Unsecured business loans in the UK: rates, limits and lenders

It depends on your turnover, profitability and trading history rather than a fixed cap. Unsecured business loans typically run from around £10,000 up to around £500,000, with lenders often sizing the loan against monthly turnover and what the accounts show you can afford. Secured loans can go considerably higher because the security reduces the lender’s risk. These are a guide, not a quote, and the amount is set by the lender after its own checks.

Usually, yes. Personal guarantees from the directors are standard on unsecured lending to limited companies and common on secured lending too. A guarantee means you are personally on the hook if the company cannot repay, so take it seriously and consider independent legal advice before signing. Some lenders will lend without one, but expect a smaller amount or a higher price.

Unsecured lending has nothing to value and no legal charge to register, so a lender can often decide in days. Secured lending takes a legal charge over an asset, and the valuation and legal work add time and fees; each lender publishes its own amounts, terms and rates for each structure. We don’t give advice: we set both out side by side, and which one a business uses is its own decision.

Unsecured is the quicker of the two, and each lender sets and publishes its own timing. Secured loans take longer because the lender needs to value the security and complete the legal work, which typically adds weeks rather than days.

It is harder, and anyone promising otherwise is not being straight with you. Adverse credit narrows the panel and pushes up the price. Lenders publish what they weigh: security, the personal guarantee, recent trading and the explanation of what went wrong and what changed. Some lenders specialise in businesses with imperfect credit. We set out which lenders publish criteria your case meets, and each lender makes its own decision.

Most business purposes: stock, staff, marketing, refurbishment, equipment, expansion, or consolidating more expensive borrowing. Lenders will ask what the money is for and some purposes are easier to fund than others. If the money is for a specific asset or unpaid invoices, a dedicated product such as asset finance or invoice finance is priced differently from a general loan, so the total costs are worth comparing.

Commercial or residential property the company or directors own is the most common, followed by business assets such as machinery, vehicles or equipment. Some lenders take a debenture, a floating charge over the business as a whole. The stronger and more saleable the security, the more you can typically borrow and the better the pricing tends to be.

It is possible but harder. Each unsecured lender publishes its own minimum trading history, and asks for filed accounts or bank statements to match it. Lenders publish what they weigh for a newer business: security, the director guarantee and recent turnover.

CapExpand Ltd (FRN 1060885) is a credit broker and an Appointed Representative of White Rose Finance Group Limited (FRN 630772), which is directly authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We are a broker, not a lender. We work with UK limited companies and LLPs only, for business and commercial purposes. If you have a complaint, our complaints page explains how it is handled.

No. We are not a lender. We introduce UK limited companies and LLPs to the lenders on our panel and set the options out side by side. We will receive commission from lenders; the commission model, calculation and amount will be disclosed to you throughout your customer journey.

We have access to a range of UK commercial finance lenders through our principal, White Rose Finance Group Limited. We do not send your details to all of them. We check each lender’s published criteria against your case and approach only those it meets, once you have said so. Panel composition is set by our principal and changes; a lender being on the panel is a fact about the panel, not a recommendation. Any figures are a guide, not a quote.

Rarely on an unsecured loan to a limited company, because the guarantee is what the lender relies on when there is no asset. Where lending happens without one it is usually a different product: invoice finance secured on the ledger, asset finance secured on the equipment, or a secured loan against property. Some lenders cap the guarantee at a share of the loan rather than the whole sum. Our personal guarantee guide sets out capped, uncapped and joint and several guarantees with worked examples.

Yes, with a smaller field. Whether a director owns a home is one of the criteria each unsecured lender publishes. A lender that asks for it is using home ownership as a proxy for the strength of the personal guarantee, so a non-homeowner may be offered a smaller amount over a shorter term rather than turned away outright.

It depends on the amount as much as the business. A smaller loan usually carries a higher rate than a larger one, because the underwriting work is much the same whatever the size. A lender's published starting rate is a floor, not an offer. Your rate sits somewhere in each lender's range once they have seen the accounts, and where a lender charges an arrangement fee it is set out in that lender's own terms before you sign.

Expect a credit check from any lender. A firm that promises there will be no credit check at all should be looked up on the Financial Services Register before you go further. What is true is that enquiring does not affect your credit score. If you apply to a lender, it runs its own credit search, which may be recorded on your file. Many lenders run a soft quotation search first and some record a hard search at application; ask each lender when its search is recorded.

Some unsecured lenders publish criteria that cover a business in its first year, and we take enquiries from three months of trading. Expect a director's personal guarantee, a smaller amount than an established business would get, and closer questions about where the money is going.