Business loans and business accounts for SMEs in Europe

What counts as business finance

For a company with fewer than 250 employees, which is how the EU defines a small or medium-sized enterprise, the menu is usually short. A term loan is a fixed amount repaid over one to five years. A credit line is a limit you draw on and repay as needed, paying interest only on what is drawn. Invoice financing advances money against unpaid invoices. Leasing finances equipment or vehicles. Revenue-based financing and merchant cash advances give you a lump sum in exchange for a share of future turnover.

Alongside the credit sits the business account: the current account, cards and payments a company needs to trade. It can be held at a bank or at an electronic money institution, and the difference matters for how your money is protected.

Why business credit is different

The Consumer Credit Directive protects private individuals, not companies. A lender to a business is not obliged to quote an APR, to provide a standardised information sheet or to give a withdrawal period. Contracts commonly require a personal guarantee from the founder, which means the company's debt can become yours. Pricing is often expressed as a monthly rate, a factor or a fee rather than an annual percentage, and converting these to a comparable annual cost is the first job when comparing.

What does apply EU-wide is the Late Payment Directive, which sets a statutory interest rate and a minimum compensation when a business customer pays late, and the SEPA rules that make a business IBAN from any EU country valid for payments and direct debits across the whole area.

Online lenders and financing platforms fill that gap by reading bank statements, turnover data and payment-provider history instead. The trade-off is price: a revenue-based advance with a factor of 1.2 on a six-month repayment is cheap per month but expensive per year, often the equivalent of a 40 percent APR or more. Convert every offer to an annual cost before you compare it with a bank loan.

Business accounts: bank or electronic money institution

A licensed bank holds your deposit and it is covered by the national deposit guarantee scheme, up to €100,000 per depositor, and most companies count as eligible depositors. An electronic money institution is licensed under the EU e-money rules instead: it must safeguard client funds at a bank or in low-risk assets, but those funds are not covered by the deposit guarantee. Many app-based business accounts popular with founders are electronic money institutions. Neither is wrong; you should simply know which one you have.

A non-resident founder can open a business account in another EU country, but the right to a basic payment account only covers consumers, so a provider may decline a company. Expect identity and ownership checks on every shareholder above 25 percent. Once you have an IBAN from any EU country, a supplier or customer may not refuse it under the SEPA regulation.

Where to compare in your country

Business lenders are licensed and priced nationally. The Dutch site compares business loans and accounts for companies registered in the Netherlands; the Finnish site follows the same pattern. Choose your country above.