Guide

Do I Qualify for a Business Loan? Start With the Published Floors

Most business lenders publish a floor: a minimum credit score, a minimum time in business, a minimum revenue. Below the floor, the application is not really judged — it is screened out. A large share of owners apply at floors they never met; in the Federal Reserve's employer-firm survey, 46% of applicants who did not get the full amount they wanted said a top reason was that lender requirements were too strict.

The floors we could verify

We checked lender pages in October 2026 and print only floors a lender publishes cleanly in one place. Three passed that test:

• Bluevine (line of credit): 625 personal credit score, 12 months in business, $120,000 annual revenue.
• OnDeck (term loan): 625 score, 12 months, $100,000 revenue. Its own page notes a stronger profile improves the chance of an offer — a floor is a doorway, not a decision.
• American Express (business line of credit): 660 score, 12 months, $36,000 revenue, published with conditions — read the asterisks.

The floors we could not verify — and will not print

Several well-known lenders' own pages give different minimums in different places. Fundbox's pages variously suggest a 600 score, 3–6 months, and about $30,000 of revenue; Biz2Credit's pages give three different sets; Credibly's disagree with themselves. Rather than pick the version we like, we print none of them as a floor. A floor you cannot verify is a rumour with a logo.

And the SBA? There is no SBA floor

SBA's regulation (13 CFR Part 120) sets eligibility — for-profit, operating in the US, small by SBA standards, an eligible type of business — and no credit-score, revenue, or time floor at all. The numbers often quoted as “SBA requirements” (a 650–680 score, two years in business, a debt-service ratio around 1.15–1.25) are habits of individual SBA lenders. They matter in practice, but they are lender habits, not law, and any checker that prints them as SBA rules is wrong.

Before the floors: the records screen

Floors are only the second screen. The first is mechanical: is the business in good standing, does it have an EIN and a business bank account, do its name and address match across the records a lender compares? Owners who fix the records screen and apply only at floors their numbers clear stop collecting form-letter denials. The free checker on this site audits the records screen; the paid report compares your numbers against the verified floors above, input by input.

What “clearing a floor” means — and does not

Clearing a published floor means your application gets read. It is not an offer, not a rate, and not a promise of any amount. Lenders decide, on files and financials no checker sees. Anyone who tells you a floor means you are in is selling something.