Direct answer
To get a business loan you generally need four things: enough time in business, enough revenue moving through your bank account, a credit profile the lender can work with, and clean documentation of all three. Most lenders want at least 6 months of operating history and consistent monthly deposits. Beyond that, the bar moves a lot depending on which product you are asking for, and the product that fits you is usually not the one you walked in asking about.
That last part is the part most articles skip. A bank term loan and a revenue advance are underwritten almost nothing alike. Below is what each one actually looks at, what to have ready, and how to read your own file before a lender reads it for you.
How we read a file
Before the checklists, here is the method, because it explains why two businesses with identical revenue get very different answers.
Every lender is trying to answer one question: what is the realistic risk that this does not get paid back, and what can they verify quickly. Products that underwrite against something already provable, like twelve months of deposits or an invoice owed by a creditworthy customer, have short requirement lists and move fast. Products that underwrite your whole financial picture, or that answer to a second rulebook like an SBA program, have long lists and move slowly. The requirement list is not arbitrary. It is the shape of what the lender has to prove.
That is also why we start with your documents rather than with a product. We would rather tell you early that the file points somewhere other than where you expected than send you down a two-month path that was never going to close.
What do you need to get a business loan?
Four things, in the order lenders look at them.
- Time in business. Six months is the practical floor for most non-bank financing. Twelve to twenty-four months opens up meaningfully better structures. Banks and SBA lenders generally want two or more years. If you are under six months, financing exists, but it is a narrower and more expensive set of options, and it is worth being honest with yourself about whether the timing is right.
- Revenue, measured through your bank account. Not what you invoiced. What actually landed. Most lenders want to see consistent monthly deposits, and consistency matters as much as size. A business doing $40,000 a month every month is often an easier file than one averaging $60,000 with two zero months in it.
- A credit profile the lender can work with. Personal credit still matters for most small business financing because most lenders will want a personal guarantee. It is a factor, not a gate. There are real products for owners in the 500s.
- Documentation that supports all three. Bank statements, tax returns, and a current debt schedule. Incomplete files are the most common reason a workable deal stalls, and they are entirely avoidable.
What you do not need, despite the common belief: a formal business plan, a pitch deck, or projections. Those are venture-capital and some SBA requirements. For most working capital financing, nobody will ask.
How do you qualify for a business loan?
Qualifying is the same four inputs above, read against a specific product rather than in the abstract. That reframing matters, because "do I qualify for a business loan" has no single answer. You qualify for some products and not others, and the useful question is which ones.
A rough map of where most businesses land:
- Under 6 months in business, any revenue. Very limited. Equipment financing against the equipment itself is sometimes possible. Most other options are not, and we will tell you that rather than run you through an application that will not go anywhere.
- 6 to 12 months, consistent deposits. Revenue advances and short working capital are realistic. Term loans and lines of credit are usually not yet.
- 12 to 24 months, consistent deposits, fair credit or better. The range widens: lines of credit, term loans, invoice factoring if you sell on terms, equipment financing.
- 2 or more years, profitable, good credit. Bank and SBA products become realistic, which is where the lowest cost of capital lives. It also takes the longest.
If you are on the boundary between two of these, the difference between an approval and a decline is often documentation quality rather than the numbers themselves. That is the part you can control this week.
What documents do I need for a business loan?
At application, expect to provide:
- A short application form
- Six to twelve months of business bank statements
- In many cases, a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet, and a recent business tax return
At closing, expect:
- A voided check from the business account
- A driver's license for each signer
- Bank verification through a service such as Decision Logic or Plaid
- A recorded funding call where you speak with the lender directly and verbally confirm the terms before funds move
If you gather the bank statements before anything else, you have removed most of the delay from the process. Missing or stale documents, not lender speed, are what stall the majority of files.
How much do you need in monthly deposits and bank statements?
This is the question we get asked least and should get asked most, because for a large share of business financing it is the single most important input.
Bank statements: 3 to 6 months, business account, all pages. Three months is the common ask for revenue-based products. Six months is standard for anything larger or longer. "All pages" is not a formality. A statement submitted without its transaction detail gets sent back, and that round trip costs days.
Deposits: what lenders are actually reading. Not just the total. Four things:
- Monthly deposit volume. Roughly $10,000 to $15,000 a month is the practical floor for most revenue-based financing. More opens more.
- Consistency month to month. Steady beats large and erratic, nearly every time.
- Number of deposits per month. Many smaller deposits read as a stable, diversified customer base. Two large ones read as concentration risk, which is a harder file even at the same revenue.
- Negative days and overdrafts. A few are survivable and common. A pattern of them is the fastest way to a decline, and it is visible on page one.
The honest version: if your last three months look materially worse than the nine before them, waiting sixty days and applying on a stronger trailing window will usually get you a better outcome than applying now. That advice costs us a deal in the short term. It is still the right advice, and it is the reason people send us the next one.
On longer-term loans specifically: deposits and statements matter, but they carry less weight than they do for revenue-based products. A bank or SBA lender underwrites profitability and debt service coverage from tax returns and financial statements, with the bank account used to confirm the story. For a revenue advance, the bank account very nearly is the underwriting. Knowing which conversation you are in tells you which document to fix first.
What does a bank look for before approving a business loan?
Banks underwrite differently from non-bank lenders, and knowing the difference saves people months.
A bank is underwriting your ability to repay from profit. It wants two or more years of business tax returns, personal tax returns, year-to-date financial statements, a debt schedule, and usually collateral. It is looking at debt service coverage: whether your profit comfortably covers the new payment on top of everything else. Strong credit matters more here than anywhere else. Timelines typically run several weeks to a few months.
A non-bank lender is underwriting your ability to repay from cash flow. It leans on bank statements and deposit behavior, weighs credit less heavily, moves in days rather than months, and costs more. That cost difference is real and we will show you the math on it rather than talk around it.
Neither one is the right answer in the abstract. If you have two years of profitable returns and eight weeks to spare, the bank route is almost always cheaper and worth the wait. If you have a purchase order to fulfill on Friday, it is not an option at any price, and pretending otherwise wastes the week you had. Most of what we do is telling people which of those two situations they are actually in.
One thing worth saying plainly: being declined by your own bank is not a verdict on your business. Banks decline for reasons that have nothing to do with whether you can repay, including industry codes, loan size below their minimum, and internal portfolio limits. It is a common starting point for a conversation with us, not an ending.
If the bank route is where you are headed, our guide comparing an SBA loan to a conventional business loan walks through the difference.
Requirements by financing type
| Financing type | Typical time in business | Typical monthly deposits | What it leans on most | Collateral | Credit weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue advance | Often 6 months or more | $15,000+ | Deposit and sales history | Not typically required | Low, cash flow leads |
| Term loan | Generally a year or more | $20,000+ | Full financial review, stable revenue, clean ledgers | Sometimes | Medium to high |
| Line of credit | Generally a year or more | $15,000+ | Full financial review | Sometimes | Medium to high |
| Invoice factoring | Flexible, the invoice matters more | Based on invoices, not deposits | Your customer's credit and a delivered invoice | The receivable itself | Low, your customer is assessed |
| Equipment financing | Varies by lender | Varies, equipment secures it | Equipment value, age, usage, and dealer origin | The equipment | Medium |
| Asset-based lending | Established businesses | Varies by collateral | Collateral value plus profitability | Required, often real estate | Medium to high |
| SBA loan | Commonly 5 years or more | Profitability weighs more | Full review plus SBA program eligibility, profitability | Typically required | High, commonly 700 or above |
These are typical lender expectations across the market, presented as ranges. They are not CCA's criteria, not an offer, and not a prediction of what any particular lender will do with your file.
Why did my business loan application get declined?
In our experience the recurring reasons are boring and fixable more often than people expect:
- Not enough operating history for the product applied for. Frequently the business qualified for something else and applied for the wrong thing.
- Negative days or overdrafts in the bank statements. A handful of negative days can outweigh a strong revenue number.
- Documents that do not agree with each other. A tax return that does not reconcile to the bank statements raises a question that takes weeks to answer.
- Existing debt load. If a business is already carrying several outstanding advances, additional capital usually makes the problem worse rather than better. When we see that, we say so. We do not chase a large loan to clear stacked debt, because in practice that rarely works and it is not what a business in that position needs.
- Industry or state. Some lenders simply do not fund some industries, regardless of how good the numbers look.
Do I need good credit to get business financing?
Not for every product. Credit is a gate for SBA and bank-style financing, where a primary signer score around 700 or above is a common expectation. For revenue-driven products, credit is one input among several and deposit history carries more weight. If credit is your weak spot, the honest path is usually a revenue-driven product now, used well, while you build toward better terms later. See the small business loans overview for how those options compare.
How much can my business borrow?
It tracks the product, not your ambition. As rough market ranges: a revenue advance is often sized near 10 percent of annual revenue, a term loan closer to 12 to 15 percent, and a line of credit around 10 to 15 percent. Secured products are sized against the collateral, and SBA financing is tied to net income and collateral rather than revenue. Those are typical ranges, not commitments, and the real number comes out of a document review.
Frequently asked questions
Related guides
Talk it through before you apply
The fastest way to find out where your business actually stands is a short conversation and a look at your bank statements. We are a brokerage, not a lender, so our job is to read your file honestly and point you at the option that fits, including telling you when the answer is "not right now." No rate or approval is promised before documents are reviewed.