Bluevine’s checking account stands out in a competitive, crowded marketplace by charging no transaction or monthly fees and offering qualified accounts a 2.0% annual percentage yield (APY) on balances up to $250,000. Bluevine also has an easy application process and competitive technology, which extends to its line of credit products if you need additional business financing.
If you want to increase your APY, you can upgrade to Bluevine Premium. It charges a waivable $95 monthly fee and offers 4.25% APY on balances up to $3 million. A free 30-day trial is available for this account.
Pros
- No monthly fee
- 2.0% APY on balances of $250,000 and less when activity requirements are met
- FDIC insurance of up to $3,000,000
Cons
- No brick-and-mortar stores
- Fees for depositing cash
- Only one type of lending product available
Features
- Free debit card, mailed within 10 business days of application approval, and up to 4 additional debit cards for authorized users
- Two free checkbook orders per year
- Integrates with QuickBooks Online, Wave, and Xero
- Connects with business payment solutions, including Square, Wise, Venmo, and Expensify
- Up to five subaccounts, with automatic transfers between your main and subaccounts
- Shared account access
- International business payment service
- Line of credit and credit card available
- $95-per-month premium account with 4.25% APY available
How Bluevine Stacks Up With Its Competitors
To learn how Bluevine’s Business Checking account stacks up against other popular providers, read our comparison guides:
When Bluevine Is a Good Fit
- You seek to earn competitive interest: Bluevine offers 2.0% APY on qualifying accounts with balances up to $250,000. If you upgrade to a Bluevine Premier account for a waivable $90 monthly fee, you’ll earn 4.25% on balances of $3 million and less.
- You want to bank without a monthly fee: The Bluevine Business Checking account has no monthly fees, minimum opening deposit requirement, and transaction fees. It’s one of our top-recommended banks for startups and our leading free business checking accounts.
- You need fast approval for funding: Bluevine offers a quick and simple application process for its line of credit product, where businesses can easily get the funding they need within a day. This is among the reasons it’s included in our guide to the top small business lines of credit.
When To Use a Bluevine Alternative
- You need access to brick-and-mortar branches: As a fintech company, Bluevine does not have physical branch locations. The best bank for in-person banking is Chase, which has branches in all 48 mainland states. Read our review of Chase business checking for a breakdown of its three business accounts.
- You run a cash-reliant business: While Bluevine allows cash deposits through Green Dot and Allpoint+ ATMs, there is a fee for both. One of the best providers for affordable cash deposits is Bank of America, which provides a monthly cash deposit allowance of $7,500. Our Bank of America business checking review can help you decide which of its accounts suits your business needs.
- You need access to a wide range of lending products: Currently, Bluevine only offers a line of credit. Meanwhile, the online-only First Internet Bank has commercial real estate (CRE) lending, Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, commercial loans, and more. You can check out our review of First Internet Bank business checking for more information on the bank’s products.
If your small business meets one or more of these scenarios, check out our roundup of the best small business checking accounts for additional recommendations.
Bluevine Business Checking Overview
Bluevine Business Checking Requirements
Applying for Bluevine’s business checking account is relatively simple. You can visit the Bluevine website to open a business bank account.
You need to:
- Be at least 18 years old
- Be an owner of a verifiable business
- Be a US citizen or resident with a verifiable US address
- Not be in the following industries: adult entertainment, gambling, weapons and firearms, illegal substances, and virtual currency
The application will ask for relevant business information, including your business name, address, annual revenue, industry, and employer identification number (EIN) or tax identification number (TIN).
You’ll need to provide personal information, such as your name, address, Social Security number, mobile number, and date of birth. Bluevine will also ask you to provide the same information for all beneficial owners with shares of 20% or greater.
You may also be asked to provide additional documents depending on how your business is structured. Here are the additional Bluevine business checking requirements according to business type:
- Sole proprietorship: Doing business as (DBA), assumed, fictitious, or trade name certificate
- General or limited partnership: Signed partnership agreement; owners with 20% or more share of the business will need to provide personal information and declare the percentage of business ownership
- Corporation/limited liability company (LLC)/limited liability partnership (LLP):
- Articles of organization, certificate of organization, or certificate of formation (for LLC)
- Articles of incorporation, certificate of incorporation, or certificate of formation (for corporation)
- Owners with a 20% or more share of the business will need to provide personal information and declare the percentage of business ownership
Upon providing information about you and your business, your application will be submitted for approval by Bluevine. While Bluevine asks to allow up to three business days for review, most approvals are made in about 24 hours. Upon approval, Bluevine will ask you to sign an account agreement. Once that’s done, you’ll be able to fund and access the account.
Before opening an account, see our step-by-step guide on how to open a business bank account. It includes a free downloadable checklist of required documents.
Bluevine Business Checking Features
Bluevine’s Business Checking account offers a high interest rate, a debit card, integration with accounting software, the ability to create subaccounts, and more.
Savings on Fees
Bluevine helps small businesses save a lot with its lack of account fees. There are no fees on monthly account maintenance, incoming wire transfers, overdrafts, and standard ACH transfers.
Fee amounts can be reduced further by upgrading to a premier account. Most existing fees are cut by 50% with the premier account. For businesses that do a lot of same-day ACH, wires, and checks, this could offset the cost of the monthly fee even if they don’t meet the waiver requirements.
Competitive Interest
Bluevine Business Checking provides a 2% APY on balances of up to $250,000. To qualify for this high return, you’ll need to fulfill one of two requirements:
- Make $500 or more monthly purchases using the Bluevine Business Debit Mastercard.
- Receive $2,500 monthly payments into a checking account or subaccounts via ACH, wire transfer, mobile check deposit, or your merchant payment processing provider. This threshold can be met with any combination of incoming payment types or sources.
Note that the transactions mentioned above must post to your account or subaccounts before the month’s end to be eligible for interest earnings—and the requirements must be met each month. Interest is paid out on the 1st of the following month if you meet any of the two conditions.
Meanwhile, Bluevine Premier accounts earn 4.25% APY on balances of $3 million and less. There are no activity requirements you need to meet to access this APY.
Debit Card
Bluevine provides each business checking account with one Mastercard business debit card, mailed to you within 10 days of the account opening. Expedited shipping at one to two business days is available for a $30 fee.
You can request up to four additional debit cards for your account for authorized users. All debit cards for your account can be managed by your account admin directly from your Bluevine account dashboard. Your debit card can be used to make purchases wherever Mastercard is accepted, and it serves as your ATM card for the account.
Your debit card gives you fee-free access to more than 38,000 MoneyPass ATMs nationwide. There’s an ATM surcharge of $2.50 for usage outside the MoneyPass network, plus any applicable ATM operator fees.
Cash Deposits
You can deposit cash at either Green Dot retail locations for $4.95 per deposit, or at Allpoint+ ATMs for $1 per deposit plus 0.5% of the deposit amount.
Bill Payment
Bluevine offers the ability to pay your bills online. If you’re in a cash crunch, Bluevine allows you to link your credit card to pay bills for an added fee of 2.9% per transaction. You can deliver payments via check, wire transfer, or free ACH.
In addition to one-time payments, Bluevine allows for recurring payments on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis at no cost.
Accounting Software Integrations
Bluevine connects with leaders in the accounting software space—Xero, QuickBooks, and Wave.
It also has a built-in integration with QuickBooks. Whenever you make a payment or upload a bill or payee in Bluevine, QuickBooks will automatically reconcile the action, and vice versa.
Subaccounts
Businesses that need to maintain separate accounts to track expenses will like Bluevine’s ability to create subaccounts. Bluevine Business Checking allows up to five fee-free subaccounts. Because each subaccount has its own account number and routing number, it retains almost all of the same basic functionality as the primary checking account. You can also write checks or order separate checkbooks for any of your subaccounts. However, the subaccounts don’t allow you to deposit cash and lack a debit card.
The combined balances of the subaccounts will be considered in calculating your monthly interest, which will be applied to your primary account.
Note that only the Business Checking account owner is permitted to open a subaccount. However, additional users can access the account once it’s opened and perform different transactions.
Bluevine now allows you to manage cash flow with automatic transfers among your main account and its subaccounts based on rules you set.
Mobile App
Bluevine Business Checking customers can use Bluevine’s mobile app, which allows them to make check deposits and execute transactions as needed while on the go. Note that check deposits can only be made through the app. Bluevine also allows its customers to connect to third-party tools, such as Square, Venmo, and Expensify.
The app received a 4.7-star rating on the App Store[1] (based on 2,300-plus reviews) and a 4.5-star rating on Google Play[2] (based on more than 1,200 reviews). Users praised the app for having an easy-to-navigate user interface (UI). However, a few customers claimed to have experienced issues with the mobile check deposit function.
Shared Account Access
Bluevine allows business owners to securely share access with additional users to assist with managing bill payments or filing taxes. You can permit an administrator, authorized user, and accountant to access the business account.
Customer Service
Bluevine Business Checking account holders can contact customer service by calling the toll-free number (888) 216-9619, available from Mondays to Fridays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time. You can also send a message to support@bluevine.com or fill out the contact us form. In addition, Bluevine has live customer support from dedicated professionals. If you need additional resources, see the Help Center and guides on Bluevine’s website to help you navigate your online account.
Upgrading to Bluevine Premier gives you access to priority customer support, which will put you in the priority queue whenever you call the Bluevine helpline.
Extended FDIC Insurance
Through its partnership with sweep networks, Bluevine provides FDIC insurance on balances up to $3 million. Sweep networks spread your deposits across multiple program banks. Visit Bluevine’s sweep network page for a list of banks included in the partnership.
International Payments for Business
You can send international payments to 26 countries in eight currencies, making it convenient for businesses with global vendors (see Bluevine’s list of countries available for international payments). Charges are also transparent. USD payments charge a flat fee of $25 per payment, while foreign currency payments are billed $25 plus 1.5% of the payment in USD conversion.
Payments can be received in 24 hours, depending on the recipient’s bank and country and when the payment was made. It’s important to note that Nevada-based businesses and those in the finance, insurance, or mining sectors are exempt from sending international payments.
Other Bluevine Business Products
Bluevine also offers an excellent business line of credit that regularly ranks among our best small business lines of credit. Bluevine’s line of credit application process is easy to use and generally approves and funds within one day. Repayment terms can be monthly or weekly and extend to a year. Bluevine will approve lines of credit up to $250,000 for business owners who have been in business for more than 24 months. It also offers rates as low as 6.2%.
The minimum qualifications to access a line of credit are:
- 625-plus personal FICO score
- More than 24 months in business (in good standing with the secretary of state and no bankruptcies in the past three years)
- $40,000 in monthly revenue
- Eligible US state-operated or incorporated LLC or B-corporation (B-corp); Nevada, North Dakota, and South Dakota are ineligible
- Active bank connection or statements from the last three months
To apply, you must provide basic personal information, business information, and bank statements for the last three months. Your business must also be in good standing.
Bluevine Business Checking Reviews From Users
Bluevine business checking reviews are mostly positive. On Trustpilot[3], the provider has a rating of 4.3 stars (based on 7,600-plus reviews). Common sentiments include the following:
- Great value for money: Users liked that the provider offered useful features and competitive interest rates while charging no monthly fees. They singled out the subaccount feature, which they found helpful for budgeting and tax preparation.
- Good customer service: According to reviewers, Bluevine representatives were responsive, diligent, and informative.
- Lengthy hold times for check deposits: Customers said that check deposits took too long to clear.
- Unjust account closures: Several former clients claimed to have had their accounts closed or placed on hold without due explanation.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
While Bluevine is not a bank, it’s a legitimate financial service. Bluevine is a fintech platform that works in partnership with, and is FDIC-insured through, Coastal Community Bank.
To be eligible for a Bluevine Line of Credit, you need a personal FICO credit score above 625.
Applying for a Bluevine Line of Credit won’t impact the credit score of an LLC or corporation since Bluevine doesn’t perform a hard credit pull at any stage. For businesses structured as sole proprietorships or general partnerships, Bluevine conducts a hard credit pull, but only when an offer is received and accepted.
Yes. Through Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC, Bluevine Business Checking deposits are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 per depositor.
Yes, all Bluevine Business Checking accounts are opened online since the provider has no branches and offers online-only services. You must provide personal and business information to apply for a Bluevine business account.
Generally, Bluevine takes up to three business days to review a business checking account application.
Bottom Line
Bluevine Business Checking is an outstanding product with a great selection of features and minimal fees. As long as your business isn’t cash-heavy and you don’t require in-person banking and additional business products (savings accounts, certificates of deposit, or credit cards), Bluevine is a superb option. It‘s also a good choice for businesses that may need an unsecured line of credit for working capital and want the convenience of using the same provider for borrowing and banking.
[1]App Store
[2]Google Play
[3]Trustpilot