The UK business loan broker that shows you the cost first

No. The calculator on this page runs entirely in your browser and searches nothing. When you do come to us for real options, the first pass uses soft searches only, which are visible to you but not to other lenders and leave no mark on your file. Nothing hard-footprints your credit until you tell us to submit a specific application to a specific lender.

We do not charge you a broker fee. If you take a facility, the lender pays us a commission, and that commission is factored into the interest rate you pay. The amount varies by lender and product, so we tell you what we are being paid on your deal before you sign anything. Ask us at any point and you will get a straight number.

Almost certainly not, and it is the most common reason people call us. High-street banks assess against one narrow policy; the 70+ lenders on our panel each have their own. A decline usually tells you that you failed one lender’s rules, not that your business is unfundable. Tell us why they said no and we will tell you honestly whether we can help.

Yes, and the calculator will show you roughly how many lenders would look at you. Fewer lenders will, and you will pay more than a five-year-old company. That is the honest position, not a sales one. We have arranged finance for businesses ten days old. If nobody on the panel will fund you yet, we will say so rather than run applications that damage your file.

It is a floor, not an average. Reaching 6.9% typically means three or more years of filed accounts, clean credit, a healthy balance sheet and often an asset or property behind the borrowing. Most of our customers price above it. The calculator on this page shows you the band your own answers put you in rather than the best case.

A business loan broker sits between your business and a panel of lenders. Rather than applying to banks one at a time, you give the broker one set of information; the broker reads it against what each lender on their panel will and will not accept, then puts you in front of the ones most likely to say yes on terms you can live with.

The regulatory position matters more than most brokers explain. Credit broking is a regulated activity in the UK, and a firm carrying it out must either be directly authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority or act as an Appointed Representative of a firm that is. An Appointed Representative trades under its principal’s permissions, and the principal is accountable to the FCA for what it does. Loan Options is an Appointed Representative of AFS Compliance Ltd, whose FCA firm reference number is 625035, and you can check that entry on the FCA register yourself.

One important limit: most business lending to a limited company is not a regulated credit agreement in the way a consumer loan is, so you do not get the same statutory protections: no cooling-off period as of right, and access to the Financial Ombudsman Service depends on your business meeting its eligibility criteria for size and turnover. Sole traders and small partnerships borrowing under about £25,000 may fall inside consumer credit protection.

Brokers are almost always paid a commission by the lender rather than a fee by you, and that commission is factored into the rate you pay. Every broker must tell you what commission they will receive on your deal if you ask, so ask, and compare the answers. We tell you before you sign anything.

For most unsecured business loans up to around £250,000, a lender will want four things: six months of business bank statements, your latest full year of filed accounts, details of the directors or shareholders, and confirmation of what the money is for. That is usually enough to get a decision, and several lenders on our panel will give an indicative answer on the bank statements alone.

Expect the list to grow with the amount and the product. Above roughly £250,000, or where the lender is taking security, add management accounts covering the period since your last year end, an aged debtor and creditor report, and often a short forward projection. For equipment finance you will need the supplier invoice or proforma and the asset specification, including serial or registration numbers. For invoice finance, expect a sample sales ledger, your standard terms of trade and details of your largest customers, because the lender is underwriting their ability to pay as much as yours. For anything secured on property, add the title details and a recent valuation.

Two practical points. First, lenders read bank statements closely: returned direct debits, an account that regularly sits at its overdraft limit, and existing loan repayments all affect the decision, so it is better to explain those upfront than to have them found. Second, if your latest accounts are more than nine months old, get management accounts ready before you apply. Stale figures are one of the most common causes of a delay that borrowers blame on the lender.

If your accounts are filed at Companies House, a lender will pull them regardless, so there is no benefit in leaving them out.

An unsecured business loan is lent against your trading performance and, usually, a personal guarantee from the directors. A secured loan is lent against a specific asset (commercial property, plant, vehicles, sometimes a debtor book) which the lender can take and sell if you default.

Secured borrowing is cheaper, and often materially so. The lender’s downside is covered, so the rate falls, the term can stretch further and the ceiling rises: secured facilities run into millions where unsecured lending to an SME rarely passes £500,000. The trade-offs are real. Arranging security takes weeks rather than days because of valuation and legal work, those costs are yours whether or not the loan completes, and if the business fails you lose the asset.

Unsecured borrowing is the opposite trade. You can be funded in 24 to 48 hours with no valuation and no legal fees, but you pay for that in rate, the amount available is smaller and the term is shorter. Do not mistake unsecured for risk-free: nearly every unsecured business loan to a UK limited company requires a personal guarantee, which means your own assets, potentially including your home, are exposed if the company cannot pay. The security has moved rather than disappeared.

A reasonable rule: match the term of the borrowing to the life of the thing you are buying. A machine you will use for eight years justifies secured, longer-term borrowing. A stock purchase you will have sold through in four months does not, because paying for that over five years means paying interest long after the stock has gone.

If the amount is small and the need is urgent, unsecured almost always wins on total cost once you count the fees and the delay.

Often yes, but the honest answer has conditions attached, and you should be sceptical of any broker who says yes without them.

What matters is which credit is bad. Lenders look at the company’s file and the directors’ personal files separately, and they weigh recency heavily. A default settled three years ago rarely blocks an application. An unsatisfied CCJ registered last month usually does, with most mainstream lenders. Between those poles sits a large middle ground where the decision turns on your trading: consistent turnover, a bank account that does not bounce payments, and a clear explanation of what went wrong will get a specialist lender to look past a patchy file.

What also matters is what secures the loan. Adverse credit narrows your options sharply on unsecured lending but much less on asset finance, because the lender owns the asset until you have paid for it. Invoice finance is similar: the lender is underwriting your customers’ creditworthiness as much as your own. If your file is poor, asset-backed products are usually the realistic route.

Expect to pay for it. Rates for adverse-credit business borrowing typically sit well above the headline figures brokers advertise, and the term may be shorter. That is the price of the risk, not a penalty.

One thing to avoid: applying to lender after lender to see who says yes. Each full application can leave a hard search on your file, and a cluster of searches in a short window reads as distress to the next underwriter and makes the next decline more likely. Get someone to filter the panel before anything is submitted.

The Growth Guarantee Scheme is a UK government-backed lending programme delivered through the British Business Bank. It succeeded the Recovery Loan Scheme and, before that, CBILS. Under it, the government gives an accredited lender a partial guarantee on the facility, which lets that lender approve borrowing it would otherwise decline, or improve the terms on borrowing it would have approved anyway.

The critical thing to understand is where the guarantee sits. It protects the lender, not you. You remain fully liable for the whole debt, and personal guarantees are still commonly required, though the scheme rules restrict what can be taken against a principal private residence. Anyone presenting the scheme as a government-underwritten safety net for the borrower has it backwards.

Broad eligibility, at the time of writing: the business must be trading in the UK, generate the majority of its turnover from UK trading activity, and be a viable business in the lender’s assessment. Turnover limits apply, and certain sectors are excluded, including banks, insurers, public sector bodies and state-funded schools. The scheme supports several facility types (term loans, overdrafts, asset finance, invoice finance and asset-based lending) rather than just term lending. Subsidy limits also apply and interact with other public support you may already have received.

Because the guarantee is only available through accredited lenders, and because those lenders apply their own credit policy on top of the scheme rules, eligibility on paper does not mean approval. In practice the scheme is most useful to businesses that are trading well but are short of the security a lender would normally want. Scheme terms are reviewed periodically, so confirm the current rules before you rely on them.