How to Check Your Business Credit Score

Only around half of UK SME owners have ever looked up their own business credit score.

Most only find out it exists on the day a lender mentions it, usually right before offering a worse rate than expected or turning the loan down outright.

Checking is quick, costs nothing, and gives you a clear picture of where you stand.

Running a business credit check

Three agencies handle most company credit checks and business credit checks in the UK: Experian, Equifax, and Creditsafe. Because each one pulls its data from slightly different places, don't be surprised if the same company gets three different scores.

The process itself is refreshingly boring.

-Create an account, type in the company name and registration number, and the report comes back within minutes.

Running the check doesn't affect the score, so you can easily check it more than once.

The report shows a number, usually somewhere between 0 and 100, plus the reasoning behind it: payment history, any County Court Judgments sitting on file, how long the company's been trading, and how much debt it's already carrying relative to its size.

Anything above 80 counts as low risk.

Most lenders want to see at least 45 to 50 before they'll approve anything.

If you fall below that line it isn't automatically game over. It does usually mean a higher interest rate, a smaller limit, or a request for a personal guarantee alongside whatever gets offered.

What moves the number

Paying on time matters more than anything on this list. Late payments get logged and can sit on file for up to six years.

Trading history matters too. A company that's been paying its suppliers and filing its accounts for three years reads completely differently to a lender than one that incorporated six months ago, even if the numbers on both look identical today.

Sole traders get a slight exception to all of this. Without a registered company or a separate business account, personal and business credit end up being the same file, since there's no second legal entity to build a separate score around.

A few things reliably move the number in the right direction:

• Paying invoices and credit agreements on time
• Filing annual accounts and confirmation statements on schedule
• Keeping outstanding debt low relative to the size of the business
• Making sure the registered address and details on file match what's held at Companies House
• Settling any CCJ and getting it marked as satisfied

A County Court Judgment, or CCJ, is a court order confirming a business failed to pay a debt it legally owed. It's about as damaging to a score as a missed payment gets, and like late payments, it stays visible for six years.

What lenders check beyond the score

The credit score is one factor, not the whole decision.

Lenders also look at trading history, current cash flow, and increasingly whether the business takes card payments at all.

For smaller or newer businesses, lenders sometimes look past the company file entirely and check the director's own personal credit too, particularly where a personal guarantee is part of the deal. It's a separate check on a separate file, but it can carry just as much weight as the business's own number.

Ampere applies two of those same factors directly: businesses need at least three months of trading history, and they need to accept card payments, with an Ampere account already set up. The credit score still gets checked, it just isn't sitting there as the one locked gate everything else has to wait behind. Apply once those boxes are ticked, and funds land within two business days of approval.

A mediocre score isn't a dead end. It's one number among several, and usually the one that's easiest to improve over time.