Item: Relay Business Checking
Rating: 4.9

Our Take

4.9

NerdWallet rating

The bottom line:

This free online business account has a lot to offer, including expense management tools, invoicing and direct integration with popular accounting software. The main drawback: a potentially long hold on deposited checks.

Full review

Relay Business Checking

Checking

Deposits are FDIC Insured

Monthly fee

Bonus

N/A

Learn more

at Relay, Deposits are FDIC Insured

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Pros & Cons

Pros

No monthly fees or minimum opening deposit.
Unlimited fee-free transactions; no overdraft fees.
No foreign transaction fees when you use your Relay Visa® Debit abroad.
Free incoming wires and low outgoing wire transfer fees.
Up to 50 debit cards.
Account holders are assigned to a dedicated banker or customer support representative.
Direct integration with Shopify.

Cons

Deposited checks may be held for up to 6-7 business days.
No bill pay feature in the free plan.

How does Relay compare?

Relay Business Checking Deposits are FDIC Insured	Bluevine Business Checking Deposits are FDIC Insured
NerdWallet rating Learn more at Relay	NerdWallet rating Learn more at Bluevine
Monthly fee $0	Monthly fee $0
APY N/A	APY 1.50% With $0 min. balance for APY
Bonus N/A	Bonus $300 Requirements to qualify

Full Review

Relay is a financial technology company that offers FDIC-insured business banking accounts via Thread Bank. Users can get a lot of value from this free online business checking account thanks to tools like invoicing, payment links and low-cost wire transfers. It’s an excellent choice for digital-first business owners.

Relay also stands out for its ability to support large teams. You can open up to 20 accounts and issue up to 50 debit and credit cards per business. And Relay’s expense management tools can help you and your employees collect receipts and categorize expenses.

Like many fintech companies, Relay users can upgrade to paid plans with additional features like bill pay and automated expense categorization. Relay’s Grow plan costs $30 per month and the Scale plan costs $90 per month. Upgrading may be worth it if your business sends lots of wires and same-day ACH transfers or wants to use advanced software tools.

This review and the corresponding star rating focus on Relay’s free business checking account.

Relay business banking is best for small-business owners who:

Need multiple bank accounts for their business.
Want access to expense management and invoicing tools.
Use QuickBooks Online or Xero.

Who should consider an alternative to Relay?

Business owners who want to earn interest on their checking account balances directly. Bluevine business banking customers earn

1.5

% APY on balances up to and including $250,000. (Terms apply.) The rate can go higher by upgrading to a paid account.

Businesses frequently paid with checks. Grasshopper says at least partial check deposits should be available within one business day, while Relay may take upward of a week. This account pays interest, too — up to

1.8

% APY depending on your balance.

Relay Financial business banking at a glance

	Relay Business Checking	Relay Business Savings
Monthly fee:	$0.	$0.
Minimum opening deposit:	$0.	$0.
APY:	None.	Free plan users earn 1.03% APY Grow plan users earn 1.75% APY. Scale plan users earn 3.03% APY.
Transactions:	No excess transaction fees.	No excess transaction fees.
Cash deposits:	Cash deposits at Allpoint+ ATMs (no fee) and Green Dot retailers ($4.95 fee per deposit). Daily and per-transaction limits apply.	No cash deposits.
Bonus:	None.	None.

How to open a Relay business checking account

You can open a Relay business account online or via the Relay mobile app. First, you’ll create an account, then provide the necessary information and documents (more on that below).

Once your account is established, you can open and set up your business account and make your initial deposit via ACH or international wire transfer. You can deposit checks via mobile deposit after your account is funded.

What you need to open an account

To open a Relay business account, you need to provide the following information for all beneficial owners. That includes anyone with at least a 25% stake in the business, as well as certain executives, such as the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief operating officer and/or the company’s treasurer.

Government-issued photo identification.
Passport or Social Security number.
Personal address and phone number.
Business address and phone number.
Email address.

You also need to upload certain business documents with your application. Click on your business entity type to see which documents are required.

Employer identification number or Social Security number.
DBA certificate, if applicable.

EIN and EIN verification letter.
Partnership registration form (may be required).
Company bylaws (may be required).

EIN and EIN verification letter.
Company bylaws (may be required, depending on state filed in).
Articles of incorporation (may be required).

EIN and EIN verification letter.
Articles of organizations or certificate of formation (may be required).
Operating agreement (may be required; for multi-member LLCs filed in California, Delaware, Maine, Missouri and New York).

Relay business savings

Once you have a Relay business checking account, you’ll have the option to apply for a linked savings account.

Thread Bank also provides Relay’s savings accounts, which are insured by the FDIC for up to $3 million via a deposit sweep program. The savings account has no minimum balance requirement or extra monthly fee. But your APY does depend on your monthly plan, with better rates for more expensive tiers

Starter (no monthly fee): 1.03% APY.
Grow ($30 per month): 1.75% APY.
Scale ($90 per month): 3.03% APY.

Relay’s business savings account doesn’t include checks, a debit card or ATM access. The only way to get money in or out is via internal transfer with a Relay Checking account. ACH transfers to a merchant or account at another bank are not allowed.

This account might be convenient thanks to automatic transfers from your linked checking account. But if you’re using Relay for free, you can get a much higher APY by opening a high-yield business savings account at a different institution.

Where Relay business checking stands out

Supports multiple accounts, cards: Business owners can open up to 20 checking accounts and issue up to 50 virtual or physical debit cards. You also can invite team members, assign roles and permissions, and set spending limits. This makes Relay ideal for a midsized business or a rapidly growing startup.

Low fees on domestic wire transfers: Relay's wire transfer fees are among the lowest available — all incoming wires are free and outgoing domestic wires cost just $8. Outgoing international wires cost $5 when using the recipient’s local payment network or $25 using the SWIFT network. Those rates can drop even lower for Grow and Scale subscribers. But some competitors, like Mercury, charge no fees on most wire transfers at all.

Built-in bookkeeping functions: Relay includes expense management tools for all users. You and your employees can upload receipts and manually categorize expenses before you sync transaction data with your accounting software. Relay’s paid plans offer additional bookkeeping features, including the ability to set approval workflows for bill payment and automatically import unpaid bills from QuickBooks or Xero.

Invoicing and payment links: Relay users can create invoices from their Relay dashboard and send them to clients. Those clients can pay via ACH or wire transfer, credit or debit card. Don’t need a formal invoice? You can send a payment request via email or text and users have the same payment options.

Card payments come with a fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents (pretty standard for online payments) and can take two to three days to land in your account. Visa Global Services Inc. provides Relay’s payment services in the United States.

Where Relay business checking falls short

Long hold time for deposited checks: Funds deposited via check may be held for six to seven business days before being available in your account (although Relay told NerdWallet that the average is closer to 3 days). That long hold can be incredibly disruptive to a business's cash flow and is one of the main complaints noted in Relay’s customer reviews.

Other business accounts can be much quicker to deposit funds. For instance, Grasshopper business checking, another online account, says it aims to have check deposits available within one business day.

Dependence on partner banks: Fintech companies like Relay rely on partner banks for banking services and FDIC insurance. That’s not bad by itself. But it adds another player you need to be aware of.

For instance, in 2024, the FDIC issued an enforcement action to Thread Bank, Relay’s current partner. The document ordered Thread Bank to step up its suspicious activity monitoring and due diligence on customers. In particular, it cited this need for Thread’s “banking as a service” program (which Relay is part of).

The bank also had to create a plan to increase its earnings, which is important to reduce the risk of bank failure.

Federal enforcement actions are rare, but not unheard of, especially among the banks that fintechs partner with. They do not mean that customer funds are at risk. But it’s important to know who you’re doing business with, just like you would with any other business partner.

Fintech companies can also change their banking partners. Before 2023, for instance, Relay partnered with Evolve Bank & Trust (which has had problems of its own in recent years). Customers then had to migrate to so-called “Relay 2.0” accounts to access new features, like cash deposits and savings accounts.