whom?
Start with the question of how many people and how many movements will land on the account. Vivid is the fitting choice as soon as more than one person needs access or a lot gets invoiced: €0 a month for every legal form including GmbH and UG, SEPA transfers with no price per transfer, unlimited team members each at no extra cost, unlimited accounts with their own IBAN and investing that sits in the same account. ING comes into question where its cut fits precisely: one person, a manageable volume of payments, invoicing inside the account and a wish for a credit line up to €250,000 from the same hand.
The remaining cases sort themselves out quickly. Two managing directors, more than five accounts, invoices in a foreign currency or reserves that should earn interest: that is Vivid territory. Anyone running a GbR or waiting for the register entry has no choice at ING anyway. And a founder who wants the certified advice and the Rechnungsmanager in one place will find that at ING. Vivid is built for what comes after: growing teams, several accounts, money that works.
Conclusion on the ING business account
The ING business account bills the cheapest of the three tariffs retroactively each month. The Rechnungsmanager is included at no extra cost, and the business loan goes up to €250,000. What decides the fit in the end are two numbers: the count of movements including incoming payments, and the number of people who are supposed to work with the account. We are not giving a score here, the arithmetic is yours.
Vivid is the better fit as soon as more than one person, more than five accounts or money that works belong in one account. €0 a month on Free Start, open to every legal form including GmbH and UG, SEPA transfers with no price per transfer, as many accounts as you need each with its own German IBAN, plus cashback with no monthly cap on all purchases. The scope grows with you, and the provider stays the same.
Ready for a business account?
Open the Vivid business account online: €0 a month on Free Start, a German IBAN, as many sub-accounts as you need each with its own IBAN, and cashback with no monthly cap on all purchases.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
What does the ING business account cost?
The first 6 months cost no monthly price and no transaction fees, and for founders in their first business year it is 12 months. After that ING bills the cheapest tariff retroactively each month: Tarif S with a €0 monthly price and €0.30 per transaction, Tarif M with €4.90 and €0.20, Tarif L with €14.90 and €0.10.Which legal forms can open an ING business account?
Freelancers, registered merchants (e. K.) and unregistered commercial businesses working as a natural person under their own name, plus a GmbH, UG, KG and OHG once the company is entered in the Handelsregister. According to ING, other legal forms such as a GbR, a GmbH & Co. KG or a GmbH in formation are not possible.Can I deposit cash into the ING business account?
Yes, but not at an ING counter, because as a direct bank it runs none. Deposits go through its partner Reisebank: send in a self-declaration first, then deposit with a deposit slip and your ID, up to €25,000 per deposit and without coins. Reisebank charges €9.50 per €5,000 started.Does ING offer a DATEV interface?
There is no native DATEV interface. DATEV Unternehmen Online, Lexware Office, Sevdesk and Buchhaltungsbutler can be connected through ING's PSD2-compliant interface to synchronise account information and trigger payments. There is also a CSV export of your transactions.How many logins and cards come with the account?
Currently one online banking login and one VISA Business debit card per account. Additional logins for managing directors and employees and further cards are listed by ING in its features overview as upcoming functions, with no date. A team therefore shares one access today.What is the alternative to the ING business account?
If several people with their own access, more than five accounts or investing from the account are meant to be part of it, Vivid fits: the Free Start plan costs €0 a month, is open to all legal forms including GmbH and UG and brings SEPA transfers with no price per transfer, unlimited team members and unlimited accounts, each with its own German IBAN.
Last updated: August 2026. The information on ING was compiled to the best of our knowledge from the official product and conditions pages on ing.de and may change; no claim is made to completeness or accuracy. The introductory period of 6 or 12 months and the credit of up to €200 are time-limited promotions. Please check the current terms directly with the respective provider. ING and ING-DiBa are trademarks of the respective companies; there is no business relationship between Vivid and these providers. Vivid Money S.A. is an electronic money institution authorised in Luxembourg and not a bank. Investment and interest products are provided by Vivid Money B.V. Capital investments carry risks; the value of an investment can rise or fall, and past performance is not an indicator of future returns. Crypto assets are unregulated and highly volatile; a total loss is possible. This article is not legal, financial or tax advice.
