Establishing strong business credit can help your business build valuable relationships with vendors, suppliers, manufacturers, and financial institutions that can be key to operations.
For business owners, good business credit scores can translate into more financing options, lower interest rates, better terms with suppliers, and opportunities to work with larger customers or clients, depending on other factors such as revenue and profitability as well.
But if you are like most business owners, you probably wonder: What is a good business credit score?
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What is a good business credit score?
There are a few ways to answer this question, but let's deal with the "numbers" first. Unlike consumer credit, where most credit scores range from 300–850, business credit scores vary based on the credit scoring model.
Each business credit bureau creates and sells various credit scores. Here are some of the most popular:
Business Credit Score | Score Range | Best Possible Score |
D&B PAYDEX® score | 0–100 | 100 |
D&B Delinquency Predictor Score | 0–100 | 100 |
D&B Failure Score® | 1,001–1,875 | 1875 |
Experian Intelliscore PlusSM (original and V2 ) | 1–100 | 100 |
Experian Intelliscore PlusSM V3 | 300–850 | 850 |
Experian Financial Stability Risk ScoreSM V2 | 300–850 | 850 |
Equifax Business Delinquency ScoreTM | 101–662 | 662 |
Equifax Business Delinquency Financial ScoreTM | 101–715 | 715 |
Equifax OneScore for Commercial | 300–660 | 660 |
FICO® Small Business Scoring Service℠ (SBSS℠) | 0–300 | 300 |
Source: Nav.com
For a comprehensive list, see the Nav article, What is the highest possible business credit score?
Experian Intelliscore explained
You may have noticed that Experian Intelliscore offers different versions with different score ranges.
The newer version (V3) uses a 300–850 scale (similar to personal credit scores), while the original and second versions use the 1–100 scale. Most lenders still use V2, but lenders may increasingly start using V3.
How to define a good business score
Ultimately, a good credit score is what a lender or company that uses the score considers good. Each lender can decide for itself what scores represent acceptable risk.
There are, however, guidelines that can help you understand which score ranges are more likely to be considered low risk. For example:
Experian Intelliscore Plus
Score Range | Risk Class | Risk Description |
76–100 | 1 | Low |
51–75 | 2 | Low – Medium |
26–50 | 3 | Medium |
11–25 | 4 | High – Medium |
1–10 | 5 | High |
D&B PAYDEX
D&B PAYDEX Range | Rating | D&B PAYDEX Risk Interpretation |
80–100 | Good/ low risk | A score of 100 means payments made 30 days sooner than terms specify. 80 indicates on time payments. |
50–79 | Fair/ medium risk | A 70 indicates payments 15 days late. A score of 50 indicates payments 30 days late. |
0–49 | Bad/ high risk | 40 or less means payments are made 60 days or more past the due date. |
FICO SBSS
FICO SBSS range | Rating | FICO SBSS Risk Levels |
180–300 | Good/excellent low risk | Most financial institutions will consider scores in this range to indicate low risk |
160–165 | Fair/ medium risk | A minimum score of 165 is required for certain SBA loans, and some lenders may require higher scores |
0–159 | Medium/high risk | Lenders may reject applications, require additional underwriting, and/or charge higher rates. |
How to achieve and maintain good credit
Don’t let the fact that there are different scoring models and ranges discourage you: there are some common guidelines that can help you build good business credit.
1. Pay on time or early
Companies purchase credit reports and credit scores for one main reason: to evaluate risk. Starting and running a business is risky, and so is lending or offering payment terms to those small businesses.
The biggest risk most companies are concerned about is late payments or nonpayment (default). Companies that pay on time, over time, are more likely to continue to do so.
That means paying on time to build your business credit history is crucial. While that may sound obvious, when you’re running a business, cash flow can be erratic, or you can become incredibly busy and forget to keep up with administrative tasks.
If possible, set up automatic payments as well as alerts that tell you when payments are due and when they are processed. If your creditors don’t offer those options, set up calendar reminders. (And perhaps do both!)
2. Watch debt levels
Debt isn’t bad in and of itself. Some debt can help your credit scores. If you take out a small business loan and or line of credit and make payments on time, your risk level may decrease.
The key to using debt is to make sure that you don’t let your business get over-leveraged. You want to be able to pay debt off in a reasonable amount of time and at a low enough cost that you’re still making money.
Some credit scoring models will look at balances compared to credit limits. High utilization can lead to drops in credit scores.
Since business credit limits aren’t always reported on business credit reports, some scoring models will use recent high limits instead of balances to calculate utilization.
3. Get trade credit
Trade credit, or credit extended to your company by vendors and suppliers, is one of the first types of financing to consider when you’re trying to build business credit. Here, suppliers let you buy items and pay for the later. Net-30 terms, for example, gives your business 30 days to pay.
Net-30 accounts can help build business credit when those suppliers report to credit bureaus (not all do) and you pay on time. Some of these vendors don’t check credit, and don’t require detailed applications.
Plus, building relationships with these vendors and suppliers (and paying on time) can help you get the products, goods, and services and helping cash flow by giving you more time to pay.
4. Don’t ignore personal credit
You may want to avoid using personal credit for business financing, but that’s not always possible. Some loans (like SBA loans and many small business credit cards) require a personal credit check and personal guarantee.
And some credit scores, including the Experian Intelliscore, FICO SBSS score, and Equifax Delinquency Score may blend personal and business credit data to create a score.
5. Dispute errors quickly
Monitor your business credit reports regularly and dispute inaccurate data. Errors on your credit reports may affect your credit scores. Plus inconsistencies may raise red flags with lenders.
- Experian: Visit BusinessCreditFacts.com or call (888) 211-0728 to learn how to dispute or update information.
- Equifax: Visit the Equifax small business website for instructions on how to dispute mistakes.
- Dun & Bradstreet: Visit the Dun & Bradstreet website to learn how to request corrections to your business information.
Why "good" varies by business credit bureau
Similar to the way credit score ranges can vary from bureau to bureau, various credit scores can take different factors into account, giving some factors more weight than others.
Sometimes that’s because a credit bureau may not have access to certain types of information. (D&B can’t create credit scores that blend personal information with business data the way Equifax or Experian can because it doesn’t have access to consumer credit data.)
Other times it’s because each credit scoring model has a specific underlying goal. One may predict the risk of bankruptcy in a specific time frame, for example, while another may predict the risk of late payments in a certain period of time.
How are business credit scores calculated?
Bureaus use very sophisticated analysis to help customers who purchase their reports and scores understand and reduce risk. They analyze large sets of business data to discover what factors are most closely associated with that type of risk.
Their data and the formulas they use to create scores are their secret sauce, and so they aren’t going to reveal the full formulas.
But again, most scoring models look at common factors like payment history and debt.
Factors that may impact your credit scores include:
Payment history is the top factor in scoring models. Scores may evaluate whether the business pays on time, how late it pays, or sometimes even whether the business pays early.
Credit utilization evaluates how much available credit the business is using. It often compares the balance to the credit limit on a revolving account, or the current balance to the highest balance ever.
Public records include bankruptcies, liens,and judgments. These are considered very negative and high risk. Some models may look unfavorably at multiple UCC filings.
Company information can impact your scores. Also known as “firmographic” information it may include years in business, industry code (NAICS or SIC), and business size. Certain industries are considered higher risk.
Account mix considers the variety of credit types you use. A mix of different types of accounts can be helpful for building good credit.
Age of credit looks at how long your credit accounts have been open. An older account history is usually better.
For more insights into how each bureau calculates scores, see Nav’s guides:
Can I check business scores for free?
Unlike consumer credit, there is no law that requires free business credit reports or business credit scores. As a result, there is currently no place to check business credit scores for free.
Nav, however, offers free summary business reports from multiple bureaus along with letter grades to help you understand where your business stands.
If you want to review your full detailed business credit reports and scores, the most cost-effective approach is to use a service like Nav Prime.
With Nav Prime, a paid service, you can get detailed credit reports from multiple credit bureaus along with credit scores based on those reports, updated monthly when you log in.
For more information on accessing your business credit, see Nav’s guide on how to check business credit scores and reports.
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Gerri Detweiler
Education Consultant, Nav
Gerri Detweiler, a financing and credit expert, has been featured in 4,500+ news stories and answered 10,000+ credit and lending questions online. In addition to Nav, her articles have appeared on Forbes, MarketWatch, and Startup Nation. She is the author or co-author of six books, including Finance Your Own Business, and she has also testified before Congress on consumer credit legislation.