Bunq Review 2026: The Sustainable Neobank That Plants Trees

Bunq bills itself as the "bank of the free" and leans hard on its environmental positioning. That marketing is well known; what it obscures is that bunq is one of the few genuinely licensed banks in the European neobank field, and that most of its headline green features are tied to the tier you pay for. This review separates the two.

An earlier version of this page repeated three things about bunq that are no longer true — the plan names, the tree-planting ratio and the reforestation partner. All figures below were re-checked against bunq's own pages on 11 August 2026, and the plan line-up in particular has changed more than once, so treat prices as a snapshot and confirm on bunq's plan page before you sign up.

What bunq actually is

bunq holds a Dutch banking licence and is supervised by De Nederlandsche Bank. That is a materially stronger position than an e-money or payments licence, which is what several better-known "banking apps" actually hold.

The practical consequence is deposit protection: eligible deposits are covered up to €100,000 per depositor by the Dutch deposit guarantee scheme, the national scheme implementing the EU deposit guarantee directive. It is worth being precise about this, because comparison articles routinely attribute EU deposit protection to a "European Deposit Insurance Scheme". No such scheme is in operation — it has been proposed at EU level for years. When a bank fails in the EU, the payout comes from the national scheme of the country that issued the licence. For bunq, that is the Netherlands.

If you want the general version of that check applied to any app, our neobank safety guide walks through how to identify the licensed entity behind a brand.

The plans, as they stand

bunq runs four personal tiers: Free, Core at €3.99 a month, Pro at €9.99 a month and Elite at €18.99 a month.

The older plan names that circulate in comparison articles — "Easy Money" and its siblings — have been retired. If a review is still using them, it has not been checked since the rename, which is a reasonable signal about the rest of its figures.

The tier decides how much of bunq you actually get, and the sub-account allowance is the clearest example: 3 accounts on Free, 5 on Core, 25 on Pro. That single line explains most of the disappointment people report after signing up on the free tier expecting the feature set they read about.

The green features, correctly attributed

Tree planting is tier-dependent, not universal. bunq plants one tree per €250 spent on Pro, and one tree per €100 spent on Elite. The frequently-quoted "a tree for every €100" is the Elite rate being reported as if it applied to everyone.

The partner is veritree, not Eden Reforestation Projects. Eden was the partner when the scheme launched in 2019. The current programme runs with veritree, which provides per-planting tracking, and bunq reports that the community has passed 30 million trees. bunq's own reforestation page is the place to check what the current commitment is.

CO2 tracking estimates the carbon footprint of transactions by category. It is a useful nudge, and it is an estimate derived from merchant category — not a measurement of what you personally bought.

On where deposits go, bunq states that it does not lend to fossil-fuel or arms industries. Treat that as the bank's own published policy rather than an independently audited fact, and read the current sustainability reporting if the answer matters to your decision.

The banking features that actually matter day to day

Sub-accounts with their own IBAN — this is bunq's genuinely distinctive feature. Each sub-account has a real IBAN, so you can point a salary, a tenant's rent or a specific direct debit at a specific pot. Most competitors give you savings "spaces" that cannot receive a payment directly.

Dual IBAN — bunq issues a local IBAN alongside the Dutch one in several markets. This solves a real and persistent problem: some employers and utilities still refuse foreign IBANs despite that being contrary to EU rules. If you are banking across a border, this is often the single most useful thing on the list. Our bank accounts for expats guide covers where that bites hardest.

Joint accounts and shared pots — usable for households without both parties needing the top tier.

Foreign currency — bunq's treatment of foreign-currency spending and ATM withdrawals varies by plan, and the allowances have been revised. Check the current plan page rather than trusting any figure in a review, including this one. The general rule across European neobanks holds: the tier you pay for usually buys ATM cash and limits, not a cheaper exchange rate on card payments.

Who bunq suits

• Cross-border workers and expats, for the dual IBAN and the multi-account structure — the case where bunq beats the more famous alternatives on something concrete.

• People who budget by separating money, because sub-accounts with real IBANs make that automatic rather than manual.

• Customers who want a licensed bank rather than an e-money app and are willing to pay a monthly fee for it.

Who it does not suit

• Anyone expecting the marketing feature set on the free tier. Free gives you three accounts and none of the tree planting.

• Fee-averse customers. The tiers that carry the interesting features cost €9.99–€18.99 a month, which is a real annual cost that has to be earned back in value.

• People whose priority is the cheapest possible international transfer. A dedicated transfer service usually wins on price; see Wise vs Revolut for transfers and our cheapest international transfers comparison.

The verdict

bunq is a real bank with a real licence and one feature — IBAN-level sub-accounts, plus dual IBAN — that solves a problem its larger rivals mostly ignore. The environmental programme is genuine and independently tracked, but it is a paid tier benefit, and the ratio quoted in most write-ups belongs to the most expensive plan.

Judge it on the banking. If the sub-account structure or the local IBAN solves something you currently work around, the monthly fee is defensible. If you are drawn in by the trees, price the tier that actually plants them before deciding.

Related reading

Compare bunq with Revolut vs N26, the best banks in Europe, and the wider best neobanks of 2026. This is general information, not financial advice.