The key points at a glance:
- Three plans, one principle: Kontist is a business account for self-employed people that calculates the tax on every transaction and sets it aside. Free costs €0, Start €11 and Plus €25 a month, each plus VAT. The German IBAN comes from Solaris, the banking partner.
- The allowance decides the bill, not the monthly price: the plans include 5, 30 or 100 SEPA transfers and direct debits a month, and according to the price list incoming payments count towards it. Every further movement costs €0.25. There are no sub-accounts on the Free plan, and the DATEV export, the VAT return and the P&L statement only arrive on Plus.
- If everything is meant to sit in one account: at Vivid the Free Start plan costs €0 a month and is open to every legal form including a GmbH and a UG, SEPA transfers run with no price per transfer, and you open as many accounts as you need, each with its own German IBAN. Stocks, ETFs, iBonds, money market funds and crypto are bought straight from the business account.
You are comparing business accounts and you have heard of Kontist, because the account works out the tax for you. That really is the core of the product. Your monthly bill, however, is decided by a completely different number: how many transactions run through the account. The monthly price sits in large type on the pricing page, the transaction allowance in the small print underneath. That is exactly where the difference between €0 and a double-digit monthly amount lies.
This article is about the Kontist business account, not about the separate tax service and not about which other providers exist. Every figure here comes from the official Kontist price list, read on 12 August 2026. Where Kontist itself gives conflicting information, that is stated explicitly.
What is the Kontist business account?
Who Kontist is built for
Kontist is aimed at self-employed people in Germany. The conditions for opening an account are short: a registered address in Germany, tax liability in Germany, a valid ID document and a minimum age of 18. On legal forms the offer is broader than many overviews suggest. The Kontist FAQ names four groups: freelancers, small businesses, SMEs in the form of a GmbH, UG or GbR, and companies still being founded. A Kontist account for a small business is therefore just as intended as one for a GmbH or a UG. Anyone reading that Kontist is a solo-only product is reading past the provider's own FAQ.
One detail helps more at the start than any feature: you do not need a tax number to register. Anyone who is founding right now and still waiting for the letter from the tax office can therefore open the account anyway. That is rare. Most providers ask for the number in the application form.
What holds the product together is the tax logic. For every transaction Kontist estimates how much income tax and VAT is due on it and puts the amount aside. If you have been doing the sums yourself at the end of the month and moving money to a second account by hand, that step disappears. One restriction belongs in the same place, and it comes from Kontist. The price list marks several of the bookkeeping functions "Nur für Einzelunternehmer verfügbar", meaning available for sole traders only. The product page for a GmbH, UG and GbR advertises exactly those functions. Both statements sit on kontist.com. What can be evidenced without ambiguity is the plan level, and that is what this article relies on.
Who is behind Kontist
The question of the Kontist bank has a clear answer: Kontist is not a bank itself. The app and the technical services come from Shine Germany GmbH in Berlin, formerly Ageras GmbH. Kontist became part of the Ageras group in 2022, and in 2025 the group brought all its brands together under the name Shine. The banking behind it runs through Solaris, which Kontist describes as a German full-service bank licensed by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and the European Central Bank. That is where the German IBAN and the statutory deposit guarantee of up to €100,000 come from.
Three capabilities are missing from the account, and all three can be checked against the price list itself: cashback does not appear on it once, securities and funds are equally absent, and a foreign-currency account is not part of the offer. Card payments in another currency carry a surcharge, but you do not hold a currency account. That is not a gap in the narrow sense, it is the cut of the product: an account for payments and tax set-asides, and everything else sits outside it.
What the Kontist business account costs
The three plans compared on price
The prices at Kontist have two halves. The monthly price is the smaller one: €0, €11 or €25 a month. All three figures appear on the pricing page with the note plus VAT, and that is more than a footnote: anyone who cannot reclaim input tax as a small business pays €13.09 gross instead of €11, and €29.75 instead of €25. The second half of the bill is the transaction allowance.
| Plan | Price per month | Transactions included | Sub-accounts by plan | Free withdrawals | Enough for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kontist Free | €0 | 5 | none | 0 | Getting started with few movements a month |
| Kontist Start | €11 plus VAT | 30 | 3 | 2 | Self-employed people invoicing regularly |
| Kontist Plus | €25 plus VAT | 100 | 5 | 4 | VAT return and DATEV inside the account |
Now the calculation the comparison portals leave out. According to the tooltip on the price list the allowance applies "für eingehende und ausgehende Überweisungen & Lastschriften", so to incoming as well as outgoing transfers and direct debits, which means your clients' payments count towards it too. Take a freelancer with 15 invoices a month: 15 incoming payments, plus rent, insurance, two subscriptions and a few purchases, and she is at roughly 25 movements. On the Free plan five of those are included, the remaining 20 cost €0.25 each and therefore €5 on top, while on the Start plan she stays inside the 30 included transactions. Five movements are reached in a week, not in a month.
What the monthly price covers
A number of features come with every plan, including the free one. This list is the base the plans build on:
What the monthly price does not cover on the Free plan is just as concrete. Sub-accounts start on Start, virtual cards do too, so do collective transfers, and phone support is available from Start upwards. Four features sit right at the top: submitting the VAT return to the tax office, the P&L statement including its export, the AI-assisted categorisation and the DATEV export with receipts are, according to the matrix, only included on the Plus plan. Free and Start export as CSV. The general interface to accounting software is independent of that and comes with all three plans, as those are two separate rows in the price list.
The monthly price at Kontist is easy to plan, the number of transactions is not. If you write few, large invoices, the Free plan is cheap. If you have many small incoming payments, you land on the Start plan quickly, and for DATEV and the VAT return the Plus plan is the entry point.
Features of the Kontist business account
Payments and the transaction allowance
In day-to-day use the account covers what a business account has to cover. Transfers and direct debits run over SEPA, instant transfers are included and count towards the same allowance, a standing order is set up in the app, and collective transfers are available in online banking from the Start plan. Incoming payments arrive from the whole EU and EEA area, and Kontist matches an incoming payment to the corresponding invoice automatically. A notification arrives with every movement.
Above the allowance a fee applies per movement: €0.25 per transaction. The cost rises with how busy the account is, not with revenue. For a consultancy with three invoices a month that is irrelevant. An online shop with 200 incoming payments does a different sum, because on the Plus plan 100 of those transactions are free and the other 100 cost €0.25 each, which adds €25 a month.
Cards and limits
A Visa Business debit card comes with the account. The number of cards depends on the plan: one, two or five physical ones, and none, four or ten virtual ones. So there is no virtual card on the Free plan. Physical cards are limited, per the price list, to one card per legal representative. Card payment limits are €20,000, €40,000 or €50,000 a month and €5,000, €10,000 or €20,000 a day. In a foreign currency a surcharge of 2%, 1.75% or 1.5% of the amount applies. You can block and unblock the card yourself in the app at any time. Credit cards are not on offer, only Visa debit cards are issued.
For card payments in person Kontist has no terminal of its own. If you take payments in a shop or at a client's premises, you connect the account to SumUp, which runs through a partnership.
Paying cash in and taking it out
Withdrawing is the easy part: at every Visa ATM worldwide, with 0, 2 or 4 free withdrawals a month depending on the plan. Each further one costs €2 plus tax, and on the Free plan that applies from the first. Limits are €1,500 to €2,500 a day and €5,000 to €10,000 in 30 days per card. Paying in looks different. There is no counter and no deposit machine for it, only a real-time deposit in the app: 2.9% of the amount on every plan, at least €50 and at most €2,000 per month, with the first one free. For a shop with a till this deposit limit is a real obstacle, for an agency without cash income it is not an issue at all.
Tax estimates, bookkeeping and DATEV
This is the part most people come to Kontist for in the first place. The tax estimate runs in real time: for every transaction the account calculates income tax and VAT and sets the money aside. You photograph receipts inside the transaction or send them in by forwarding, the app reads invoice data via OCR, and the connection to lexoffice or sevDesk is there on every plan. A sevdesk licence is included for 3, 6 or 12 months. From the Plus plan the features that genuinely shorten the month-end arrive: VAT return submitted straight to the tax office, the P&L statement, fixed-asset tracking, external transactions and the DATEV export with receipts. Alongside the account, Shine Service GmbH runs a separate tax service as tax assistance under section 6 nos. 3 and 4 of the German Tax Advisory Act, which is its own offer and not part of the account.
For you that comes down to a simple calculation. If your tax advisor works with DATEV, the road leads to the Plus plan, so to €25 plus VAT and therefore €29.75 gross a month. That is the honest price of the bookkeeping story. Anyone who only needs a transaction export for their own software gets by with CSV on the Free plan.
Overdraft and business loan
Two credit products come with every plan, and both unlock only after a waiting period. You apply for the overdraft up to €3,000 and for the business loan up to €50,000, both in the app and, according to the price list, "3 Monate nach Kontoeröffnung verfügbar", available three months after the account is opened. For a young company the timing is the catch with these credit products rather than the amount, because anyone who needs the liquidity in the first quarter after founding will not find it here yet.
Limits of the Kontist business account
The limits of the account are not forgotten features but a question of how it is cut. Kontist builds an account for payments and tax. Everything beyond that is deliberately not in it:
The account is therefore cut for a clearly outlined way of working. It suits self-employed people with a manageable number of movements, no cash income and no foreign currency, for whom the automatic tax set-aside removes the biggest manual step. In that line-up Kontist covers exactly that and no more.
In short: Kontist is a narrowly cut account whose focus is the tax automation. As soon as several accounts, foreign currency or money that should be earning come into play, the scope of the account ends.
Opening a Kontist business account
Opening a Kontist account works online. You fill in the application, verify your identity with a valid ID document and choose the plan. You do not have to give a tax number, which is why companies still being founded can start as well. Account opening is staffed, according to Kontist, from Monday to Sunday between 8am and midnight, and phone support from Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm.
Which plan makes sense at the beginning depends on the same number as the cost. Kontist Free is not a trial with an expiry date but a full plan, and according to the FAQ there is no minimum contract term. Starting at the bottom and switching once the allowance gets tight is therefore the obvious route. A change takes effect with the next billing period.
Alternatives to the Kontist business account
Kontist is built around its tax automation, and that also determines what stays outside it: several accounts with their own IBAN, cashback, money that earns interest or a return. Anyone with those points on the list is not looking for a better tax estimate but for an account with a wider scope. That is exactly the gap Vivid works into.
| 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 |
| Kontist | €0 (Free), only 5 SEPA transactions a month including incoming ones · from €11 (Start), plus VAT | German IBAN | no cashback | no investing | no sub-accounts on the Free plan, 3 from Start, 5 on Plus | EUR only | Freelancers & sole traders |
Vivid as an alternative to Kontist
Vivid does the sum from the other side: not a monthly price plus a unit price per transaction, but a scope that is already in the cheapest plan. The difference starts with the allowance that does not exist.
What Vivid Business offers
The Free Start plan costs €0 a month and it is open to every legal form, from freelancers through a GbR to a GmbH, UG and AG. SEPA transfers run inside it with no price per transfer. A business account without a transaction counter means the number of invoices no longer shows up in your cost calculation.
That answers the calculation above. The freelancer with 15 invoices and 25 movements a month pays €0 for payments on Free Start, and the same sum holds at 50 or 200 movements. The online shop with 200 incoming payments pays nothing extra for them.
The gap is widest in how the accounts are built. You open as many accounts as you need and each one gets its own German IBAN, on the €0 plan already. Anyone who wants to separate tax set-asides cleanly builds exactly that. You add sub-accounts with their own IBAN for VAT, income tax and reserves, plus one per project or client. The money sits separately the moment it arrives, rather than after a transfer at the end of the month.
The third difference concerns the money that is not being used right now. Stocks, ETFs, iBonds, money market funds and crypto are bought straight from the business account, and model portfolios and an integrated interest account come with it. The DATEV interface is built in, as are the connections to sevDesk and Lexware Office plus invoicing and e-invoicing inside the account.
The Vivid plans at a glance
Three plans, fixed prices, no tiering by transaction count:
| Plan | Price per month | Cashback on all purchases | Accounts with own IBAN | Enough for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Start | €0 | 0.1% | unlimited | Getting started, every legal form incl. GmbH and UG |
| Basic | €6.90 | 0.2% | unlimited | Accounts in 22 currencies and international transfers |
| Pro | €18.90 | 0.5% | unlimited | Teams with card controls and cheaper card acceptance |
Two notes belong with these prices. They apply with annual billing; paid monthly it is €8.90 on Basic and €24.90 on Pro. And they apply exactly as published, with no VAT added on top, which is what makes the comparison with a net price such as the €11 at Kontist clean in the first place. The paid plans can be tried for two months free of charge.
What the €0 plan includes
Free Start is not a taster plan with locks but the entry point with the full payment scope. SEPA in and out with no unit price, Visa Business cards virtual and physical, as many accounts with their own IBAN as you need. Team members are unlimited, with no price per user. And guaranteed cashback with no monthly limit on all purchases is included from this plan.
For a new business that means two things. No allowance that runs out in the middle of the month, and no plan change just because a good month brought more invoices than the one before.
At Vivid you build the tax set-aside through structure. One account for VAT, one for income tax, one for reserves, each with its own IBAN, and you move the money on as soon as it arrives. The figure itself comes from your bookkeeping, and the connections to sevDesk and Lexware Office plus the DATEV interface are built in for exactly that. By then the money is already sitting in the account it belongs to.
Basic and Pro: what comes on top
From Basic, accounts in 22 currencies and international transfers come on top of everything Free Start already includes. From Pro, advanced card limits with restrictions by category, merchant and country, corporate cards and cheaper card acceptance for your clients' payments are added. The cashback rate on all purchases grows with the plan from 0.1% through 0.2% to 0.5%, and in selected categories it is higher.
Investing and interest from the account
Reserves do not have to move to a second, chargeable account. From the Vivid business account you buy stocks, ETFs, iBonds and money market funds, plus model portfolios and crypto, and the interest account sits in the same account.
The difference is less a question of return than one of routes: no separate securities portfolio at another provider, no second onboarding process and no transfer between two institutions before the money can work. It stays where your business runs.
Opening an account with Vivid
Opening runs online: fill in the application, photograph your ID document, take a selfie for the identity check. After that the account with a German IBAN is ready. Standing orders and direct debits move over gradually, so you do not have to complete that switch in a single day.
If payments without a unit price, several accounts with their own IBAN and investing are meant to sit in one account, Vivid covers that from €0 a month, for every legal form including a GmbH and a UG. Cashback with no monthly limit on all purchases comes on top.
Which business account fits whom?
Start with the question of what adds up over a year and what you get for it. Vivid is the fitting choice when more than payments and bookkeeping belong in one account. Free Start costs €0 a month and is open to every legal form including a GmbH and a UG. SEPA transfers carry no unit price, you open as many accounts with their own German IBAN as you need, team members are unlimited, and investing runs straight from the account. For 22 currencies and international transfers you move to Basic, for card limits by category and country to Pro.
Kontist comes into consideration where its cut fits precisely: self-employed people who want the tax estimate delivered by the account and who stay within their plan's transaction allowance. Anyone with many incoming payments, several accounts to keep apart, or liquidity that should be earning, does the sum with the allowance and with the Plus plan. Vivid is built for both sides: for the payments and for the money that is left sitting.
Verdict on the Kontist business account
The Kontist business account is well costed for a particular way of working. The automatic tax set-aside is the reason to choose it, and it works from the free plan onwards. The bill is decided by two other rows: the transaction allowance, which counts incoming payments too, and the bookkeeping features that only come with the Plus plan at €25 plus VAT. Anyone who works through those two rows before signing up will get no surprise on the monthly statement.
The better fit is Vivid as soon as more than payments and tax belong in one account. €0 a month for every legal form, SEPA with no unit price, as many accounts with their own IBAN as you need. Stocks, ETFs, iBonds, money market funds and crypto come from the same account, plus guaranteed cashback with no monthly limit on all purchases. Open the account online and start on Free Start.
Ready for a business account?
Open a Vivid business account with a German IBAN, unlimited SEPA transfers and cashback with no monthly limit on all purchases. On the Free Start plan for €0 a month.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Is the Kontist business account free?
The Kontist Free plan costs €0 a month, but it only covers 5 SEPA transfers and direct debits a month. According to the price list incoming payments count towards that, and every further movement costs €0.25. Cash withdrawals are not included on the Free plan either, each one costs €2 plus tax. So the account stays free only with few movements a month. The paid plans are €11 and €25 a month, each plus VAT.Which bank is behind Kontist?
Kontist is not a bank itself. The banking runs through Solaris, which Kontist describes on its own pages as a German full-service bank licensed by BaFin and the European Central Bank. That is where the German IBAN and the statutory deposit guarantee of up to €100,000 come from. The app and the technical services come from Shine Germany GmbH in Berlin, formerly Ageras GmbH; Kontist has belonged to the group since 2022, and in 2025 the group brought all its brands together under the name Shine.Can I pay cash into a Kontist account?
Only through the app. Kontist offers a real-time deposit that costs 2.9% of the amount, the same on every plan; you can pay in at least €50 and at most €2,000 per month, and the first deposit is free. There is no counter and no deposit machine. Withdrawing, on the other hand, works at every Visa ATM worldwide, with 0, 2 or 4 free withdrawals a month depending on the plan.Does the Kontist business account have a DATEV interface?
According to the Kontist plan matrix the DATEV export with receipts is only included on the Plus plan, so from €25 plus VAT a month. Free and Start export transactions as CSV. Separate from that is the general interface to accounting software, which you use to connect the account to lexoffice or sevDesk: that is available on all three plans. At Vivid the DATEV interface is built into the account, together with the connections to sevDesk and Lexware Office.Can a GmbH or a UG open a Kontist account?
Yes. Alongside freelancers and small businesses, the Kontist FAQ also names SMEs in the form of a GmbH, UG and GbR as well as companies still being founded. One note in the price list itself is worth attention: several bookkeeping functions, among them submitting the VAT return and the P&L statement, carry the remark "Nur für Einzelunternehmer verfügbar", available for sole traders only, while the product page for a GmbH, UG and GbR advertises those functions. If you are a corporation aiming at that automation, clarify it directly with the provider before signing up.What is the alternative to the Kontist business account?
Vivid, if everything is meant to sit in one account. The Free Start plan costs €0 a month and is open to every legal form including a GmbH and a UG, SEPA transfers run with no price per transfer, and you open as many accounts with their own German IBAN as you need, which makes separating tax set-asides possible without changing plan. Stocks, ETFs, iBonds, money market funds and crypto are bought straight from the business account, and an integrated interest account, the DATEV interface and guaranteed cashback with no monthly limit on all purchases come with it.
Status: August 2026. The information on Kontist was compiled to the best of our knowledge from the official pricing page, the product pages and the imprint on kontist.com and may change at any time, in particular prices and terms. No claim is made to completeness or accuracy. Please check the current terms directly with the respective provider. Kontist and Shine are trademarks of the respective companies, Solaris is a trademark of Solaris SE; there is no business relationship between Vivid and these providers. Vivid Money S.A. is an e-money institution supervised by the CSSF and not a bank; client funds are held separately. 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 or tax advice.
