Pull all three personal credit reports and your business credit files, dispute anything inaccurate, pay down revolving balances before the statement dates, and keep every payment on time. Lower card balances can lift a score within one or two billing cycles; recovering from late payments takes much longer. Start 3 to 6 months before you apply.
Which credit do business lenders actually check?
Two files: yours and your company's. For most small businesses, personal credit carries more weight, especially in the first few years, because the owner usually signs a personal guarantee.
| Credit file | Scale | What it measures | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal FICO or VantageScore | 300 to 850 | Your personal payment history, balances, account age, inquiries | Nearly every small-business lender |
| Dun & Bradstreet PAYDEX | 1 to 100 | How promptly the business pays vendors; 80 means on time | Suppliers, some lenders |
| Experian Intelliscore Plus | 1 to 100 on its long-standing version | Business payment history, public records, company profile | Lenders, suppliers |
| Equifax business credit | Varies by report | Business payment and credit history | Lenders, suppliers |
| FICO SBSS | 0 to 300 | Blend of personal credit, business credit, and financials | Some SBA and bank lenders |
One 2026 change: as of March 1, 2026, the SBA no longer requires lenders to prescreen 7(a) Small Loans (up to $350,000) with the FICO SBSS score. Lenders can still use it, so it's worth knowing yours, but it no longer works as a hard SBA cutoff.
What credit score do you need?
It depends on the product. These are the minimums Sagamore's lending partners use:
| Product | Minimum credit score |
|---|---|
| Line of credit, term loans, bridge loans, equipment financing, AR financing | 600 |
| Factoring | 600, with your customers' credit also weighing heavily |
| Residential mortgage | 580 for many programs, 620+ for some |
| Commercial mortgage | 600 |
| HELOC | 620 |
| SBA loans | 650 |
| 0% business credit cards | 650 |
A minimum only gets you considered. Scores above about 650 typically unlock higher amounts, longer terms, and lower rates, which is where credit work pays off even if you already clear the floor.
What should you do first?
Get the reports. Everything else depends on what's in them.
- Personal: AnnualCreditReport.com provides free reports from all three bureaus. Weekly access became permanent in 2023. Pull all three, since lenders don't all use the same bureau and the reports often differ.
- Business: Request your files from Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business, and Equifax Business. Some basic views are free; full reports may cost money.
Then go line by line and look for:
- Accounts you don't recognize
- Late payments you believe were on time
- Balances or credit limits reported wrong (a missing limit can make utilization look higher than it is)
- The same debt listed twice, once by the original creditor and once by a collector
- Old negative items past the reporting window, generally seven years for late payments and collections
- Medical collections that shouldn't be there (see below)
Medical debt, as of 2026: Between 2022 and 2023, the three bureaus stopped reporting paid medical collections and medical collections under $500, and those policies remain in place. A federal rule that would have removed most medical debt from credit reports was vacated by a federal court in July 2025, so unpaid medical collections of $500 or more can still appear, though some states restrict this.
How do you dispute a credit report error?
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you can dispute inaccurate or incomplete information with the credit bureau reporting it and with the company that furnished it. The bureau generally has 30 days to investigate, sometimes up to 45.
- File the dispute with each bureau showing the error, online or by mail.
- Be specific: the account, what's wrong, and what it should say.
- Attach proof: statements, payment confirmations, letters.
- Keep copies and track the response date.
You can do all of this yourself at no cost. The limit is accuracy. Correct information stays on the report, and a dispute of accurate information won't remove it.
What raises a credit score fastest?
Paying down revolving balances. Utilization, the share of your available revolving credit you're using, is one of the few score factors that responds within weeks.
Say a restaurant owner has three personal cards with $30,000 in combined limits and $21,000 in balances.
- Current utilization: $21,000 ÷ $30,000 = 70%
- After paying balances down to $3,000: $3,000 ÷ $30,000 = 10%
There's no magic threshold. Utilization is scored on a sliding scale, so 10% generally scores better than 30%, and 30% better than 70%. Scoring also looks at each card individually, so one maxed-out card can hurt even when overall utilization is low.
Timing matters. Most issuers report the balance on your statement closing date, not your due date. Paying before the statement closes is what gets the lower number onto your report.
How long does each fix take to show up?
| Action | What it affects | When it typically shows up |
|---|---|---|
| Pay down card balances | Utilization | Next statement cycle, roughly 30 to 45 days |
| Correct a reporting error | Whatever was wrong | About 30 to 45 days after the dispute |
| Bring a past-due account current | Stops new late marks | Immediately stops further damage; the existing late mark can stay up to 7 years |
| Stop applying for new credit | Inquiries | FICO counts inquiries for 12 months; they stay on the report for 2 years |
| Build on-time history | Payment history | Months to years |
| Open business trade accounts that report | Business credit files | A few months, once several payments have been reported |
How do late payments and collections affect you?
A late payment can stay on your report for seven years from the delinquency. A collection can remain for about seven and a half years from when you first fell behind. Their impact on your score fades as they age, and a recent 30-day late hurts more than a three-year-old one.
Paying a non-medical collection doesn't remove it from your report, but it changes how it's scored. Newer models such as FICO 9 and VantageScore 3.0 and 4.0 ignore paid collections. Many lenders still use older FICO versions that don't, so paying one off may help with some lenders and not others.
How do you build business credit separately?
Business credit takes time, so start early.
- Get an EIN and open a business bank account in the company's name. Run business income and expenses through it.
- Get a D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet. It's free.
- Open trade accounts with vendors that report to business bureaus, usually suppliers offering net-30 terms.
- Pay early when you can. PAYDEX rewards paying ahead of terms with scores above 80.
- Use a business credit card that reports to business bureaus, and keep the balance low.
Keep your bank statements clean, too. Lenders review 3 to 6 months of business bank statements, and frequent overdrafts or negative balances weigh against you regardless of your score. Sagamore's lending partners also require at least $400,000 in annual revenue.
What does a realistic 90-day plan look like?
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | Pull all three personal reports and your business files. List every error. Put every account on autopay. |
| Weeks 2 to 4 | File disputes. Pay revolving balances down before each statement closing date. |
| Weeks 5 to 8 | Check dispute results. Get a D-U-N-S number and open one or two vendor accounts that report. |
| Weeks 9 to 12 | Pull reports again. Don't open new credit. Gather 3 to 6 months of bank statements and your business documents. |
After that, apply. Waiting longer only helps if something specific is still aging off or being corrected.
Should you wait or apply now?
If you need capital and you already meet a product's minimums, waiting has a cost too. One option is to take the financing available now and refinance once your credit improves.
If you'd rather have help reviewing your reports, Sagamore offers a credit repair consultation for business owners preparing to borrow. Any legitimate service can only challenge information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable. No one can remove accurate information or guarantee a score change.
If you're ready to see where you stand, start an application. The first review uses a soft credit pull, so checking your options won't lower your score.
