Watch for monthly maintenance, minimum balance, wire, ACH, foreign-currency, out-of-network ATM, and overdraft fees. Rho, a banking platform for US-incorporated businesses, charges $0 for domestic ACH and wires and has no monthly, per-user, or minimum-balance fees on business checking.
Your bank statement shows a $35 charge you don't recognize. You call support, and it turns out you dipped below a minimum balance you didn't know existed, for four days, three weeks ago. Nobody warned you. That's not a glitch. It's how a lot of business bank accounts are built.
What fees should you watch out for with business bank accounts?
A monthly fee you can waive only by holding a minimum balance is a cost whether or not it ever appears as a line item.
What the providers publish, by fee type:
Monthly maintenance. A flat charge for keeping the account open. Chase Business Complete Banking is $15 a month unless you meet a waiver. Mercury's base checking is $0 a month. Rho charges no monthly fee on business checking.
Minimum balance. Either a fee for dipping below a threshold or a threshold you must hold to waive the monthly fee. Chase's waivers include a $2,000 minimum daily ending balance. Mercury, Bluevine Standard, and Relay all state no minimum balance. Rho charges no minimum-balance fee.
Wire fees. Domestic wires are $0 at Mercury. Bluevine charges up to $15 for an outgoing wire. On international wires, recipient and intermediary banks can add their own fees on top of the provider's.
ACH fees. Standard ACH is free at Bluevine, and same-day ACH runs up to $10. Mercury lists $0 for same-day and next-day ACH.
Foreign-currency fees. The one to read twice. Mercury charges 1% on non-USD international wires and 3% on non-USD card transactions. Bluevine charges up to 1.5% on foreign-currency payments. Check any provider's published schedule for foreign-currency terms before you send money abroad.
Out-of-network ATM fees. Bluevine charges $2.50 at ATMs outside the MoneyPass network and nothing inside it. Whatever provider you pick, ask what an out-of-network withdrawal costs before you need one.
Overdraft fees. Mercury, Bluevine, and Relay each state on their own pages that they charge none. Chase sends you to a separate fee schedule document for charges beyond its included transaction limits, so read that document before you open the account.
The table below puts what five providers publish side by side. Rho's own fee schedule is on the pricing page, and the sections after the table cover these seven fees plus the smaller ones, such as cash deposit, early closure, and stop payment charges.
Why banks charge these fees in the first place
A business checking account costs the bank money to run: compliance, fraud monitoring, wire infrastructure, ATM networks, cash handling.
Traditional banks tend to recover that cost through a long list of small, itemized fees. Some providers recover it a different way, by not offering certain services, like cash deposits or branch banking, rather than charging for the ones they do offer.
Neither model is inherently better. But if you don't know which model your provider uses, you'll be surprised by the bill.
Here's what to check for.
Monthly maintenance fees
A monthly maintenance fee is a flat charge just for keeping the account open, independent of how you use it.
How to avoid it:
Hold the required minimum balance for your tier.
Choose a provider that doesn't charge a monthly fee at all.
Minimum balance fees
A minimum balance fee, distinct from the maintenance fee above, kicks in when your account balance drops below a set threshold, even if only briefly.
How to avoid it:
Know your provider's exact threshold, in dollars.
Confirm whether it's measured daily or as an average balance.
Or use an account that doesn't carry a minimum-balance requirement at all.
Per-transaction and excess transaction fees
Some accounts include a set number of free transactions per month, then charge per transaction after that. If your business runs high transaction volume, a low free-tier cap turns into a real monthly cost fast.
How to avoid it:
Count your actual monthly transaction volume before choosing a plan.
Confirm whether the tier you're picking has a transaction cap at all.
Wire and ACH fees
Wire fees vary more than almost any other category on this list, both by provider and by domestic versus international routing.
Here's the catch with any "$0 wire fee" claim: the fee your bank charges is only one leg of the trip. Receiving banks may charge their own fees, and on international wires, correspondent and intermediary banks outside either party's control can add their own charges.
How to avoid it:
Ask separately about domestic versus international.
Ask separately about incoming versus outgoing.
Remember that a "$0 wires" claim often covers only one of those four combinations, not all of them.
Overdraft fees
An overdraft fee applies when a transaction takes your balance below zero and the bank covers it anyway. A bad week of timing mismatches between receivables and payables adds up faster than most business owners expect.
How to avoid it:
Set low-balance alerts a few days ahead of major payments.
Or choose a provider that doesn't charge overdraft fees at all.
Cash deposit fees
If your business handles physical cash, some providers charge a fee once you exceed a monthly deposit cap, calculated as a percentage of the amount over that cap.
This is also a category where the more important question isn't the fee, it's availability. Some providers don't accept cash deposits at all, so if your business runs cash-heavy, confirm this upfront rather than assuming a "no fee" account covers it.
How to avoid it:
Ask directly what your monthly free cash-deposit allowance is.
Ask what happens above that allowance, and get the rate in writing.
Confirm the provider accepts cash deposits at all before you open the account.
Out-of-network ATM fees
Withdraw cash from an ATM outside your bank's network, and you can get charged twice: once by the ATM owner, once by your own bank.
How to avoid it:
Check your provider's in-network ATM footprint before you need cash on the road.
Use a provider with a large surcharge-free network.
Early account closure fees
Close a business account within the first few months of opening it, and some banks charge a fee for the early exit.
How to avoid it:
Read the fee schedule before you open the account.
Check the early-closure clause specifically if there's any chance you'll switch providers within the first year.
Stop payment and paper statement fees
Cancel a check or ACH payment after you've already issued it, and that's a stop payment fee.
A separate, smaller fee shows up for paper statements or copies of old statements instead of online records.
How to avoid it:
Catch payment mistakes before you issue them; canceling after the fact almost always costs more than the error would have.
Switch to digital statements by default to avoid the paper-statement fee.
Who publishes what: five providers compared
Labels compare the fees each provider publishes on its own website: monthly, minimum-balance, ACH, domestic and international wire, foreign-currency, ATM, and overdraft fees, plus branch access.
Provider | Best for | What it publishes |
|---|---|---|
Rho | US-incorporated businesses that want $0 domestic ACH and wires with no monthly fee | $0 domestic ACH and wires. No monthly, per-user, or minimum-balance fees on business checking. |
Mercury | Sending USD international wires at no Mercury fee | $0 a month. $0 ACH and domestic wires. No minimum balance. 1% on non-USD international wires. |
Bluevine (Standard) | Businesses that stay inside the MoneyPass ATM network | No monthly fee or minimum balance. Standard ACH free, same-day up to $10. Outgoing wires up to $15. Foreign-currency payments up to 1.5%. |
Relay | A $0 starter plan with no minimum balance and no overdraft fees | Starter is $0 a month with no minimum balance and no overdraft fees. |
Chase | Businesses that want branch banking and can hold a $2,000 daily balance | $15 a month, waivable with a $2,000 minimum daily ending balance. |
Before you open any account, ask for the full fee schedule, not just the pricing page.
Rho's approach
Rho is a banking platform. Against the fees above, business checking has no monthly, per-user, or minimum-balance charge, and domestic ACH and wires cost $0.
Rho serves US-incorporated businesses only. To compare it against the list above, see Rho's full fee schedule.
