C24 Smart Account Review 2026: Free German Bank Account with 0.75% Interest, Pockets & €75 Bonus

A free current account that pays interest on my balance, gives me a Girocard and a Mastercard and helps me organise my money – that's exactly why I use the C24 Smartkonto. In this review I'll walk you through every condition for 2026: fees, cards, the famous pockets, the 0.75% interest on your balance, fee-free withdrawals worldwide and the extras in the app. I'll also compare the three plans – Smart, Plus and Max – show you where the weaknesses are, and how to grab the current €75 new-customer bonus.

Quick note first: this is not financial advice, just my personal experience. The link to C24 is an affiliate link – if you use it, you support my work at no extra cost to you. Always double-check the current conditions directly at C24 before opening, because rates and promotions can change.

The C24 Smart account at a glance

If you're short on time, here's the short version of the free Smart account:

• Account fee: €0 per month, permanently and with no minimum deposit
• Cards: Mastercard Debit and Girocard – both free, plus Apple Pay & Google Pay
• Interest: 0.75% p.a. on your flexible balance (current account, pockets, savings pocket) – plus C24 fixed deposit up to 1.25% p.a.
• Pockets: 4 sub-accounts with their own IBAN + 1 savings pocket, also interest-bearing
• Cash: 4× per month free worldwide, then €2 per withdrawal
• Foreign currency: no fees when paying or withdrawing
• Extras: spending analysis, contract detection, multi-banking – all in the C24 app
• Safety: German bank (CHECK24 group), deposit protection up to €100,000
• Bonus: currently €75 switching reward for new customers with a digital account switch

What is C24 Bank?

Behind the Smartkonto sits C24 Bank GmbH, based in Munich – the in-house bank of the comparison portal CHECK24. It holds a full BaFin banking licence and is a member of the statutory deposit guarantee scheme. Your money is therefore protected up to €100,000 per person, just like at any German bank. That's an important difference from some neobanks that operate under a foreign licence: with C24 you get a classic German bank with German deposit protection – just fully digital, with no branches, run through the app.

The CHECK24 ecosystem also brings a nice side effect: comparisons for electricity, insurance or loans are built in, and the app detects running contracts and suggests cheaper alternatives. If you like that, you'll save extra in everyday life – if not, you can simply ignore it.

Free really means free here

That's the core of it for me: the Smart account costs €0 per month, with no conditions like a minimum deposit. And unlike many app banks, you get two cards for free:

• a Mastercard Debit (usable worldwide, for online payments and abroad)
• a Girocard (the classic German debit card that not every merchant here has replaced with Mastercard/Visa yet)

On top of that, Apple Pay and Google Pay work at no extra cost. So for everyday use – paying, receiving your salary, standing orders, direct debits – you pay nothing. Costs only arise in special cases, mainly cash (more on that shortly) and the overdraft (7.49% p.a.).

Interest: 0.75% on your balance – no separate savings account

What sets the C24 Smartkonto apart from most free current accounts: your balance earns interest. Since 1 August 2026 C24 pays 0.75% p.a. – in three places at once:

Where	Rate	Up to
Current account balance	0.75% p.a.	€50,000
Pockets (sub-accounts)	0.75% p.a.	€5,000 each
Savings pocket	0.75% p.a.	€100,000

The rate is variable and tied to the ECB deposit facility rate (specifically: deposit rate minus 1.50 percentage points). If base rates rise or fall, C24 adjusts. But here you get the interest on your current account, with no transfers and no separate account. For the buffer that sits on your account anyway, that's a real advantage over 0% at classic current accounts.

If you can lock money away a little, there's even more: with the C24 fixed deposit (Festgeld) you currently get up to 1.25% p.a. – from €1,000, with terms from 1 month up to 1 year, and the rate is guaranteed for the chosen term. So you combine a flexible balance (0.75%) with a fixed pot for the part of your emergency fund you won't need for a while.

Pockets: split your money into buckets

My favourite feature is the pockets – sub-accounts with their own IBAN that you create in seconds in the app. The Smart account includes four pockets plus a savings pocket. I use them to split my money directly instead of keeping everything in one big pile:

• one pocket for fixed costs (rent, electricity, subscriptions)
• one for holidays
• one for bigger purchases
• the savings pocket for the emergency fund

Because each pocket has its own IBAN, you can have your rent debited directly from the fixed-costs pocket, for instance. And since the balance in the pockets also earns 0.75%, your money keeps working while it's "parked". If you budget with the envelope/bucket method, this is gold.

Handy: for the savings pocket you can set up a round-up rule (every card payment is rounded up to the next €1, €5 or €10 and the difference is saved) or turn on surplus saving (whatever is left above a balance you set at month-end moves into the pocket automatically). So you save on the side without thinking about it.

Cash & abroad

Four cash withdrawals per month are free worldwide, after which each further withdrawal costs €2. As someone who barely uses cash, that's plenty for me. If you withdraw a lot, keep it in mind – or go straight for the Plus/Max plan with more free withdrawals.

The account is genuinely strong for travel: there are no foreign-currency fees, neither when paying nor when withdrawing. That makes the C24 Smartkonto a great travel and secondary account – much like a free travel credit card, only as a current account.

The app: spending analysis & contract optimisation

All banking runs through the C24 app. Alongside the standard functions (transfers, instant transfers, push notifications) there are two things I find useful:

• Spending analysis: transactions are sorted into categories automatically, so you see at a glance where your money goes.
• Contract detection & optimisation: the app spots running contracts (electricity, mobile, insurance) and suggests cheaper tariffs via CHECK24.
• Multi-banking: you can link accounts from other banks and see everything in one place.

Honestly, the contract part is clearly CHECK24 marketing – but with electricity tariffs in particular I've already saved real money. You don't have to accept the suggestions. The app itself is very well rated, by the way: 4.8/5 on the App Store and 4.5/5 on Google Play, and you can customise the design (colour, which tiles are shown).

Smart, Plus or Max? The three plans compared

C24 offers three account plans. For most people Smart is enough; the other two are paid variants with extras:

Feature	Smart (€0)	Plus (€5.90/M)	Max (€9.90/M)
Account fee	free	€5.90 / month	€9.90 / month
C24 Mastercard	standard colour	colour of choice	metal card, colour of choice
Girocard	✓	✓	✓
Cashback	0.05%	0.5% (up to €12/M)	1% (up to €24/M)
Pockets	4	20	20
Virtual cards	1	20	20
Free withdrawals/month	4	20	20
Interest on balance	0.75%	0.75%	0.75%
AXA purchase protection	–	✓	✓
CHECK24 Smily loyalty programme	–	–	✓

My take: the Smart account covers everything for most people. Plus is worth it mainly for the higher cashback (0.5%), more pockets and the AXA purchase protection; Max for 1% cashback, the metal card and the exclusive CHECK24 Smily perks. Just work out whether your cashback earns back the monthly fee (€5.90 or €9.90) – for everyday use the free Smart plan is usually your best bet.

The current bonus: €75 for new customers

On top of all that, there's an attractive new-customer promotion right now: €75 starting credit. The condition is manageable – you open a C24 current account as a new customer and close your old current account via the digital account switch within 90 days. The bonus applies to all three plans (Smart, Plus, Max) and is credited about 14 days after the completed switch. There's no minimum deposit.

Because the promotion has its own details (12-month new-customer rule, deadlines, the switching process), I've explained it step by step in a separate post: C24 bonus: claim €75 switching reward. You'll find the full guide and the pitfalls there.

Drawbacks: what you should know

To keep this an honest review – the points I like less:

• App-only banking: there are no branches and no full browser online banking for every function. It doesn't work without a smartphone.
• Cash from the 5th withdrawal costs €2 in the Smart plan. Heavy withdrawers should factor that in.
• No free real credit card with a credit line – the cards are debit cards. If you want a free credit card for travel or car-rental deposits, you'll need a free credit card on top.
• The savings rate is solid but not the highest on the market. To squeeze the most out of your emergency fund, combine C24 with a specialist savings or money-market provider.
• Lots of CHECK24 integration: the tariff suggestions are advertising for their own portal. It doesn't bother me, but it's worth knowing.

Verdict: who is the C24 Smart account right for?

For me the C24 Smartkonto is one of the strongest free current accounts around – precisely because it combines things that are usually separate: €0 fee, Girocard + Mastercard, 0.75% interest on your balance and the handy pockets. As a main or a secondary/travel account it gets almost everything right, and with German deposit protection behind it, it's a reputable, no-fuss choice.

If you withdraw a lot of cash or need a real free credit card, you'll have to add to it – but as an everyday base, this account is hard to beat. If you're switching anyway, take the €75 reward with you: open the C24 Smart account via my link*. You'll find the exact bonus conditions in my post on the €75 promotion.

Links marked with * are affiliate links. If you open an account through them, you support my work – at no extra cost to you. Thank you!