FICO® SBSS℠ Score explained: What it is & how to raise yours in 2025

The FICO SBSS score is an application scoring system designed specifically to evaluate small businesses. Banks, business credit card issuers, and other lenders (including for many SBA loans) may use it to help make lending decisions. 

Unlike most small business scores that just evaluate business credit history, SBSS can review personal credit data, business credit data, and financial information — all together.

And just as your personal FICO credit scores can affect whether your application for a credit card or loan gets approved, your business FICO SBSS score may impact your ability to get small business loans, credit cards, or leases.

The FICO SBSS score is an application scoring system designed specifically to evaluate small businesses. Banks, business credit card issuers, and other lenders (including for many SBA loans) may use it to help make lending decisions. 

Unlike most small business scores that just evaluate business credit history, SBSS can review personal credit data, business credit data, and financial information — all together.

And just as your personal FICO credit scores can affect whether your application for a credit card or loan gets approved, your business FICO SBSS score may impact your ability to get small business loans, credit cards, or leases.

What is a FICO SBSS score?

FICO Small Business Scoring Service℠ (SBSS) is an application risk score that can impact whether your business gets approved for a loan, how much you can borrow, and even the interest rate you'll pay. 

What makes a risk score different from a credit score? Risk scores are broader, because they can take into account information beyond credit information, as you’ll learn in a moment. 

Created by the Fair Isaac Corporation, which creates the popular consumer FICO scores, SBSS uses the FICO^® LiquidCredit^® Service, an analytics platform, to deliver information that helps lenders and other companies evaluate the risk of doing business with your company. 

Many entrepreneurs have never heard of this score, partly because it's traditionally been hard to access. Banks aren't required to tell you they're using the FICO SBSS score. And unlike consumer credit scores available through myFICO.com, FICO doesn't sell this score directly to business owners.

Lenders use this score to quickly assess how risky it would be to lend to your business. Instead of spending days manually reviewing your application, they can make lending decisions more quickly while reducing their risk. 

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) requires lenders to use these scores to pre-screen borrowers for some of the SBA loans it insures.

So, if you're considering a small business loan through a traditional lender such as a bank, or certain SBA loans, understanding this score could make the difference in your approval odds and loan terms.

SBSS score ranges and risk levels

The FICO SBSS score ranges between 0–300, with 300 being the highest score. A higher score indicates lower risk.

What is a good FICO SBSS score?

SBA Small Loans require the lender to prescreen the application using a FICO SBSS score. The current minimum SBSS score for 7(a) Small Loans pre-screen purposes is now 165, up from 155 previously.

(SBA Small Loans are loans for $500,000 or less, but not including SBA Express, Export Express, CAPLines, Export Working Capital Program (EWCP), and Community Advantage Pilot Program loans.)

If your score falls below that required threshold, it doesn’t necessarily mean your application won’t be approved. To continue, your loan application then must go through a manual approval where other factors may be taken into account.

Lenders may use SBSS scores for loans other than SBA loans, and ultimately they decide what scores and factors present acceptable risk. 

Why the SBSS score matters

If you apply for more traditional small business financing — such as bank loans, equipment loans or leases, or SBA loans — the lender may use this score to help evaluate your application. 

Did you know? SBA Small Loans must be prescreened using a FICO SBSS score. As of June 1, 2025, scores below 165 trigger a manual credit review. 

How is the SBSS score calculated?

The SBSS score is one of the more confusing business scores, so we’ll walk through it in detail here.

What information does FICO use?

FICO doesn’t have any credit information about how consumers or businesses pay their bills; it simply creates the formulas used to calculate credit scores. 

The information it uses to calculate this business score comes from multiple sources including business and consumer credit reporting agencies, the lender, or other data sources. SBSS scorecards use up to four types of information: 

• Consumer credit reports for the principals/guarantors of the business (up to five owners),
• Business credit data for the business, 
• Application data supplied on the loan application, and/or
• Business financial data

Of these, FICO says the information that is most important in terms of helping predict performance is the business owner’s personal credit data followed by business bureau data, financial data, then application data.

If you have no business credit history and limited time in business, you may be able to meet the minimum 165 FICO SBSS score prescreen requirement for an SBA Small Loan based on stellar personal credit alone. But it helps to have strong business credit as well.

How many FICO SBSS scores are there?

Like all FICO scores, there are different versions (scorecards). In addition, banks and lenders can set up the SBSS model they use in different ways, putting more weight on certain information, and less on others.

For example, it can put more weight on your business credit profile or more on your personal credit history. It’s also a very “smart” business credit scoring model because it can automatically go from one business credit bureau to another, in whatever order of priority the lender prefers, until it’s able to generate a score.

Let’s say a lender prefers using Experian for business credit data as the default. If a credit report from Experian doesn’t provide enough information, it can automatically get business credit data from Dun & Bradstreet. If there’s not enough business credit data available, it may just use the personal credit data to calculate the SBSS score, potentially along with business financials. 

Currently, a FICO SBSS score can be calculated using consumer credit data from Experian, Equifax or TransUnion as well as business credit data from Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business or Equifax using SBFE data.

Application data can include business checking account balance, time as current owner and principal’s combined net worth.

Because the lender has a choice of credit bureaus to use when accessing data to create this score, your business does not have a single FICO SBSS score. In addition, it will change as information in your credit reports change.

What about multiple business owners?

There is an important twist to this score: it can evaluate the personal credit data of more than one business owner. 

Let’s say you own a business 50/50 with another partner. It can calculate the SBSS score for each of you based on your personal credit data (plus other data like business credit scores and/or financial data). It will then use the lower of the two scores for the final FICO SBSS Score.  

Tip: Always discuss and review credit of a potential or current business partner.

What are the five categories of the FICO score?

Since personal credit can be an important factor in calculating FICO SBSS scores, it’s worth reviewing the five main categories of credit information that affect consumer FICO scores:

• Payment history (35%)
• Debt utilization (30%)
• Credit history/credit age (15%)
• Credit inquiries/new credit checks (10%)
• Types of credit (10%)

Payment history — which includes payment history on your accounts like credit cards, car loans and mortgages, as well as negative information like collection accounts or bankruptcy — has the most impact on your credit scores. 

That’s true of business credit as well. 

If your credit report lists late payments or other negative information, it may help to know that as that information gets older, it tends to have less impact on your credit scores. Eventually, negative personal information will no longer appear on your credit reports (usually after seven years). Learn more about what you can do about payment history issues on your personal credit reports.

Another factor that can significantly impact credit scores is credit utilization. Here, credit score models will often compare your balances on your credit cards to your credit limits (or highest balance if the limit is not available). High utilization can affect your credit scores. Fortunately this is a factor that can quickly change by paying down balances, increasing credit limits or even by transferring debt. 

How FICO SBSS works

Here are some important facts to understand about this business credit score:

• FICO SBSS rank-orders small businesses by their likelihood of making payments on time. The FICO score range is 0 to 300. Higher scores are better in that they indicate lower risk but each lender will choose the minimum score it will accept.
• The minimum score to pass the mandatory prescreen for 7(a) small loans is currently 165. But SBA lenders may set their minimum scores higher than that.
• SBSS scores are required for other SBA 7(a) loans; for those loans "acceptable credit" is required.
• The score can be calculated based upon personal and business credit history and other financial information. A strong history of business credit with timely payments to vendors and suppliers may help boost your SBSS score.
• When there are multiple owners of the business (usually with at least 20% ownership), the score can be calculated using personal credit data from each. In that case, the lower of the two scores will be the final score. 
• If you have derogatory or no credit history, it can take months of positive credit activity to move your SBSS score significantly higher. Work on your credit early to help ensure it’s healthy before you need it.

FICO SBSS vs. other business credit scores

The following are commonly used business credit scores and their score ranges. Of these, Experian Intelliscore Plus^SM and FICO SBSS may evaluate both personal and business data. 

Source: Nav.com

For a comprehensive list, see the Nav article, What is the highest possible business credit score?

How is the FICO SBSS score used?

Lenders are required to obtain a FICO SBSS score for all SBA 7(a) loans, the most popular SBA loan program. Banks, credit unions, and financial institutions nationwide may use FICO SBSS scores for other types of small business loans. It’s also popular for agricultural and equipment financing. 

It’s generally used for term loans, lines of credit, and commercial credit cards up to $1 million. Due to cost, though, it’s less likely to be used for very small loans, or microloans except when required; for example with SBA Small Loans.

How can I improve my SBSS score?

Three of the best ways to improve your business’s FICO SBSS score are:

• Improve your personal credit scores
• Build strong business credit or improve your business credit scores 
• Create a financially stable business with strong revenue

Start by reviewing your personal credit scores and make sure yours are as strong as possible. Again, if your business has multiple owners or others who will guarantee the loan, their creditworthiness can be a factor too, so make sure you are aware of any credit problems. 

Strong business credit can help, so check your business credit with Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business and Equifax. If your business doesn't have a D-U-N-S^® Number, you'll want to get one and start to establish business credit.

Action checklist:

1. Strengthen personal credit - Pay down credit card balances, make all payments on time, and address any negative items on your credit reports.
2. Build tradelines with net-30 vendors - Establish accounts with suppliers that report to business credit bureaus.
3. Maintain up-to-date business financials - Keep accurate financial records and ensure at least two years in business for the best loan terms.
4. Dispute errors proactively - Review both personal and business credit reports regularly and dispute any inaccuracies.
5. Maintain low utilization on business lines - Keep credit card balances low relative to credit limits to improve your credit profile. Business credit reports don’t always list credit limits; instead recent high balance may be used for this calculation.

If you don't have a business bank account, make sure you get one and use it consistently for business expenses. Your business bank account balance may impact this score, and many lenders require and review business bank statements when making small business lending decisions.

How to check your SBSS score

FICO does not sell a FICO SBSS product directly to business owners, like it does with its MyFICO products for consumers. Currently, one of the few places you can see a FICO SBSS score is through Nav. 

How long does it take to build an SBSS score?

The answer here isn’t always straightforward. Remember, there are four possible sources of data that can go into one of these scores:

• Personal credit data
• Business credit data
• Application data
• Financial data

And depending on which version of the FICO SBSS score a lender uses, some of these factors may carry more weight in the calculation.

If you already have very good personal credit scores and solid business qualifications like time in business and good revenue, you may get a strong SBSS score.

But having strong business credit too can help too. If you don’t, then you’ll want to work on building business credit. That timeline looks like this:

Business credit timeline

Weeks 1–4: Setup phase

• Form business entity and get EIN
• Open business bank account
• Secure tradelines that report to business credit bureaus
• Make first purchases and pay on time

Months 1–3: Reporting phase

• Vendors report first invoices to credit bureaus (can take days to weeks)
• New accounts begin appearing on business credit reports
• Make on-time payments to establish positive payment history

Months 4–12: Score growth phase

• Scores start to appear when sufficient tradelines report (days 90–120, varies)
• Credit scores can improve with consistent on-time payments

Frequently asked questions