Aequitas for businesses
Businesses join in a pilot town once enough people there have registered. Until then you can try AEQ without risk, with a limit you set yourself.
Accept AEQ, pass it on, pay nothing
Businesses may accept, hold and spend AEQ. The rules make money flow through them and back to people: leaving it idle costs, passing it on is free.
No card fees
A payment costs the business nothing. Customers spend their first 1,000 AEQ each month without any fee.
Fee-free wages
Wages paid in AEQ cost nothing. Everyone can exchange up to 3,000 AEQ a month into euros or dollars without a levy.
No growth cap
People can hold at most 25,000 AEQ; businesses have no fixed limit. Up to one and a half months' turnover never costs anything.
Paid in seconds
Money arrives in seconds. No chargebacks, no waiting for settlement.
Taking part in the pilot
What a bakery, a café or a workshop can do today, without a business account and without risk.
Register as a person
The owner registers like everyone else. At first, payments go to their own account. No business account is needed for that.
Show your QR code
In the app, tap Receive. The customer scans the code and enters the amount. The money arrives in seconds, and receiving costs the shop nothing.
Set your own limit
You decide how much you accept, for example up to 20 % of a purchase or up to 500 AEQ a month, and you set your AEQ prices yourself.
Business account when it pays off
If AEQ takes off for you, a business account follows: no fixed limit, wages free of charge, reserves free up to one and a half months' turnover.
What it costs a business
Two businesses, calculated with the rules that apply from 26 September 2026.
Typical merchant fees in Europe. At Aequitas the customer adds the 0.1 % fee on top, so the shop receives the full price. Exchanging AEQ into euros costs businesses 2 %, except for what they paid in themselves.
- Wages 1,500 · free
- Supplier 800 · 0.1 % = 0.8
- Owner 600 · free
- Reserve 100 · no levy
A supermarket that hoards
40,000 AEQ of purchases every month, but 200,000 AEQ stay in the account. Free up to 60,000 (1.5 months' turnover), 0.5 % on the next 60,000 up to 3 months' turnover, 1 % on the 80,000 above. A normal reserve of two months would cost only 100 AEQ a month.
The rules for business accounts
They apply from 26 September 2026. Every levy goes 100 % to the basic income, equally to every person.
What counts as turnover?
Turnover is the average of the last 90 days, or of the last 12 months if that is higher, so a seasonal business keeps its reserve after the season. A new business is averaged over at least 30 days. Between businesses the surplus counts; from 3 October 2026 each paying business also counts up to 9,000 AEQ per quarter, so passing AEQ on to suppliers no longer lowers the allowance. A circle between friendly firms gains at most that cap per firm, and every firm needs a verified person behind it. A person's first business never pays more than that person would: one shared 5,000 AEQ allowance and one shared 25,000 AEQ limit (until 3 October 2026 only in its first six months, once per person every 12 months).
Who is a business? We don't need to know.
A decentralised network cannot check whether a real company stands behind an account, and it should not have to: no registry, no authority, no gatekeeper. Instead, hoarding is expensive in every form and passing money on is cheap in every form. Registering as a business only pays off for those whose money really flows.
Every workaround we found, and why it fails
- Registering as a business to get around the 25,000 limit. Without real turnover a business pays 1 % a month on everything above 2,000 AEQ, twice as much as a person. A person's first business shares one 5,000 AEQ allowance and one 25,000 AEQ limit with that person.
- Sending money in circles between your own or friendly firms to inflate turnover. Your own firms do not count for each other. Between other firms each paying firm counts for at most 9,000 AEQ per quarter, and money sent back cancels what was counted: a circle gains little and needs a real person behind every firm.
- Paying money in yourself or through the owner. Payments from a business's own responsible people do not count as turnover.
- Friends who buy and get the money back. Each person counts at most 9,000 AEQ per quarter per business, and whatever the business pays back to that same person cancels it. The money would have to go back through other people, every quarter, publicly visible.
- Founding many firms for many free amounts. At most 3 business accounts per person, so at most 6,000 AEQ free.
- Paying yourself as an “employee”. Payments to responsible people count as withdrawals, not wages.
- Fake wages to friends who exchange and hand back cash. Exchanges are free of the exit levy only up to 3,000 AEQ per person and month, and wage totals are public.
- Parking money in the liquidity pool. Only people can provide liquidity.
- A smart contract as a hiding place. Contracts are other addresses: at most 250 AEQ, 1 % a month.