How to Check and Increase Your Business Credit (and Your Line of Credit)
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Two questions that usually arrive together
When an owner asks me how to check their business credit, the next sentence is almost always how to raise it — and usually there’s a third thing underneath: they want a bigger line of credit, and they suspect their credit file is the thing standing in the way.
Those three jobs are connected, but they’re not the same. Checking is about visibility — knowing what lenders see when they look you up. Increasing your score is about the slow, boring habits that move a business credit file. And increasing your line of credit is a separate negotiation with a specific lender, where your score is one input among several. Mix them up and you’ll waste effort in the wrong place.
This guide walks all three, in the order I’d actually run them. If you haven’t built a business credit file yet, start with how to build business credit — this is the next guide after that one.
Part 1: How to check your business credit
Here’s the first thing to unlearn: there’s no single “business credit score,” and there’s no free annual report system for business credit the way AnnualCreditReport.com works for your personal file. Business credit lives in separate bureaus, each with its own file and its own score, and most of them charge for full access.
The main commercial bureaus are Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business, and Equifax Business. A fourth score, FICO SBSS, blends business and personal data and has historically shown up in SBA 7(a) pre-screens — it’s primarily sold to lenders, though a few monitoring services (such as Nav’s top paid tier) now surface an SBSS score to owners.
| Where to check | What you see | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dun & Bradstreet (CreditSignal / paid tiers) | PAYDEX and D&B file | Free alert tier + paid monitoring* | You need a D-U-N-S number first; D&B offers a free alert-style tier with limited detail plus paid monitoring |
| Experian Business | Intelliscore Plus, business report | Paid (single report or subscription)* | Sold as a one-off report or a subscription; pricing varies |
| Equifax Business | Business Credit Risk Score | Paid / often via lenders* | Harder to buy directly as an owner; often seen via a lender that pulled it |
| Nav | Summary across multiple bureaus | Free tier + paid* | Free tier shows letter-grade summaries across Experian, Equifax, and D&B; numeric scores require a paid plan |
| Your lender / vendor | Whatever they pulled | Free, indirectly | Ask which bureau they checked and what they saw |
* Illustrative — bureau pricing and free-tier limits change often; verify current terms on each bureau’s live site before relying on them.
A few things I want you to take from that table:
- Get your D-U-N-S number first if you don’t have one. Without it, there’s no D&B file to check. It’s the identifier that opens the PAYDEX score most vendors look at. The standard request is free and typically takes up to about 30 business days to process.*
- An aggregator like Nav is the cheapest way to get a single snapshot across bureaus before you decide which full report is worth buying.
- The free intel is your own lenders and vendors. Anyone who’s pulled your file can tell you which bureau they checked and roughly what they saw. That’s often the most relevant data point, because it’s the score that actually affected a decision.
- Checking your own file is a self-check — pulling or monitoring your own business credit is not the kind of inquiry that damages your score. What hurts is a cluster of lender hard pulls from applying to many lenders at once.
* Illustrative timing — confirm current D-U-N-S processing times on Dun & Bradstreet’s live site.
Part 2: How to increase your business credit score
Once you can see your file, the levers that move it are unglamorous and mostly about payment behavior. There’s no trick. Anyone selling you a “740 business score in 30 days” is selling something. But the order of operations is genuinely simple.
1. Pay early, not just on time
On the personal side, on-time is the gold standard. On the business side — specifically the D&B PAYDEX — the system is built to reward suppliers’ best customers, so paying early can score higher than paying exactly on the due date — an 80 reflects paying on the due date, and scores above 80 reflect paying ahead of terms, up to 100 for paying about 30 days early. This is the single biggest lever you have. If you do nothing else, beat your due dates.
2. Add tradelines that actually report
A tradeline is any account a creditor reports to the business bureaus — and the catch is that not every vendor reports. An account that doesn’t report does nothing for your score, no matter how perfectly you pay it.
- Start with net-30 vendor accounts from suppliers that report. Buy what the business genuinely needs, pay early, repeat.
- Add a business credit card or line of credit that reports under the business — but confirm the reporting first. Many small-business cards report only to your personal bureaus and only hit business bureaus on default.
- Always ask the question directly: “Do you report to the business bureaus, and which ones?”
3. Keep utilization sensible
High balances relative to your limits drag a file down the same way they do on the personal side. Keep credit utilization from creeping up, and don’t max out a revolving credit account right before you need it to look healthy.
4. Age the file and don’t close old accounts
A thicker, older file is more stable, and a single late payment on a thin file does outsized damage because there’s so little history to dilute it. Time is doing real work here — which is the honest reason this can’t be rushed.
5. Fix errors before they cost you
Business credit reports have errors at least as often as personal ones, and nobody is watching them for you. Pull your reports periodically, confirm your tradelines are actually reporting, and dispute anything wrong. An account you thought was building credit but never reported is a silent failure you can only catch by looking. Business-credit disputes are handled by each bureau directly — Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax each run their own commercial dispute/update process; confirm the current channel on the bureau’s site before filing.
Part 3: How to increase your business line of credit
This is the part people most often conflate with the score — but increasing a line of credit is a negotiation with one specific lender, and your credit file is just one of the inputs. Here’s how lenders actually decide a limit increase, from the chair I used to sit in.
What the lender is really weighing
When an owner asked me for a higher limit, I wasn’t looking at one number. I was looking at:
- How you’ve used the existing line. A line you’ve drawn on and repaid responsibly is the strongest case you can make. An untouched line gives me nothing to underwrite an increase against.
- Revenue and time in business since you opened the line. More revenue and more history both argue for a higher limit. Updated financials are usually what triggers the review.
- Your business credit file and, often, your personal score. Especially on smaller or newer accounts, the personal guarantee and personal score are still on the hook.
- The account’s payment history with us. No lates, no over-limit, no bounced payments.
How to actually request the increase
- Use the line well first. Draw, repay on time (early where it reports), and let a few cycles build a track record. An increase request after six clean months lands very differently than one after six idle months.
- Have updated financials ready. Recent bank statements, revenue figures, and tax returns are usually what the lender re-underwrites against. Asking with stale numbers wastes the request.
- Ask the lender how they review increases — automatic periodic review, on-request, or only at renewal — and whether a request triggers a hard pull. Some are soft-review, some aren’t — it varies by lender.
- Time it to your strength. Ask when revenue is up and the account is clean, not in the middle of a cash crunch when your file looks its worst.
The honest catch
If your current lender won’t go higher — or the product itself caps out where you’ve outgrown it — the answer isn’t always to push that one lender harder. Sometimes the right move is a different lender or a larger product entirely. That’s where shopping the market beats begging for an increase. For how lenders set limits in the first place, see how much you can get on a business line of credit.
The verdict: what to do this month
- Check it. Get a D-U-N-S number if you don’t have one, pull a snapshot (an aggregator is the cheap first look), and ask your existing lenders which bureau they check.
- Raise it. Pay early, add 2–3 reporting tradelines, keep utilization sane, and dispute errors. The score builds in months, not days.
- Increase the line. Use your current line well, gather updated financials, and ask your lender how they review increases — or shop a larger product if you’ve outgrown this one.
You can complete step 1 this week. Steps 2 and 3 are patience plus a few clean payment cycles.
When the answer is a different lender, not a bigger ask
If you’ve concluded you need a larger line than your current lender will give — or you’re building credit and want a line that reports so it does double duty — the mistake is applying to ten lenders one by one and collecting hard pulls.
A lending marketplace lets you submit one application and get matched to multiple lenders, so you compare real offers without a string of separate inquiries.
➤ See which business lines of credit you may qualify for — Get Funded Today
Lendio runs a soft credit pull when you check your options, which does not affect your credit score; if you accept an offer, the lender you choose may run a hard pull at underwriting.
We lead with a marketplace because it converts any qualified business and lets you compare instead of guess. If you already know the lender you want, our lender reviews cover them one by one.
This guide is part of our business line of credit guides hub. If you’re weighing whether you’d even qualify for more, our credit score needed for a business line of credit page is the companion to this one.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check my business credit?
Unlike personal credit, there’s no free annual report system — business credit lives in separate bureaus, each with its own score. Start by getting a D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet (which opens your PAYDEX file), then pull a snapshot. The cheapest first look is usually an aggregator like Nav, which summarizes multiple bureaus; full reports from Experian Business or Equifax Business are typically paid. You can also simply ask any lender or vendor who’s pulled your file which bureau they checked and what they saw. Checking your own file is a self-check and does not damage your score. (Specific bureau pricing and free-tier limits change — confirm current terms on each bureau’s site before relying on them.)
How can I increase my business line of credit?
Use the line you have well first — draw on it and repay on time (early, where the lender reports) for a few cycles, because a responsibly-used line is the strongest case for an increase. Then gather updated financials (bank statements, revenue, tax returns) and ask your lender how they review increases and whether a request triggers a hard pull. Time the request to when revenue is up and the account is clean. If your current lender won’t go higher or the product caps out, a different lender or a larger product may be the better path than pushing the same one. Whether an increase request triggers a hard inquiry varies by lender, so ask.
How long does it take to build business credit?
There’s no fixed clock, but expect months, not days, before a file is thick enough to carry an approval — or a larger limit — on its own. You can complete the foundational steps (entity, EIN, D-U-N-S number, first tradelines) within a few weeks, but the score builds as those accounts report payment history over time. Anyone guaranteeing a strong business score in days is not being straight with you.
Does checking my own business credit hurt my score?
No — checking your own business credit is a self-check, not the kind of inquiry that damages your file. What you want to avoid is a cluster of lender hard inquiries from applying to many lenders at once, which is exactly why a single marketplace application beats applying to each lender separately.
What’s the fastest way to raise a business credit score?
There’s no overnight method, but the highest-leverage move is paying early on accounts that report to the business bureaus — on the D&B PAYDEX, beating the due date can score better than paying on the date itself — an 80 reflects paying on time and scores above 80 reflect paying early. After that: add reporting tradelines, keep utilization sensible, and dispute any reporting errors. The “fast” part is fixing errors and confirming your accounts actually report; the rest is consistency over time.
Marcus Delaney spent nearly a decade in small-business lending — first as a credit analyst, then as a commercial loan officer reviewing line-of-credit and term-loan applications — before running his own small business as a borrower. He writes to translate how lenders actually evaluate businesses into plain guidance owners can act on. He does not lend money or broker loans; his work is informational and independent.