The general rule
A qualifying transaction is a genuine card payment made with your Tide business debit card that settles — clears fully, not just gets authorised — within the 30-day window from account opening. Beyond that general rule, individual transaction types behave differently enough to be worth listing separately, because a handful of common business costs sit in genuine grey areas.
Clearly qualifying
- In-store chip and PIN or contactless payments to suppliers, wholesalers or retailers.
- Online card payments for stock, materials, tools or equipment.
- Software and SaaS subscriptions charged directly to the card.
- Card payments for fuel, once fully settled (see below on pre-authorisation).
- Card payments for business insurance, professional memberships or trade subscriptions.
Clearly not qualifying
- Bank transfers, standing orders and Direct Debits — the requirement is specifically card transactions, not general account activity.
- Transfers between your own Tide products, including moving money into Instant Saver.
- ATM withdrawals of any amount.
- Tide's own account or card fees.
- Loading a third-party e-wallet or prepaid card with no immediate business purpose.
Edge case: fuel and pre-authorisation
Fuel pumps typically pre-authorise for a fixed amount (sometimes £1, sometimes £99 or more) regardless of how much fuel you actually take, then settle for the true amount once the transaction is finalised — often a day or more later. The pre-authorisation is not the qualifying event; the settled amount is. If you are relying on fuel purchases to reach £100, do them early in the window, not on day 28 or 29.
Edge case: refunds and part-refunds
If you buy something for £120 and later return part of it for a £40 refund, your qualifying total drops by £40 from the point the refund settles — not from the point you requested it. If that pulls your running total back under £100, you no longer meet the requirement until further qualifying spend brings you back over the line, and it must still happen inside the original 30-day window.
Edge case: subscription trials and delayed billing
Some software subscriptions authorise a token £0 or £1 charge to verify the card at signup and only bill the full amount at the end of a trial period, which may fall outside your 30-day window. Check the actual billing date, not the signup date, if you are counting a subscription toward your total.
Edge case: split payments and part-card, part-transfer invoices
If a supplier invoice is paid partly by card and partly by bank transfer, only the card-paid portion counts. Where you have the choice, paying the full invoice by card rather than splitting it makes tracking your running total considerably simpler.
A practical way to track your total
- Keep a running note (a simple spreadsheet works) of every card transaction with date, amount and settled status.
- Update it when the settled status changes, not just when you make the purchase.
- Subtract any refunds on the date they settle.
- Stop adding new borderline transactions once you have a comfortable buffer over £100 from clearly qualifying spend.
Who tends to get this wrong, and why
Businesses that pay most suppliers by bank transfer out of habit are the most common group to misjudge this requirement, because they assume general account activity counts and only notice on day 25 or later that almost none of it was card spend. Businesses with genuinely card-heavy spending patterns — retail, hospitality, trades buying materials on the move — rarely have a problem, since ordinary trading naturally clears £100 well within the window.
A worked scenario across a full month
A freelance photographer opens an account and, in week one, pays for a £24 editing software subscription (settles same day) and a £68 lighting accessory online (settles two days later) — a running settled total of £92 by day 6. In week two, a £15 memory card purchase pushes the total to £107, comfortably qualifying. A £20 refund on the lighting accessory in week three, once returned as faulty, drops the running total to £87 for offer purposes — but since the qualifying period hasn't closed, a further £20 coffee-and-stationery card purchase in week four brings it back over £100 well inside the 30-day window.
Alternatives if card spend is genuinely difficult to reach
If your business genuinely transacts almost entirely by bank transfer or Direct Debit and generating £100 of card spend feels artificial, it's worth asking whether pursuing this particular reward is the right priority at all — see our first 30 days page for how the card-spend step sits alongside the separate Instant Saver step, which may suit a transfer-heavy business better.