BMO · Mastercard
Business card
Best no fee business card
No annual fee, no fee for employee cards, and 1.5% back on the three categories most small businesses actually spend in. The monthly caps are generous enough that most sole traders never reach them.
Rates and features verified 2026-08-18Full terms and conditionsHow we research cards
What we like, and what we don’t
Worth having
- No annual fee and no fee for employee cards, so the card costs nothing to run
- 1.5% on gas, office supplies and telecom, which covers a lot of small business spending
- Each category gets its own $1,000 monthly allowance rather than sharing one pot
- Cash back can be applied to the balance at any amount, with no redemption minimum
- Mastercard acceptance, which matters when you are paying suppliers
Watch out for
- The base rate of 0.75% is below what a decent personal no fee card pays
- BMO requires a personal guarantee, so the owner is liable as primary obligor
- The FAQ claims no maximum on cash back while the terms cap each category at $1,000 a cycle
- No travel insurance and no lounge access, which is normal at this fee but worth stating
- BMO does not publish a foreign transaction fee on the product page, so assume the standard conversion charge applies
What this card earns
- Gas
- 1.5%
- Recurring bills and subscriptions
- 1.5%
- Everything else
- 0.75%
- Bonus rates apply up to
- $1,000 of annual spending after that, the base rate
- Bonus categories at once
- 1 you choose which
The earning fine print
1.5% on gas, on office supplies and on telecom bills, and 0.75% on everything else. The cap is the part to read twice. BMO applies $1,000 of spend per category per statement cycle, so gas, office supplies and telecom each get their own $1,000 monthly allowance rather than sharing one. Past that the rate drops to 0.75%. We have recorded the $1,000 figure as the cap because it is the conservative reading. BMO's own FAQ says there is no maximum on cash back while section 4.2 of the terms sets out the per category limit, and where a bank contradicts itself the contract is the document that governs.
Fees and interest rates
- Annual fee
- None
- Employee card
- Free
- Foreign transaction fee
- Not published by the issuer
- Purchase APR
- 19.99%
- Cash advance APR
- 22.99%
Who can get this card
- Personal guarantee required
- Yes you are personally liable for the balance
What the benefits really mean
BMO requires a personal guarantee. Section 4.2 of the cardholder agreement makes the signing owner liable as primary obligor, which means BMO can pursue the owner directly without first exhausting the business. There is no complimentary travel insurance on this card. BMO does not state a foreign transaction fee on the product page, so we have left that field empty rather than assume a number.
Our verdict
If you want one business card and you do not want to think about it again, this is the one. It costs nothing, employee cards cost nothing, and the three bonus categories are the ones a small business genuinely spends in. A contractor filling a truck and paying a phone bill is earning 1.5% on most of what they charge.
The 0.75% base rate is the weak spot and it is a real one, because a free personal card like the Tangerine pays 2% on categories you pick. If most of your spend falls outside gas, office supplies and telecom, look at the TD Business Cash Back Visa instead. Read section 4.2 of the terms before you assume the cash back is uncapped, because BMO's own FAQ says something different from its own contract.
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Where this came from. bmo.com business card product page, cardholder agreement section 4.2, FAQ, checked 2026-08-18. We take every figure from the issuer’s own pages, never from another comparison site, and we leave a field blank rather than guess at it.