Monzo vs Zopa Personal Loan: APR, Limits and Exit Fees

Monzo vs Zopa personal loan: Monzo publishes a 23.0% representative APR up to £10,000 (10.0% above, to £35,000), charges no early repayment fee and needs a Monzo current account. Zopa lends £1,000 to £50,000 over one to seven years on a personalised quote, and charges on some early repayments.

Updated 16 October 2026: New title and summary; Monzo’s repriced APRs and example updated; direct answer, eligibility rows and three-question FAQ added; restating prose trimmed.

What the two pages publish

Published terms (Monzo rows re-read 16 October 2026)

Monzo — advertised rate	23.0% APR representative up to £10,000; 10.0% above, to £35,000
Monzo — representative example	£4,800 over 36 months: 35 payments of £181.00, a final £158.06, 20.9% fixed, 23.0% APR, £6,493.06 total (correct as at 15/10/2026)
Monzo — size and access	Up to £35,000; UK residents aged 18+ with a Monzo current account
Monzo — leaving early	Repay early or pay extra whenever you want, with no fees
Zopa — advertised rate	The page leads with a personalised quote, not a headline figure
Zopa — size and term	£1,000 to £50,000, over one to seven years
Zopa — pre-application check	A quote in about three minutes, said to have no impact on your credit score
Zopa — who can apply	At least 20, UK resident with a year of address history, £12,000 income before tax, a credit history
Zopa — leaving early	A charge on a one-off payment above £1,000, or on repaying 95% of the balance
Financial Services Register number	Monzo's page prints 730427; Zopa's, 800542

What Monzo puts in front of the reader

On its loans page Monzo gives 23.0% APR representative up to £10,000 and 10.0% above it, to £35,000, and prints a representative example beneath.

The page also states that repaying early or paying extra carries no fee.

What Zopa puts in front of the reader

Zopa’s loans page is built the other way round, leading with a personalised quote it says has no impact on your credit score.

No representative APR appears here for Zopa: none was stated on the page we read.

An early repayment charge applies where a one-off payment exceeds £1,000, or where 95% or more of the balance is repaid, and the app is said to show the charge before the payment is confirmed.

Monzo vs Zopa personal loan: the trade-off runs in opposite directions

Monzo prices the loan up front and lets you leave free, and its page says it charges no late fees either; Zopa prices the borrower personally, then prices the exit.

A borrower who runs the term to its close is buying a rate; one who expects to clear the debt early is buying an exit, and a £1,000 trigger is low enough to catch an ordinary overpayment rather than only a settlement.

A representative APR need only be available to a proportion of successful applicants, a point made at more length elsewhere.

The honest ledger

Pros

Monzo states a representative APR before any application, and states it twice, by loan size
Monzo's representative example gives payment count, payment amounts, the fixed annual rate and the total payable
Monzo publishes that overpaying or settling early carries no fee, which few rivals advertise
Zopa's quote returns a rate for the individual rather than one offered to a majority
Zopa says the quote leaves the credit score untouched — the right way round for a pre-application check
Zopa publishes its early repayment triggers on the product page, not only in the agreement
Both print a Financial Services Register number the reader can check, rather than a reassuring adjective

Cons

Monzo's representative APR up to £10,000 is 23.0%, no small rate for mainstream unsecured borrowing
The 10.0% tier begins only above £10,000, so the pricing rewards a larger debt — a poor reason to take one
A Monzo loan requires a Monzo current account, a condition no rate comparison prices in
Zopa's page carried no headline representative figure, so it cannot be priced without handing over personal details
Zopa's charge triggers on a single payment above £1,000, catching overpayments and not merely settlements
The 95%-of-balance trigger covers most realistic attempts to clear the loan ahead of term
Neither page can state the reader's own rate before details are handed over; advertised figures are not offers

Frequently asked questions

How much can I borrow from Monzo and Zopa?

Monzo’s loans page offers up to £35,000, with the lower 10.0% representative APR only above £10,000. Zopa’s page says you can borrow £1,000 to £50,000, and that checking your personalised rate and repayments with its calculator won’t affect your credit score.

How long can a Monzo or Zopa loan run?

Zopa lets you choose a term of one to seven years, and its page says a longer term means lower monthly repayments but more interest overall. Monzo’s representative example runs over 36 months; check the term offered in your own quote before comparing totals.

Who can apply for a Monzo or Zopa loan?

Monzo’s page says its loans are for UK residents aged 18 or over with a Monzo current account. Zopa’s page asks that you are at least 20, a UK resident with at least a year of address history, earning £12,000 before tax, with a credit history.

Verdict

The comparison worth making is not 23.0% against a quote. It is the total amount payable in each pre-contract disclosure, read against how likely the debt is to be cleared before the term ends — with the early repayment wording read first rather than last.

We take no view on either firm’s permissions. Loan Herald is a publisher holding none of its own — not a lender, not a credit broker, not an appointed representative, and not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority — so verify a firm on the FCA Register rather than on our say-so, or a footer’s. Nothing here is advice, and if repayments are becoming hard to meet, free non-commercial help is available from Citizens Advice, StepChange and MoneyHelper.