What is a good business credit score? It depends who is scoring you

There is no single good business credit score, because there is no single scale. Experian marks your company out of 100 and calls 81 or more low risk. Creditsafe also uses 0 to 100, but sets the bar for an established company at 71. Dun & Bradstreet scores from 1 to 100 and publishes no cut-off at all, and nor does Equifax for the commercial score it sells to lenders. So a number on its own tells you very little, and 'our score is 68' is not a sentence until you say who produced it.

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What counts as a good score at each agency

Four credit reference agencies hold a file on your limited company, and each scores it on its own scale. Two of them publish a threshold for what counts as good; the other two publish none.

Sources: Experian's Commercial Delphi guide and business credit score guide, Creditsafe's company credit report guide, Dun & Bradstreet's risk assessment documentation, and Equifax commercial credit reports, all checked on 20 October 2026.

Two of the four need a word of explanation. Experian's full band list, and the star ratings a lender sees next to the score, are in our guide to the Delphi score. Equifax is the odd one out: it sells commercial credit reports to lenders, with detailed credit score analysis, financial data, and director history inside them, but it publishes no scale and no bands for the score itself. If you have an Equifax number for your company, there is no public threshold to measure it against.

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Why the same company gets a different score at each agency

Equifax says it plainly on its own site: 'There's no such thing as a universal credit score… Scores from different sources will be calculated using different formulas and criteria. They will also be rated on different scales… This is why you might get 700 on one scale and 500 on another, even if the information provided is the same.'

Those two numbers come from the consumer side, and none of the company scales on this page goes above 100, which is rather the point. A score only means something attached to the scale it came from.

Two things cause the gap. The first is the scale, which is why the table above exists. The second is the data: lenders and suppliers do not all report to all four agencies, so one agency can be holding a fuller picture of how you pay than another, and the same filing can be read differently by two models.

The practical consequence is the part worth remembering. The agency a lender, a supplier, or a prospective customer pulls is not necessarily the one you have been looking at, and you usually have no way of knowing in advance which it will be. So a single good number is reassuring rather than conclusive.

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What the agencies are actually measuring

A business credit score measures how much risk you present by pulling together information from your history to see how you handle bills, payments, and debt. Banks, lenders, and finance providers want to know you can repay what they lend you: solid financial health, a good record of repaying credit, and a professional attitude to the money you owe.

What they read to work that out is mostly filed by other people:

• The accounts you file, and how much is in them. Experian's own guidance is to file full accounts rather than abridged, filleted, or micro-entity accounts, on time and in line with the guidelines, because fuller accounts give the agencies more to assess.
• How you pay suppliers and lenders, as reported by them.
• County court judgments and insolvency proceedings, which Experian says can make it very difficult to secure finance or credit terms from suppliers at all.
• Credit applications, and how much of the credit available to you is in use.
• Director records at Companies House, and the history attached to them.
• How long you have traded, and your sector.

None of it is fixed. Your score moves as you file, pay, and borrow, which is the useful part, because it means it moves in your favour as well as against you. The actions worth taking, in the order worth taking them, are in our guide to how to build your business credit score.

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What a good score gets you, and what a poor one costs

The reason to care about the number is what other people do with it.

• Getting approved, and what it costs you. Lenders check your score whenever you apply. A good one usually means a bigger limit and a lower rate, because you are a cheaper risk to carry.
• Trade credit from suppliers. Agreeing payment terms with a supplier is one of the cheapest ways to make your cash flow go further, and most will look at your score before they offer trade credit at all.
• Winning work. Larger customers and tender buyers run a credit check before they sign, because they are taking a risk on you finishing the job.
• Equipment and premises. A landlord or an equipment supplier wants the same reassurance a lender does, and a good score is often what gets a deposit down rather than up.

Lower down the scale, what usually happens is not a flat refusal but a request. More information, a smaller limit, a higher rate, or payment up front instead of terms. Experian's guidance says as much: in the middle of its range you could be asked to provide more information by lenders or by suppliers, especially towards the lower end. The same works in reverse when you are the one taking the risk, and our guide to running a company credit check covers reading someone else's file.

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What credit score you need for a business loan

There is no universal minimum, and any page that gives you one is guessing. Every lender sets its own thresholds, weights the score differently against everything else it knows about you, and does not publish either.

The one agency that says anything public about it is Experian. Its guidance is that lenders usually look for a score above 40 on its 0 to 100 scale before they will agree to a loan, and that a score above 80 is typically considered excellent, which can open up better deals including lower interest rates. Between those two numbers you are in the range where you may be asked for more information, particularly at the lower end. Below 40, Experian's own line is that providing more information may help, but the rating could still decide the outcome.

That is one agency's view of what lenders in general do, which is not the same as what any particular lender will do with your application.

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What else a lender looks at besides your score

Your business credit score matters, but it is not the only measurement a lender is interested in when you apply, and on its own it is rarely the thing that decides the answer.

At iwoca, your score is one of several things we read. We use data from the credit reference agencies, your Companies House record, and any history you have with us, and we may ask for three months of bank statements. A larger or more complicated application can also mean VAT returns, linked ecommerce accounts, or management or company accounts. What comes out at the end is a score on our own scale rather than an agency's, so a number that has held you up elsewhere is not automatically the answer here.

A quick decision isn't a light one. We look at your revenue and what your business can afford to repay before we make an offer, and our credit team reviews larger or more complex applications. A decision is typically made within 24 hours, though it might be longer depending on the complexity of the request.

An iwoca Flexi-Loan is a business loan with flexible repayment options, and what it is for is timing: paying a tax bill before your customers pay you, buying stock ahead of your busiest season, taking on a job you would otherwise have turned down. There is no fee for repaying early, so you can clear it as soon as the cash arrives. Every new Flexi-Loan needs a personal guarantee from at least one director, so be clear what you are signing. And because we report every loan's status to Experian and Equifax each month, repaying on time puts fresh evidence on your own file.

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How to see your company's score for free

Our research, published in March 2026, found that 21% of business owners admit they don't understand their credit score – roughly 1.1 million small businesses. It costs the ones who only meet their score after somebody else has read it: a declined application, or a supplier quietly moving them to payment up front.

iwoca Credit Compass shows your company's Equifax business credit score for nothing, with no trial and no paid tier. Alongside the Equifax score you get four more – your loan and credit history, your financial performance, your Companies House record, and an overall health score that is a snapshot of how lenders like us see your company – plus plain-language suggestions about what to focus on, which update as your situation does. It refreshes every month. Signing up takes about two minutes: you select your company and verify that you are a director, and checking your own score is a soft search, so it won't affect it.

Equifax is the agency with no product of its own for a company to watch its own commercial score, which is part of why Credit Compass exists. For the other three, our guide to getting a free business credit report covers what each gives you for nothing, and how to check your business credit score covers signing up with each of them. If you would rather be told when your file changes than look it up, our comparison of business credit monitoring services has the prices.

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Business credit score FAQs

Does my limited company have a credit score?

Yes, whether or not you have ever looked at it. The agencies open a file on your company from its Companies House record, then add what lenders and suppliers report about the way you pay.

A company that has only traded for a year has a thin file rather than a bad one. That is still read as risk, though, until there is enough in it to read as anything else.

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Is 550 a bad business credit score?

It is almost certainly not a business score at all. Experian, Creditsafe, and Dun & Bradstreet all score UK companies out of 100, so a three-figure number does not fit any of their scales.

It is far more likely to be a personal credit score, which is a separate file on a separate scale, and comparing the two tells you nothing.

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Do micro-entity accounts affect my business credit score?

They can. Experian's guidance is to file full accounts rather than abridged, filleted, or micro-entity accounts, because the fuller version gives the agencies more financial detail to assess.

That changes from April 2028, when Companies House will require small companies and micro-entities to file a profit and loss account, with the option to keep it off the public register.

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Does my personal credit score affect my company's?

No. They are separate files, and your company's score is built from the company's behaviour rather than yours.

A lender may still look at both, though, and a personal guarantee ties them together, because you are promising to repay personally if the company cannot. Our guide to whether your personal credit score affects your business credit covers when it counts.