How long a frozen business account actually stays frozen

Neobank account frozen how long, typed into a search bar late at night, is really a request for a date. No provider will give you a single one, and I've come to think that's not evasion so much as law. A freeze can run on a provider's internal review clock, on a statutory clock that the provider isn't allowed to mention, or on a complaint clock that only starts when you write in. Each has its own length, and they can run at the same time. The job, if your company's account has just gone quiet, is working out which one you're on.

I started out planning a table of providers and typical freeze lengths. I was wrong to expect one. The providers I checked on 17 September 2026 either publish a narrow target for one kind of check, or say outright that they can't give a timeline. What they do publish is useful, though, and so are the rules underneath. Read together, they give you a rough map of where you might be standing, even if nobody hands you the date.

What the providers actually promise

Revolut's business help page on limited accounts says: "We'll review and verify your information within 15 business days." The next sentence matters as much: "Depending on your individual case, we might not be able to provide expected response times." A Revolut blog post from 28 February 2024 says it aims "to unblock restricted accounts within 3 hours of confirming all the information we need", which is a very different promise, because the clock only starts once they have everything.

Wise says of restricted accounts that "Our checks don't usually take long", points you to estimated resolution times in the app, and adds that support staff can't remove the restriction or speed up the review if you call. For verification during a transfer it gives a range: "within 5-14 working days for personal and business customers alike". Monzo's Irish help page is the bluntest of the lot: "We cannot give you a specific timeline for how long the review will take". While money is locked it says you "may be limited to spending or transferring up to €1,000", and that incoming payments bounce back to the sender.

Read on 17 September 2026. Monzo's UK help pages returned an error on that date, so the Irish versions are quoted.

Provider	What the help page says about timing	Page read
Revolut Business	Review within 15 business days, may not give a timeline	Business help, account limited
Revolut, blog	Aims to unblock within 3 hours once all information is confirmed	Blog post, 28 February 2024
Wise	No fixed time for restrictions; 5 to 14 working days for verification during a transfer	Help centre, 2 articles
Monzo (Ireland)	No specific timeline; spending may be capped at 1,000 euro	Help centre, frozen and locked money

Account under review at an EMI: the part they can't tell you

People search account under review emi hoping for a help article. Sometimes the account is waiting on something the provider is legally barred from describing, and no article will ever say so. If a regulated firm suspects money laundering it can make a disclosure and ask for consent to go ahead with a transaction. Section 335 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 then sets a notice period of "seven working days starting with the first working day after the person makes the disclosure". If consent is refused, a moratorium of 31 days follows, and a court can extend it under section 336A.

Section 333A makes tipping off an offence in the regulated sector, punishable by up to two years in prison on indictment. So a support agent who says "we can't tell you why" may be telling you the literal truth. It's the only form the law allows. I find it hard to be angry at the agent once you've read that section. I find it much easier to be angry at a system in which a company can lose access to the money it needs for Friday's payroll, write to the provider, wait, write again, and still receive nothing it can act on, because the one fact that would explain the silence is the fact nobody involved is allowed to say out loud. That's the law working as written.

I don't know how many business freezes in the UK run on this clock rather than on an ordinary review. I have not found a figure in either FCA report from 2023 or 2024. The FCA doesn't publish that split, and I'd be suspicious of anyone who claimed to know it from outside a bank. My suspicion is that a review which passes 7 working days with no request for documents is at least worth reading against that clock. That's a guess. A slow internal queue would look identical from outside.

Why did my account get blocked in the first place

The honest answer to why did my account get blocked is usually one of two things. In its September 2023 review of 34 firms, covering July 2022 to June 2023, the FCA wrote that "By far the most common reasons providers gave for declining, suspending or terminating an account were because it was inactive/dormant or because there were concerns about financial crime". Its September 2024 update said the same. Neither reason is flattering, and neither tells you which applies to you.

The same report gives rates for business accounts. The middle half of firms were suspending "between 0.05% and 1.8% of accounts" and terminating between 1% and 6.9%. For personal accounts the termination range was 0.2% to 3.4%. The FCA gave percentages, not a total count, so I can't turn that into a number of companies. It does suggest that business accounts get closed more often than personal ones, though that's my inference from 2 ranges, not a finding the FCA states, and I had assumed the opposite before reading them.

The rules on blocking are short. Their exceptions are not. Regulation 71 of the Payment Services Regulations 2017 lets a provider stop a payment instrument on reasonable grounds relating to security or suspected fraud. It must normally "inform the payer that it intends to stop the use of the payment instrument" and "give its reasons for doing so", before or straight after. That duty falls away where explaining "would compromise reasonable security measures or is otherwise unlawful". Article 68 of PSD2 says much the same for the EU, and adds that the provider "shall unblock the payment instrument or replace it" once the reasons no longer exist.

When a freeze turns into a closure

This part changed in 2026, and I nearly missed it. I went looking for the old regulation 51 on legislation.gov.uk and found a note saying it had been substituted on 28 April, which is how a rule that matters to every account holder in the country tends to announce itself, quietly, in a textual amendment box that almost nobody outside a compliance team will ever open. Since 28 April 2026 UK termination rules sit in regulations 51 to 51D, inserted by SI 2025/688. For contracts entered into before that date a provider needs "at least two months' notice". For contracts entered into on or after it, "The notice of termination must be provided at least 90 days before the termination is to take effect", with reasons "sufficiently detailed and specific" for the customer to understand them.

There are exceptions, and they overlap with exactly the cases that cause freezes. That's not a loophole so much as the design. The notice rule protects the ordinary customer who is being let go for commercial reasons, and it steps aside for the customer the provider suspects, which is precisely the customer who is least likely to be told anything. Regulation 51C lets a provider end the contract without that notice where it can't complete customer due diligence, or where it has "reasonable grounds to suspect" the account is being used "in connection with a serious crime". Regulation 51D drops the 90 days for abusive conduct toward staff or false information given when the account was opened. The Financial Ombudsman's guidance for businesses repeats the two month and 90 day split, and adds that "Some business accounts have different rules".

A small aside that bothers me. Revolut's UK personal help page still says it will email "at least 60 days in advance" before closing an account. That's shorter than the new 90 day minimum. It may cover older accounts opened before 28 April, where 2 months applies, or it may simply be out of date. I am not sure whether 60 or 90 days applies to a given account, and I wouldn't read anything sinister into it without asking Revolut. Anyway, the EU baseline under Article 55 of PSD2 remains "at least 2 months' notice" for an open-ended contract.

The compliance review timeline you can actually control

The one clock a customer can start is the complaint clock, and I suspect companies tend to start it too late. Under DISP 1.6.2AR in the FCA Handbook, a payment or e-money firm must send a final response "by the end of 15 business days after the day on which it received the complaint". In exceptional circumstances, with a holding reply, that stretches to 35 business days. For most other complaints the limit is eight weeks.

That makes the compliance review timeline partly yours to shape. A written complaint sent on business day 3 of a freeze must get a final response by about business day 18, whatever the internal review is doing. After a final response, or once the deadline passes, the Financial Ombudsman Service can look at it. Its consumer page says banks "don't have to warn you" before freezing an account, "although in most cases, the measures are temporary", and that if you lost money because an account was frozen, "we'll tell your bank or building society to put things right".

Whether a small company qualifies to take its complaint to the Ombudsman depends on its size, and I didn't check the eligibility thresholds for this piece. That's a gap in this piece, and I'd rather flag it. I'd look it up before relying on it.

What I'd do in the first week

Write everything down, starting now, before memory tidies it up. Record the date and time the account stopped working, every message from the provider, and every payment that bounced, because Monzo's page says incoming payments return to the sender and Revolut says returned transfers "should reach their account within 10 business days", meaning the sender's account, which is a long time for a customer who thinks they've paid you. If the provider asks for documents, send them the same day and keep copies; Revolut's 3 hour aim only starts once it has what it needs.

Tell the people who were about to pay you, and tell them plainly. That conversation is awkward, admittedly, and nobody enjoys having it. It is far less awkward than a customer discovering that your IBAN rejects their money. If the freeze passes 5 business days without a clear request, put a complaint in writing, which starts the 15 business day clock under DISP. And if the business relies on a single account, open a second one at a different provider before you need it, which I suspect is the only step here that actually shortens the damage rather than the freeze.

I still can't answer the question in the title with one number, and I'm no longer sure anyone honestly can. The statute gives 7 working days and 31 days in one scenario. Revolut gives 15 business days in another. Wise gives 5 to 14. Monzo gives no figure at all.