Three things let you take money: somewhere for it to land, a way to ask for it, and a record of what was agreed. In practice that means a bank account, an invoice or a payment link, and one payment method your customer can use today. Almost every other decision in this category can wait until you have enough customers to make it worth making.
In this article
The short version
- A bank account, a way to send an invoice or a payment link, and one payment method are enough to get paid. Nothing else is required.
- An invoice is a legal requirement only where "both you and the customer are registered for VAT". Below that it's how you get paid and how you keep records.
- Where you haven't agreed a payment date, "the customer must pay you within 30 days of getting your invoice or the goods or service".
- Entry card pricing published today runs from 1.0% + 20p at Adfin through 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards at Stripe to 2.9% + 30p under PayPal's "All Other Commercial Transactions" row.
- None of those three publishes a setup fee or a monthly fee on its entry pricing, so an account can sit idle between jobs without costing you anything.
- A card payer can ask their bank to reverse the payment "up to 120 days" after the debit or after delivery was due, and the value comes back off you.
What you need before you can take money
The list is shorter than most guides make it look.
- Somewhere for the money to land. A business current account keeps your bookkeeping clean from the first transaction, and many banks expect business activity to run through a business account, so check your own terms before you use a personal one.
- A way to ask. That's an invoice, a payment link, or an invoice with a link on it.
- One payment method your customer can actually use. Not three.
- A record of what you agreed and what you were paid.
You don't need a limited company. A sole trader can invoice and be paid, and the trading structure question is separate from the payment question.
Invoicing itself is only a legal duty in one case. GOV.UK puts it as needing to give the customer an invoice "by law if both you and the customer are registered for VAT". Below that, issuing one is still the sensible default. The same page draws a line people blur: an invoice "is not the same as a receipt, which is an acknowledgement of payment".
The order to do it in
Doing these in sequence saves you from opening accounts you turn out not to need.
- Open the bank account. Everything downstream needs the sort code and account number, and a provider will ask for them during sign-up.
- Write down your terms. How long the customer has, what happens if they're late, and whether you want anything up front.
- Send the first invoice by whatever you already have. A spreadsheet or a template is fine for invoice number one.
- Add a payment method once you know how your customers want to pay. A consumer client and a finance department behave very differently.
- Open a provider account when you have an invoice to put through it, not before. Where there's no monthly fee, there's also no cost to waiting.
- Once you've been paid a handful of times, look at what actually happened. Which method did people reach for, how long did they take, and did anyone need chasing.
Step six is the one most guides skip, and it's what tells you which of the later decisions are yours to make.
What the options cost when you're starting
Published entry pricing. Not one of these pages carries an effective date of its own, so re-check before you rely on a figure.
| Method | Published entry price |
|---|---|
| Card, standard UK card | 1.0% + 20p at Adfin; 1.5% + 20p at Stripe |
| Card, business or corporate card | 2.8% + 20p at Stripe; Adfin adds 1% to its rate for premium and EEA cards |
| PayPal, general commercial | 2.9% + 30p, under the row "All Other Commercial Transactions" |
| Bank payment or bank transfer | 1.0% + 20p capped at £4 at Adfin; nothing per payment if the customer simply transfers to your account |
| Direct debit | 1.0% + 20p capped at £4 at Adfin; 1% + 20p capped at £4 on GoCardless Standard |
Put a real number through it. On a £300 invoice, our arithmetic on those published rates gives £3.20 at 1.0% + 20p, £4.70 at Stripe's 1.5% + 20p, £8.60 if that card turns out to be a business card at 2.8% + 20p, and £9.00 at PayPal's 2.9% + 30p. The whole spread is under £6.
So at three customers, provider pricing is not where your attention earns its keep. It starts to matter when your invoices reach the hundreds and thousands, because a percentage with no cap keeps climbing while a capped bank debit fee stops. We've given the full cost breakdown its own guide, including the regulator's figures for what merchants of different sizes actually pay.
One thing to look at now rather than later: whether the provider charges you a monthly fee for months when you invoice nobody. GoCardless publishes "No setup costs. No hidden fees." on monthly rolling terms, Stripe states that it "does not charge setup fees, monthly fees, or any other hidden fees like closure fees", and Adfin publishes no monthly fees, no minimums and no minimum contract length.
What you don't need yet
Each of these is a real decision for a business further along, and each one is a distraction with your first few customers.
Your own merchant account. Taking cards through a facilitator onboards you as a submerchant under somebody else's acquiring agreement, so you can be live in a day. A merchant account in your own name involves underwriting, and it's worth revisiting when card volume is large enough for the pricing to move. Our guide to accepting card payments works through that choice.
A gateway decision. When you buy one product that captures the payment and passes it on, the gateway is inside it and there's nothing to choose. Our guide to gateways and processors explains what the words mean and which of them you're actually contracting with.
A surcharging policy. Passing card fees on is lawful only on commercial cards, and it's banned outright on consumer cards. With a handful of invoices, the sums involved are small and the rules are worth reading before you write anything into your terms. Our guide to payment surcharges sets out what UK law allows.
Your own Service User Number. Collecting by direct debit doesn't require one, because providers collect on a shared number or obtain one for you.
A second provider as a backup. Two half-configured accounts create reconciliation work and no resilience.
A card machine, unless you're taking payment in person. A link works over email, WhatsApp or a phone call.
Starting with bank transfer, and where it runs out
Most first payments in the UK are a plain bank transfer, and there's nothing wrong with that. It costs nothing per payment, your customer already knows how, and the money usually arrives in seconds over Faster Payments.
Two limits show up quickly. Your customer has to type your sort code, account number and reference correctly, and once a Faster Payment has gone it can't be recalled. A wrong reference gives you a payment you can't match; a wrong account leaves recovery dependent on whoever received it agreeing to send it back.
The second limit is about how the details travel. An invoice carrying your bank details in an email is the surface invoice fraud works on, because a fraudster only has to change a few digits in a convincing copy of your message. A payment link or a direct debit avoids it, because the payer never retypes anything. There's a separate piece in this set on spotting and preventing invoice fraud.
Speed is the other reason to give people a link. Across Adfin, 57.9% of bank transfers arrive on or before the due date, against 65.1% of card payments, measured on 59,777 paid customer-initiated payment requests over 26 months (Adfin platform data). The gap tracks how many steps each one takes. Hold the business constant and the method differences largely disappear, so read this as what the two populations do and not as a guarantee about your own customers.
What triggers the later decisions
There's no date in the diary for any of these. Each one has a trigger, and the trigger is a change in your own book.
| What changes | What to look at then |
|---|---|
| Revenue becomes recurring or contracted | Direct debit, so the payment happens on a date you set instead of when the customer remembers |
| Average invoice moves into the hundreds or thousands | Capped bank debit pricing against an uncapped card percentage |
| Most of your clients are other businesses | Which cards you're actually being paid on, and whether surcharging commercial cards is worth the admin |
| Chasing starts taking real hours | Reminders and payment links that update themselves, rather than a manual weekly pass |
| Card volume gets large | Whether a merchant account in your own name prices better than a facilitator's blended rate |
| You're collecting from consumers at scale | Chargeback exposure, and what your delivery evidence looks like |
The pillar guide to taking payments in the UK compares all the methods on cost, settlement speed and payer protection, and it's the page to read when one of these triggers fires.
Terms on your first invoice
Terms decide when a payment is late, so they're worth ten minutes before invoice number one rather than an argument afterwards.
Where nothing is agreed, GOV.UK is clear that "the customer must pay you within 30 days of getting your invoice or the goods or service". You can also "set your own payment terms, such as discounts for early payment and payment upfront", and for a new business asking for something up front on a first job is normal and easier to negotiate before the work starts than after.
On late payment, you have a statutory right to interest and a fixed sum on business-to-business invoices, and it applies even where your contract says nothing about it. Our guides to UK late payment rules and to charging late payment fees cover the arithmetic and the wording.
Whatever you send, paying it should take your customer one tap. With Adfin you can put card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, open banking and bank transfer on the same invoice link, with the payment matched back and synced to Xero or QuickBooks. It's free to open an account, so it can wait until you have an invoice to put through it.
Common questions
Do I need a business bank account to take my first payment? Not always. Many sole traders start with a personal account. Separating business money early makes bookkeeping and reconciliation much easier, and many banks expect business activity to run through a business account, so check the terms on the account you're using.
Do I have to issue an invoice? By law, only where both you and the customer are registered for VAT. Otherwise an invoice is how you set a due date, explain the charge and keep a record, which is reason enough to send one.
How long does a customer have to pay? Thirty days from getting your invoice or the goods or service, if you haven't agreed something different. You can set your own terms, including payment up front.
What's the cheapest way to take a first payment? A plain bank transfer, because no provider is involved and there's no per-payment fee. The trade-off is that your customer types the details themselves and the payment can't be recalled if they get them wrong.
Do I need a merchant account to accept cards? No. A payment facilitator onboards you as a submerchant under its own acquiring arrangement, so you can be taking cards in a day. A merchant account in your own name becomes worth pricing when your card volume grows.
When should I add direct debit? Once some of your revenue repeats. Direct debit needs a mandate and advance notice, so it suits contracted or recurring work and it's a poor fit for a first sale to someone you've never billed.
Sources
- GOV.UK — invoicing and taking payment from customers (accurate as of August 2026)
- GOV.UK — invoicing and taking payment, payment obligations (accurate as of August 2026)
- GoCardless — pricing (accurate as of August 2026)
- PayPal — PayPal business fees (accurate as of August 2026)
- Stripe — UK pricing (accurate as of August 2026)
Reviewed by the Adfin team. This article explains how taking payments works for a new UK business and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Provider pricing and published guidance both change; check current sources before relying on them. Last updated August 2026.
