Sparkasse Business Account: Costs, Plans and Limits

For many founders the local Sparkasse is the first thought when a business account is due. The personal account has been there since school, the branch is within walking distance, and the adviser has a name. Then you ask what it costs and get no answer that holds for the whole of Germany. The Sparkasse in Hanover charges differently from the one in Cologne, and both differ from the one in Munich.

This article is about the business current account, not the personal one. For it we read the price information of six Sparkassen on their own pages in August 2026: Munich, Hanover, Cologne and Bonn, Frankfurt, Berlin and Essen. Every figure carries the institution whose price list it came from.

What is the Sparkasse business account?

One brand, hundreds of independent institutions

Sparkasse is a brand, not a single company. Behind the red S sits the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, an association of legally independent institutions that the German Savings Banks Association puts at 337 institutions nationwide with more than 10,500 business locations. Each of these houses is a regionally independent institution with its own branch network in its region, and each decides on its own about prices, conditions and even the names of its account plans.

In practice that means the same product promise is called Business-Giro in Munich, GiroBusiness in Hanover, simply Modell S, M and L in Cologne and Bonn, and S-MainBusiness in Frankfurt. Anyone who wants to compare a Sparkasse business account therefore never compares the Sparkasse as a whole, but always one particular house. What binds is the price and services list of your own Sparkasse, which is where the account management fee for your plan is set out. Everything else is orientation.

Who the Sparkasse opens the account for

Practically every legal form is eligible. Sparkasse KölnBonn names Verein, Einzelunternehmen, GbR and GmbH in one breath on its own product page, and the other institutions we checked do the same. A Sparkasse business account for freelancers, for small business owners, for a Kleingewerbe or for a UG is not a special case but the normal one.

Sorting happens by booking volume rather than by legal form. The plans are built around the question of how many bookings come in each month: Sparkasse KölnBonn draws the lines at roughly 50 and roughly 150 bookings, while Berliner Sparkasse tiers by free items instead. That is the structural difference to the digital providers, whose free plan usually depends on the legal form and excludes capital companies.

One restriction belongs here. Which institution is responsible for you is decided by your business address and not by you, so the price list is fixed before the first advisory meeting even starts: moving to the cheaper Sparkasse next door is generally not an option on the table.

What does a business account at the Sparkasse cost?

The base prices of six Sparkassen

The honest answer to the question of costs is: it depends, and not on you but on your postcode. The table shows what six Sparkassen state for account management on their own pages in August 2026. That is not a national tariff but a sample that makes the spread visible.

One detail decides part of the bill, and it sits in small print next to the figure. Stadtsparkasse München, Frankfurter Sparkasse and Sparkasse KölnBonn quote their Sparkasse business account prices net, that is with the note zzgl. MwSt. So €9.95 becomes €11.84 on the invoice. If you put two offers side by side, add the 19% once, otherwise you are comparing two different things.

What is charged on top per booking

The account management fee covers running the account, not the payments. This second kind of Sparkasse business account fee rarely appears in the advertising, yet it decides the annual bill. Every booking has its own price, and that price falls the more expensive the plan is. At Sparkasse KölnBonn a transfer in online banking costs €0.35 in Modell S, €0.25 in Modell M and €0.15 in Modell L. Berliner Sparkasse charges €0.50, €0.30 and €0.20 per electronic booking and adds 0, 20 or 75 free items depending on the plan. At Sparkasse Hannover it is €0.39 and €0.29 per electronic SEPA transfer.

Paper costs a multiple. A paper-based order comes to €4.00 in all three plans at Berliner Sparkasse. At Sparkasse KölnBonn, bookings with a slip or at the self-service terminal sit between €0.60 and €0.40, and the same range applies to credits, standing orders and recurring direct debits. So what comes in from outside is counted too.

Work it out for yourself once. A business with 200 bookings a month pays €11.00 base price plus €70.00 for the bookings in Modell S at Sparkasse KölnBonn. In Modell L, which is meant for more than 150 bookings, it is €26.00 plus €30.00. The tiering works, then, but it requires you to know your own booking volume before you sign. And both amounts are net: with VAT, €56.00 becomes around €66.64 a month, or just under €800 a year. The figure in the advert was €11.00.

Is there a free business account at the Sparkasse?

At none of the six institutions we checked. A free business account at the Sparkasse appears in none of the price information we read: no plan there is permanently free, and the base price runs from the first month.

What does exist are promotions for newly opened accounts. Frankfurter Sparkasse advertises waiving the basic account management fee in the first year, and Sparkasse Hannover grants a discount of €5.00 plus VAT on the Online-Banking Business Pro module in the higher account plans. A promotion is a discount with an end date, not a price structure. After the deadline the standard price applies again, and that is the one you should know before you sign.

Staying at €0 permanently happens elsewhere. At Vivid the Free Start plan costs €0 a month, and a GmbH or UG can use it too.

What the Sparkasse business account includes

Payments and booking items

Day to day the account covers what a business current account has to cover: SEPA transfer, instant transfer and bulk transfer for salaries, executing a standing order for rent and leasing, collecting a direct debit from your clients. All of it runs through Online-Banking Business with user administration, so bookkeeping and management get separate access.

Two items regularly come as a surprise. The instant transfer is charged separately, at Frankfurter Sparkasse with €0.30, €0.25 and €0.20 per plan and at Berliner Sparkasse with €0.50, €0.30 and €0.20. And the online banking module itself can carry a monthly price: Sparkasse Hannover charges €7.50 a month for Online-Banking Business Pro in the entry plan and €2.50 in the two above it. The conditions of a Sparkasse business account are therefore not only in the line with the base price.

Cards for the business account

Whether the Sparkassen-Card, the debit card, sits inside the account price again depends on the institution. Sparkasse KölnBonn states its account management price explicitly including one Sparkassen-Card and charges €9.00 a year for every additional one, and Sparkasse Essen lists the card as free of charge. Sparkasse Hannover, by contrast, invoices €1.00 a month per card. Credit cards run as their own item, and Sparkasse Hannover charges €3.50 a month for the S-Kreditkarte Business and €7.00 for the Gold version.

For card payments in shops, Apple Pay and Google Pay work with the Sparkassen-Card, and the account statement arrives electronically in your mailbox. Virtual cards are not part of the offer at the institutions we checked. So the way of working in which you issue a separate card in the app for every project, every subscription and every new team member, then cancel it once the project ends, does not apply here.

Depositing and withdrawing cash

Here the branch model delivers something a purely online account does not replicate: withdrawing cash at the ATM and paying it back in just as easily, at machines and at the counter, across more than 10,500 business locations in the group. If your daily takings come in cash, the deposit point is often on the same street.

It is not free. Depositing cash into the business account costs per transaction: Sparkasse KölnBonn charges €2.00 per deposit at the self-service machine and €4.00 at the counter, and a withdrawal at the counter costs €2.50. Frankfurter Sparkasse charges €1.50 per cash transaction at the self-service machine. At twenty deposits a month that adds up to €40 to €80 that appear in no base-price table.

Vivid is built for working without cash: payments, cards, reserves and receipts all run digitally in the same app. Anyone who regularly pays in banknotes usually combines that with an account at a branch bank.

Bookkeeping, DATEV and interfaces

Data exchange runs through HBCI and FinTS, and through EBICS for larger volumes, which Stadtsparkasse München states at €3.20 a month per account and customer ID. The DATEV connection is usually set up by the tax adviser through the data centre, and CSV and MT940 exports from online banking come on top.

What is missing is invoicing. Writing quotes, creating invoices and chasing open items is not part of the business current account but requires an additional tool whose monthly price appears in none of the account plans and which you should nevertheless include in a cost comparison.

Interest, credit and investing

Credit and investing are plentiful at the Sparkasse, just not inside the business account. A current account credit line and an investment loan run through the business client advisers, and an overdraft facility for the business account is applied for there as well. Putting money into an instant access or a fixed term deposit means a separate account in each case, and securities need a custody account with the institution.

For you that mainly means one thing: several contracts and several appointments. We deliberately do not quote interest rates for instant access deposits, fixed term deposits or the current account credit line here, because each house sets them independently and they go out of date faster than any article: they are in the price display of your Sparkasse, and that is where they are binding.

Limits of the Sparkasse business account

None of the limits below is an oversight. They follow from a model that finances branches, advice and cash logistics, and therefore calculates differently from an account that runs online only.

Opening a Sparkasse business account

Requirements and documents

For identification with an ID card or passport, every person authorised to represent the company comes along, plus proof that the company exists: presenting the trade registration for a Kleingewerbe, proof of freelance activity or the tax number for freelancers, the commercial register extract and the articles of association for a GmbH, UG and GbR. On top of that comes the identification of the beneficial owners, which the Money Laundering Act requires. For a new company the founding deed is enough at first, so that the share capital can be paid in.

Online or in a branch: how it works

Both work. The group describes the route in three steps: you can start opening the account online, then confirm your identity and receive your access data afterwards. For identity, sparkasse.de names three routes, namely in person at a branch, by video identification or through the Postident procedure. In its FAQ it says so word for word: a business current account can be opened online or in a Sparkasse branch. Opening a business account online at the Sparkasse is therefore perfectly possible. Sparkasse KölnBonn advertises its current account application at 15 minutes with video identification.

How fast it goes depends on the legal form. A Kleingewerbe gets through online. A GmbH usually ends up with the business client advisers, because register documents and powers of representation are checked, and anyone who has to arrange an appointment there depends on the next free slot. If you need the account by a fixed date, plan for that lead time.

Alternatives to the Sparkasse business account

If the deciding factor is not the branch or the credit line but the running costs, it is worth looking at providers that calculate differently. The difference nearly always sits in three places: whether bookings are charged individually, whether the number of accounts depends on the plan, and whether reserves can work inside the account. The comparison in the table puts Vivid and the Sparkasse business account side by side on exactly those dimensions.

Vivid as an alternative to the Sparkasse

Vivid calculates from the other side: not base price plus items, but a scope that is already in the cheapest plan.

What Vivid Business offers

The Free Start plan costs €0 a month, and it is open to every legal form, from freelancers and sole traders up to GmbH and UG. SEPA transfers run with no per-transfer fee, incoming and outgoing, whether there are twenty a month or two hundred. A business account with a German IBAN is there from day one.

For your bill that means your booking volume no longer matters. Exactly the item that drives the annual total on an account with per-booking prices falls away entirely.

The difference is clearest in how the accounts are set up. You create as many accounts as you like, each with its own German IBAN, already on the €0 plan. Reserves for VAT, one account per project, separate tills for two locations: that is handled in the app rather than through a plan upgrade. Team members come along without limit, with no per-seat price, with four roles and card limits per person.

The third difference concerns the money that is not working right now. You buy stocks, ETFs, iBonds, money market funds and crypto straight from the business account, and an interest account for reserves comes with it. The DATEV interface and invoicing tools are built in, Visa Business cards come virtual and physical, and on top of that there is guaranteed cashback with no monthly cap on all purchases.

The Vivid plans at a glance

Three plans, fixed prices, no tiering by bookings:

The prices apply as stated, with no VAT added on top. They apply with annual billing; paid monthly it is €8.90 on Basic and €24.90 on Pro. If you are coming from the base price of a business current account, the annual total is the number to compare.

What the €0 plan contains

Free Start is not a trial plan with locks but the entry level with full payment functionality. It includes SEPA transfers with no per-transfer fee, accounts with their own IBAN in any number, cards both virtual and physical, the DATEV interface, guaranteed cashback on all purchases and unlimited team members.

Concretely it looks like this: you create one account for VAT, one for reserves and one per project, transfer between them at no cost and see every movement in the same app. Your bookkeeping pulls the data through the DATEV interface, and you upload receipts directly to the transaction. That is exactly the part where every internal transfer costs money on an account with per-booking items.

For a new company that means no basic fee before the first revenue arrives, and no allowance that runs out in the middle of the month. If you need more later, you switch plans and keep everything you have set up.

Basic and Pro: what comes on top

From Basic, accounts in 22 currencies and international transfers come on top, which makes the difference as soon as you invoice in dollars or pounds. From Pro come advanced card limits with category, merchant and country rules, plus corporate cards and approval flows for limit changes. A business account for the self-employed can be set up from day one so that bookkeeping and card use are governed across the team.

Investing and interest from the account

Reserves do not have to sit in a second account with a second provider. From the Vivid business account you buy stocks, ETFs, iBonds, money market funds and crypto, and for liquidity that has to stay available there is an interest account. Model portfolios are there for anyone who would rather not pick themselves.

The difference is less a question of returns than one of routes: no separate custody account at another institution, no second contract, no second appointment. Moving money works in both directions, and it stays in an account that belongs to the business account.

Opening an account with Vivid

Opening runs online: fill in the application, photograph your ID, take a selfie for verification, and the account is there with a German IBAN. If you are coming from another account, standing orders and direct debits move across step by step while both accounts run in parallel.

Which business account suits whom?

Start with the question of what the account costs per year and what you get for it. At Vivid it is €0 on the Free Start plan, open to every legal form up to GmbH and UG, with SEPA transfers at no per-transfer fee, as many accounts with their own German IBAN as you like, and investing from the same account. For founders, freelancers and firms with many incoming payments, that is exactly where the annual bill is decided. If you are looking for a free business account that is open to a GmbH as well, this is the shortest route.

For the Sparkasse the case is strongest where its design fits: daily cash business over the counter, business client advisers within walking distance, credit and account at the same institution. Vivid covers both ways of working where the money itself is concerned. The business and personal account sit in the same app without a second onboarding, and for reserves there is the interest account instead of a second contract.

Conclusion on the Sparkasse business account

The Sparkasse business account is as good as the institution responsible for you. Between €9.90 and €12.95 is where the entry level sits at the six houses we checked, three of them quote net, and the per-booking items come on top of the base price. In return you get a German IBAN, cash in both directions and a contact person with an address.

Vivid is the better fit as soon as more than plain payments is supposed to sit in one account. €0 a month on the Free Start plan, for a GmbH and UG as well, SEPA transfers with no per-transfer fee, as many accounts with their own German IBAN as you like, investing and an interest account in the same account, and cashback on all purchases. Work both models through over a full year once, using your real booking volume.

Ready for a business account?

Open a Vivid business account with a German IBAN: Free Start for €0 a month, unlimited SEPA transfers and as many accounts with their own IBAN as you like.

Open a business account

As of August 2026. Prices and conditions are set independently by each Sparkasse as a legally separate institution; the information given here comes from the official pages of the named houses and was read in August 2026. It can change at any time, and no claim is made to completeness or accuracy. Please check the current conditions directly with your own Sparkasse. Sparkasse and Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe are trademarks of the German Savings Banks Association and its member institutions; there is no business relationship between Vivid and the Sparkassen. Vivid Money S.A. is an e-money institution supervised by the CSSF and is not a bank; client funds are held separately. Investment and interest products are provided by Vivid Money B.V. 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.