How to get a business loan with bad credit
Below the bank tier, lenders care less about your score than most owners expect. What they care about is whether money moves through your account consistently.
A weak personal credit score narrows your options and raises your cost. It does not, on its own, end the conversation. Plenty of small-business financing is underwritten primarily on revenue, collateral, or your customers rather than your credit file, and a business with steady deposits and a 560 score frequently has real options while a business with a 700 score and erratic revenue does not.
Which products still work
Revenue-based financing and working capital. Underwritten mainly on three to four months of bank deposits. This is the largest category available below 600, and consistency of deposits matters far more than the size of any single month.
Equipment financing. Secured by the equipment being purchased, which lets the lender look past a weaker profile. Frequently the single most accessible option for a low-credit borrower who needs a specific asset.
Invoice or receivables financing. Underwritten substantially on whether your customers pay their bills, not whether you have paid yours. If your problem is slow-paying clients rather than a revenue shortfall, this fits the problem precisely.
What generally will not work below 600: bank term loans, most SBA products, and low-rate unsecured lines of credit. Applying for them anyway mostly produces declines and hard inquiries, and the inquiries make the next application harder, as explained in does applying hurt your credit.
Find out what is available at your score
Revenue-based lenders look at deposits before credit, so the only way to know your real options is to have someone read the statements. If credit is the blocker, we route you to repair instead of expensive money.
See what you qualify for →About 60 seconds. No hard credit pull. One funding partner, not a lead list.
What it actually costs
Lenders price risk, so expect a higher rate or factor, a shorter term, a smaller amount, and often all three. Before comparing a factor-rate offer against anything quoted as an annual rate, read factor rate vs APR, because a 1.3 factor is not 30 percent a year and the difference is large enough to change which offer is better.
The part worth sitting with: expensive money used to solve a temporary timing problem is often fine, while expensive money used to solve a structural shortfall usually makes things worse. If revenue genuinely cannot support the payment during a slow stretch, the financing is not a bridge, it is the first step into the stacking cycle.
How to strengthen the file you submit
You cannot rebuild a credit score in a week, but you can change how your application reads. Clean up the last three to four months of bank statements: avoid negative days and returned payments, because those weigh more heavily than the score itself for revenue-based products. Keep deposits in a dedicated business account so revenue is legible. Disclose existing advances up front rather than letting an underwriter find them, since a discovered omission damages the credibility of everything else in the file. And know your numbers before the call. See what lenders actually look at.
When waiting is the better decision
This is the advice nobody selling financing offers, so it is worth stating plainly. If credit is your binding constraint rather than revenue, a few months of deliberate repair, disputing genuine inaccuracies, resolving collections, and bringing revolving utilization down, can move you from one product category to another. The difference between the mid-500s and the low 600s is frequently not a slightly better rate, it is access to money that costs a fraction as much.
That is why our own routing sends applicants below the funding threshold to a credit-repair partner instead of pushing them into the most expensive product on the shelf. Full ranges by product are in what credit score you need.
Common questions
How do you get a business loan with bad credit?
Focus on products underwritten on something other than your credit score: revenue-based financing and working capital, which read your bank deposits; equipment financing, which is secured by the equipment; and invoice financing, which is underwritten largely on your customers' ability to pay. Steady deposits are what make approval possible below 600.
What is the lowest credit score for a business loan?
Many revenue-based lenders work down to roughly 550, and some go below that. Bank and SBA lending generally starts around 650 to 680. There is no universal floor, because each lender sets its own, and the practical limit is usually cost rather than eligibility.
Can you get a startup business loan with bad credit and no revenue?
This is the hardest combination in small-business lending, because both of the things lenders underwrite are missing. Realistic options narrow to collateral-based financing such as equipment loans, SBA microloans through nonprofit intermediaries, or personal-credit-based borrowing. Be skeptical of anyone guaranteeing approval in this situation.
Does bad credit mean higher rates for business funding?
Yes, consistently. Lenders price for risk, so a lower score means a higher factor rate or interest rate, a shorter term, a smaller amount, or all of these together. The gap between a 560 and a 640 profile is often large enough that a few months of credit repair changes what the money costs materially.
Should I fix my credit before applying for business funding?
If credit is the binding constraint rather than revenue, usually yes. Moving from the mid-500s into the low 600s often changes the category of product available, not just the rate. If the need is genuinely urgent, revenue-based options exist now, but size the payment against your slowest month before accepting one.
This page is general education, not financial or legal advice. Every lender sets its own criteria, and the ranges here are typical rather than universal.
See what your business qualifies for
A funding specialist walks you through real terms and you decide from there. No obligation either way.
See your match →About 60 seconds. No hard credit pull. One funding partner, not a lead list.