Monzo Review UK: Is the Free Account Worth It, and Do the £3 to £19 Plans Pay?

Monzo Bank Limited is a UK bank, authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA (Financial Services Register number 730427). It has no branches: you open and run everything in the app, and Monzo says more than 16 million personal and business customers use it.

Eligible deposits are covered by the FSCS up to £120,000 per person, and that is one limit across everything you hold with Monzo, including Savings Pots and Cash ISA Pots. Monzo's own example: with £80,000 in savings and £50,000 in a current account, the FSCS would pay £120,000 and you could lose £10,000. On a joint account each holder has their own £120,000.

In July 2025 the FCA fined Monzo £21,091,300. It found that between October 2018 and August 2020 Monzo's financial-crime controls hadn't kept pace with its growth, with accounts opened on limited and sometimes obviously implausible information, and that between August 2020 and June 2022 it repeatedly broke a requirement not to open accounts for high-risk customers. The FCA says Monzo has since completed a financial-crime change programme. It is worth knowing because frozen and closed accounts are among the more serious complaints customers raise (see below).

The free account is a UK current account with a Mastercard debit card for anyone aged 16 or over. The everyday tools are the reason people choose it: instant spending notifications and categories, Pots to set money aside for bills, savings or anything else, a Salary Sorter that splits your pay into Pots as it lands, and bill splitting with housemates. Monzo also offers joint accounts and a separate 16-17s account.

Get Paid Early lets you take your salary or student loan from 4pm one business day early, as long as it is paid by Bacs. You can pay in cheques through the app, and cash at any PayPoint or Post Office for £1 a deposit (Perks and Max include three free deposits a month).

What it doesn't do is pay interest on the current-account balance, on any plan. Money you want to grow has to go into a savings Pot.

All three sit on top of the same account. Extra (£3 a month, 18+) adds tools: more connected bank accounts and credit cards in the Monzo app (the free account allows one), two credit scores instead of one, virtual cards, extra round-up options, and entry into Billsback, a monthly draw in which Monzo pays back at least 1,000 bills of up to £150 each.

Perks (£9 a month, 18+) adds partner perks that Monzo values at over £300 a year, including a weekly Greggs treat and an annual Railcard, plus a 0.50% AER boost on Instant Access and Select Access savings. Max (from £19 a month, ages 18 to 69, three-month minimum) adds worldwide travel and phone insurance and UK and Europe breakdown cover; adding your family costs £4 a month more.

Perks and Max also raise the fee-free cash allowance outside the EEA from £200 to £600 every 30 days and include three fee-free cash deposits a month. If you cancel a plan, Monzo says you may be charged a cancellation fee, which it shows in the app.

Savings sit in Pots inside the app and count towards the same £120,000 FSCS limit. Instant Access pays 2.75% AER (variable) on the free account, 3.00% on Extra, 3.25% on Perks and 3.50% on Max, with no minimum deposit, no withdrawal limits and interest paid monthly.

Select Access pays 3.15% on Free and Extra and 3.65% on Perks and Max, with a £500 minimum, as long as you make two or fewer withdrawals a year. Make more and the rate drops until the Pot's anniversary: to 2.60% on the free account or 3.10% on Perks and Max. Monzo's page doesn't give the lower rate for Extra. Either way you can still take money out instantly, and the Pot must keep at least £500 to stay open.

For most people the value is the free account itself, not the bonus. The referral is worth £10.90 on average (£10 for 94% of referrals, £20 for 5% and £50 for 1%), so treat it as a small thank-you rather than a reason to sign up.

Interest is the other number. £2,000 in Instant Access at 2.75% AER earns about £55 over a year on the free account, assuming the rate doesn't change. Upgrading to Perks for the extra 0.50% only pays on the rate alone once you hold about £21,600 in Instant Access; below that, the £108 yearly fee is more than the extra interest. Monzo's figure of over £300 a year of partner perks is the real case for Perks, and only if you would use them anyway.

Open the invite link and enter your mobile number: that starts a 30-day clock. Within those 30 days you need to download the app, successfully apply for a UK Monzo current or business account, add money (any amount) and pay for something with your Monzo card. You don't have to wait for the physical card: you can add it to Apple Pay or Google Pay and pay online or in person. Cash withdrawals, money transfers and virtual card payments don't count, so don't use one of Monzo's separate virtual cards for this payment.

You qualify if you are a UK resident aged 16 or over and have never opened a Monzo account. For a referrer's first 100 referrals the reward is drawn at random: £10 (94%), £20 (5%) or £50 (1%), and you and the referrer get the same amount. It falls to £5 each once the referrer has made 100 referrals, or if the referrer holds a Monzo business account as well as a personal one, unless the referral is completed under the business scheme. Monzo can pay more or less than this, or nothing, and can refuse or reverse a reward if it suspects fraud or gaming. Using the link doesn't mean your application will be approved.

The terms set no payout date: Monzo shows the reward in the app once the referral is complete. The scheme has run since 23 September 2025 with no end date, though Monzo can change it at any time. A limited-time offer would be shown on the invite link; on 11 October 2026 ours showed no amount, only an invitation to discover your reward.

Disclosure: the invite link on this page is GetQuids' own, so when your referral completes, Monzo pays us the same reward you get, and the £5 rules above apply to our account as the referrer.

Everyday banking is free: no monthly fee on the free account, no charge for Direct Debits, standing orders or UK transfers, and no fee for going into an unarranged overdraft. Card payments in a foreign currency carry no Monzo fee and use Mastercard's exchange rate.

Cash machines depend on Monzo's fee criteria. You meet them if, over the last rolling 35 days, at least £500 was paid into your account and you had an active Direct Debit, or you received an eligible DWP or Department for Communities payment; if you received a student loan payment in the last eight months; or if you share a joint account with someone who qualifies. Meet them and UK and EEA withdrawals are free, with £200 free outside the EEA every rolling 30 days, then 3%. Don't, and you get £400 free in the UK and EEA and £200 outside the EEA every rolling 30 days, then 3% on anything over that. Those rules are for the free account: Monzo's plans page says Extra, Perks and Max get unlimited fee-free withdrawals in the UK and EEA, plus £200 (Extra) or £600 (Perks and Max) every 30 days elsewhere.

A worked example: on the free account without the fee criteria, taking out £500 outside the EEA within 30 days costs 3% of the £300 over the allowance, or £9.

Other charges: £1 per cash deposit (the first three a month are free on Perks and Max); £5 to replace a card that wasn't stolen, used fraudulently or expired (two replacements a year are free if you meet the fee criteria), or £30 for a replacement outside the UK; and a 1% conversion fee, capped at £1,000, on money you receive in euros or another foreign currency. Sending money abroad currently costs a fixed fee of up to £9 plus 0% to 1.80%. From 1 November 2026, Monzo says the fixed part of the fee will be under £0.80 for most currencies but up to £11 in some cases, and extra fees or taxes can apply to certain currencies.

An arranged overdraft is optional and only for those aged 18 and over; Monzo says limits go up to £2,000, depending on what you can afford. The rate is 19%, 29% or 39% EAR/APR (variable), set by your credit score, and the representative APR is 39%. Monzo's own example: using £1,200 for 30 days at 39% costs £32.94.

The eligibility checker on Monzo's website doesn't affect your credit score, but opening an overdraft leaves a hard check on your credit file. Going below zero without an arranged overdraft costs nothing in fees, but if you don't pay it back quickly Monzo may report it to the credit reference agencies. It can't block offline payments, such as some made on planes, so those can push you below zero.

On 11 October 2026 the Monzo app was rated 4.9 from 360,971 ratings on the UK App Store and 4.8 from about 185,000 reviews on Google Play. Trustpilot scored Monzo 4.6 from 73,270 reviews, 82% of them five stars and 10% one star; Monzo invites its customers to review it there.

The low-rated reviews keep returning to the same themes. Support is the biggest: mostly by chat, slow, passed between agents, repetitive, and slow to handle a complaint. It came up in about half of the 20 most recent one- and two-star Trustpilot reviews we read on 11 October 2026. Others describe accounts frozen or closed, money held during checks, fraud claims and card disputes rejected, and pending payments not reversed.

Google Play reviews from August to October 2026 also object to an app redesign: a more cluttered home screen, with savings moved off it behind a "Total money" view. Others dislike the £1 cash-deposit fee, a few feel the paid plans offer too little for the price, and a few got stuck at sign-up or ID checks.

You need to be 16 or over, live in the UK full time with the right to reside here, and have a phone and photo ID: a passport, a driving licence (provisional is fine) or a national ID card. In the app you photograph the ID and record a selfie video, and Monzo may ask for proof of address. Monzo says applying takes about 10 minutes. It also says 90% of cards reach UK addresses the next day if you order before 3pm on a weekday, or within 2 to 5 working days when Royal Mail is busier.

To make Monzo your main account, use the Current Account Switch Service: Monzo moves your payments in and out, transfers the balance and closes the old account in 7 working days, backed by the Current Account Switch Guarantee. Monzo's switching page shows no switching bonus today, and the referral doesn't need a switch.

To close the account, cancel any paid plan first (there may be a cancellation fee), close your Pots, bring the balance to £0 and tap "Close account" in your profile settings. Monzo emails a password-protected PDF statement of your history. If you change your mind you must wait at least 30 days, Monzo doesn't promise to reopen the account, and you won't qualify for a referral reward again.

Get it if you want a free, app-based current account with strong budgeting tools, a card with no Monzo fee abroad, or a second account for splitting bills and saving in Pots. Use the referral if you were going to open one anyway.

Skip it if you want a branch or phone-first support, pay in cash often, want interest on your current-account balance, or would only open it for the referral, because £10 is the likely outcome. Think twice about Perks or Max unless you would use the perks or insurance anyway; the savings boost alone rarely covers the fee.