UK Business Loan Requirements Compared: Revenue, Trading History and Guarantees

The published requirements, side by side

A business can pass a turnover threshold and still fail a lender's credit assessment. It can also be ruled out before that assessment because it is too young, has the wrong legal structure or needs a product unavailable in its part of the UK.

We compared seven products from six providers or schemes using their own public pages, checked on 8 October 2026. The sample includes one high-street bank, four specialist business lenders and the government-backed Start Up Loans scheme. It is a selected comparison, not a census of UK lending.

The table separates published facts from missing information. “Not stated” means we found no numerical floor in the reviewed pages. It does not mean a lender accepts any turnover or any trading history.

These are advertised ranges, not amounts available to every applicant. Capify's age and turnover figures come from its product FAQ. Fleximize's FAQ limits unsecured lending to £500,000 and secured lending to £1 million. Its non-homeowner restriction also matters: the FAQ says it can only support non-homeowners trading for over 36 months, with a £20,000 maximum.

Download the collected requirements as CSV. The download keeps source links, missing values and conflicting wording alongside the figures.

Six months and twelve months lead to different shortlists

Fleximize publishes two different age gates. A business trading for seven months clears the age requirement for Flexiloan Lite but falls short of the main Flexiloan's twelve-month requirement. Putting both under one lender name would hide that difference.

Its product page also shows different terms: 3–12 months for Lite and 12–60 months for Flexiloan. Clearing the earlier age gate therefore does not provide the same repayment options. A shorter term can put more pressure on cash flow, even when the amount borrowed is unchanged.

Funding Circle's reviewed product page requires a full year of trading. iwoca explicitly discusses loans to businesses trading for under a year, with a £10,000 cap, but does not publish a numerical minimum age on that page. That supports “newer businesses considered”, not “every startup qualifies”.

NatWest asks applicants for their trading start date, the last twelve months' turnover and profit, projected turnover and existing borrowing. We have not converted that information request into a twelve-month eligibility minimum. Asking for a period of financial information and publishing a minimum business age are different things.

What three illustrative businesses clear

We applied only the recorded age and monthly-turnover gates to three hypothetical limited companies in England. For the Fleximize examples, assume the relevant director is a homeowner. The three products below publish both numerical filters in the reviewed material.

The rule is simple: trading months must reach the stated minimum and monthly turnover must reach the stated floor. All three examples avoid Capify's disputed exact £10,000 boundary. Its column deliberately tests the twelve-month product FAQ wording, not every statement elsewhere on its site.

Across these three selected product filters, A clears one, B clears two and C clears three. Those are counts of products from two providers, not approval probabilities. We have not assessed credit history, sector, profitability, existing debt, requested amount, personal circumstances or affordability.

The other four products are excluded from this numerical test because they do not publish both comparable minimum filters, or, in the case of Start Up Loans, operate with an upper business-age limit and a personal assessment. Unknown values would make a supposed seven-product “eligibility score” look more complete than the evidence allows.

Download the nine illustrative filter results. These are our calculations using collected criteria, not observed applications or lender decisions.

UK-based does not mean every legal structure fits

Funding Circle's current support page says new applications focus on limited companies and LLPs. It stopped accepting new sole-trader and ordinary-partnership applications from 23 February 2026. An older page aimed at self-employed borrowers can therefore be a poor guide to today's application route. The dated support explanation is more useful.

iwoca's product criteria also specify a UK-based limited company or LLP. Fleximize publishes a wider legal-structure scope, including particular partnership and sole-trader applications, but attaches conditions to them. Do not assume the limited-company rows here transfer unchanged to every business structure.

Geography can change the available security route too. Fleximize's FAQ says Scotland and Northern Ireland are limited to unsecured lending up to £500,000, while Wales can use secured or unsecured options. It excludes overseas businesses and companies based in the Republic of Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey or the Isle of Man.

NatWest's reviewed product page does not set out a precise geographic eligibility test. We have left that field unresolved rather than deriving it from the bank's registered office. Its stated application conditions include being an adult director, holding a business current account with any provider and not having been declared bankrupt or received a CCJ or Court Decree.

An unsecured loan can still require a personal guarantee

A personal guarantee makes the owner or director personally responsible under the agreement if the business cannot repay. “Unsecured” therefore deserves a second question: what must you sign personally? The British Business Bank's guarantee guide explains the distinction and the possible exposure of personal assets.

For a company loan, ask who guarantees it, how much the guarantee covers, whether more than one owner must sign and how it ends after repayment. Read the actual agreement and obtain independent legal advice before accepting a guarantee you do not understand.

Start Up Loans belongs in a different category. The borrower takes a personal loan for business use, rather than merely guaranteeing a company's debt. Its business-age window expanded from 36 to 60 months on 6 April 2026, confirmed by the scheme's change notice and current GOV.UK guidance.

The scheme also requires a UK-resident adult with the right to work, an eligible business and use of funds, inability to obtain finance elsewhere, credit checks and affordability. It assesses the business plan, cash-flow forecast and personal survival budget. Public wording varies between “up to 60 months” and “less than five years”, so someone at the exact boundary should verify the applicable rule.

Where the public pages disagree

Fleximize's FAQ says its maximum borrowing can be four months' revenue. Its separate loan-amounts page says two months. We have not selected the larger multiplier or used either to predict an available loan.

Capify's product page advertises up to £3 million, while its eligibility page says £1 million. That eligibility page also mentions six months' history in general discussion, despite its own specific checklist and the product FAQ saying twelve. The table preserves the conflict.

A lower threshold found in a guide is not enough to override a product checklist. Equally, a larger headline maximum does not establish what a particular unsecured offer will allow. Check the current product conditions and written offer before relying on either.

How we collected and checked the comparison

We selected the products to show differences in bank lending, specialist lending, shorter-term finance and personal startup funding. We opened the providers' product, eligibility and support pages on 8 October 2026 and recorded the published criteria. There were no applications, quotes, provider contacts or approval tests.

The unit is a product row: seven products across six providers or schemes. Fleximize appears twice because its product-specific age requirements differ. Amounts are pounds sterling. Turnover is revenue, not profit, and monthly thresholds have not been silently relabelled as annual requirements.

The comparison records public conditions, which can change. It cannot reveal unpublished underwriting rules or establish which lender is easiest, cheapest or most likely to approve a particular business. We retained missing fields and source conflicts instead of treating them as favourable terms.

Our scenario calculation uses three invented business profiles and three published pairs of filters. It tests thresholds only. It makes no claim about real businesses' outcomes, and no interest rate, fee or repayment quotation is inferred from these eligibility observations.

Check the cost before accepting the access

Use the criteria to remove clear mismatches from your shortlist. Then collect the proposed amount, cash actually advanced, payment schedule, fees, security and guarantee terms. Passing a threshold does not tell you whether borrowing is sensible.

Our £50,000 loan cost comparison shows how fee treatment changes the cash received and repaid. For a conventional amortising offer, put its actual figures into the business loan repayment calculator. The calculator is an illustration and does not decide eligibility.

If the borrowing bridges overdue invoices, compare its cost with the margin on the work and the likely collection delay. The UK late-payment cost analysis gives a separate way to examine that gap. A loan can move a payment problem into next month without fixing the underlying margin.

Frequently asked questions

Is £5,000 monthly turnover the same as £60,000 annual turnover?

Multiplying £5,000 by twelve gives £60,000. That is an annualised equivalent, not proof that a lender accepts a £60,000 annual total in place of its monthly test. Seasonal trading can produce the same annual revenue with very different recent monthly receipts.

Can I compare a Start Up Loan with a company loan?

Compare the cash cost and repayment commitment, but keep the borrower clear. A Start Up Loan is personal debt used for business purposes. A company loan may instead require a personal guarantee, with exposure defined by its agreement.

What should I ask when a provider's pages conflict?

Identify the exact product, business structure, location and requested amount, then ask which current conditions will govern the offer. Keep a copy of the written answer and agreement. Do not build a borrowing plan around the most generous sentence on the website.