How can I get a business loan with bad credit?

Firstly, it’s worth checking your credit score by getting copies of your business credit reports. You can review these for any errors and question anything you believe to be inaccurate with the credit agency. The best next step is to start to increase your creditworthiness. This can be done by using a credit card, or opening a line of credit. There are also sources of funding available, such as Start-Up loans, which help new businesses with no credit history to fund their growth. Alternatively, equity and grant finance may be available that provide you with business loans based on the potential of your company, rather than your creditworthiness. 

We also offer Tide Credit Builder – designed specifically to help small businesses grow their credit worthiness and open up future options for funding.

Addresses generally fail because the address we’ve received isn’t a residential address, or because the resident hasn’t lived at that address for more than three months.

Here’s what we suggest:

• Send us the DOBs - confirm these with your shareholders if you need to.

• Send us any addresses we’ve requested - make sure that the address is a UK you provide a most recent residential address that has been lived in for more than three months.

If we’re still unable to digitally verify a given address we’ll need to see proof of address.

If we’re still unable to digitally verify a DOB, we’ll need to see a photo of valid ID.

*We see a ‘major shareholders' as any shareholder currently holding more than 25% shares in the company.