Brighton, Hove and Sussex

Business loans and finance in Brighton

Brighton and Hove runs on small firms: 2,635 professional and technical businesses, 1,765 in information and communication and 1,185 in food and accommodation, out of 13,785 in all (ONS, March 2025). Most of them invoice, take cards or both, and across our panel of 200+ lenders 20 write invoice finance and 55 write unsecured loans and advances (checked September 2026), from £5,000 to £25 million.

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A salon client at her front desk. Appointment-led businesses like this are priced on the card book, not the shopfront.

Alex BeardsleyFounder & Director

Updated 21 September 20268 min read

Business loans in Brighton and Hove

The Brighton enquiries that reach us split roughly in two. Agencies, studios, consultancies and software firms want a term loan or an invoice facility against work already billed; shops, salons, cafes and bars from the Lanes to Western Road want a card advance or a short loan against the terminal. The panel covers both, with 55 unsecured lenders and 20 invoice lenders (checked September 2026), and we sit in the middle as the credit broker: the case goes only to lenders whose published criteria it meets, they decide, and the one you complete with pays us.

A £25,000 unsecured request is the most common size we see from the city. 36 lenders carry a product that covers it, over 1 to 72 months, with published floors from 4.1% to 70.8% and a median floor of 19.2% (checked September 2026). Go up to £100,000 and the count is 45 lenders with a median floor of 15.3%, which is the counter-intuitive bit: a bigger, well-evidenced ask often prices lower than a small one.

We are a Nottinghamshire broker with no office in Sussex. A Kemptown bar and a Hove architecture practice get the same named case handler by phone and email, and if a meeting in person would help, we say so and travel.

What we see from Brighton businesses

The council's own evidence base for its 2024 to 2027 Economic Plan, dated January 2024, makes the point better than we could: the number of businesses in the city rose 30% in ten years and jobs 19.5%, micro firms of up to nine staff went from 9,980 to 13,000 between 2013 and 2023 and make up around 90% of the count, and only 15 employers have 250 or more people. Digital jobs grew 40% and creative jobs 38%. That is a city of small, young, knowledge businesses, and the plan itself notes that 44% of new firms survive past five years.

For a lender, a three-year-old design agency in the North Laine with £600,000 of turnover and no property behind it is not an unsecured banking case; it is an invoice case, and a good one, because the debtors are recognisable brands on 30-day terms. We send those to the invoice panel first and to the unsecured lenders second. A Brighton ecommerce brand selling through its own site and marketplaces tends to fit revenue-based finance instead, repaid from sales.

The seafront and the Lanes are the other half. The evidence base puts hospitality at 12% of the city's businesses, and the Economic Plan values the visitor economy at over £1 billion a year. Those venues take their money by card and trade hardest between May and September, so an advance repaid as a share of takings, rather than a flat direct debit through January, is the shape most of them ask for. We read a full year of terminal data before agreeing, because the lender will.

Behind the counter at one of our cafe clients. Two hundred card payments a day is a stronger underwriting story than most owners realise.

Which funding type fits which Brighton business?

Funding type	Best for	Typical range	Speed (lender-advertised)
Invoice finance	Agencies, studios and consultancies billing brands on 30-day terms	£500 to £25 million	1 to 3 weeks to set up
Merchant cash advance	Seafront and Lanes venues, salons and shops on card-led, seasonal trade	£5k to £500k	24 to 72 hours
Asset finance	Fit-outs, kitchen kit, salon equipment and vans, with the asset as security	£1,000 to £50 million	2 to 10 days

Product limits across the September 2026 panel, not an offer to any Brighton business; speeds are what the lenders advertise and every case is judged on its own figures.

What lenders see in Brighton and Hove

Brighton and Hove had 13,785 VAT or PAYE registered enterprises in March 2025, down from 13,985 in 2024, beside an East Sussex county count of 23,105 (ONS, UK business: activity, size and location 2025, Nomis NM_142_1, read 21 September 2026). Professional, scientific and technical firms lead at 2,635, information and communication follows at 1,765, then construction at 1,525, arts, entertainment and other services at 1,300, retail at 1,285 and accommodation and food at 1,185. Retail carried the year's fall, from 1,515 to 1,285, while information and communication added 35. The city's GVA stood at £9.4bn on the 2021 estimate in the council's evidence base, up 13% on 2016, with nearly a fifth from financial and insurance activities.

The public scheme that now reaches Sussex is the South East Investment Fund, a £210m British Business Bank fund launched on 9 September 2026 with loans from £25,000 to £2m through FSE Group and equity up to £5m through Maven, covering Sussex, Surrey, Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It has its own application route and is not a CapExpand product; we point Brighton firms at it where the fit looks right and get nothing for doing so.

Region-wide, the British Business Bank's Nations and Regions Tracker 2025 (7 October 2025) recorded 44% of South East smaller businesses using external finance in 2024, three points down on 2023, and its factsheet counted 22,900 business births in the region in the first half of 2025 against 22,055 deaths, with 1,449 Start Up Loans drawn in 2024 worth £19m. The Bank of England's Agents, in September 2026, saw asset finance and invoice discounting facilities growing while noting that “Appetite for borrowing is still cautious due to the subdued outlook for the UK”. In Brighton that reads as lenders with capacity, borrowers with hesitation, and a broker's job of putting a well-prepared case in front of the right ones.

Premises, kit and growth money in Brighton

Brighton rents are the recurring complaint on our calls, and the council's evidence base agrees, recording that a one-bed rental takes more than 30% of an average earner's pay in most of the city. For a trading company that would rather own its studio or shop, 36 panel lenders write commercial mortgages on offices, 34 on retail and 31 on leisure premises (checked September 2026). A purchase that has to complete before a mortgage can be arranged, an auction lot for instance, is a bridging case, with 53 lenders on that part of the panel. For property-secured lending we work with UK limited companies and LLPs only, for business and commercial purposes.

Equipment is simpler than people expect. 20 asset lenders fund hair and beauty kit, 20 fund restaurant and bar equipment, 25 fund computer hardware and 22 fund a shop or office fit-out (checked September 2026), each with the asset as the security rather than the director's flat. A growth loan for a second site is an ordinary term loan named for its purpose, priced on the accounts of the first site, and we would rather tell a Hove cafe that on the first call than after a fortnight of paperwork.

Panel counts were taken September 2026 from available products only and are a description of the panel, not a promise of terms.

Where we work around Brighton

Hove, Shoreham, Lewes, Worthing and Eastbourne all reach us the same way, by phone and email from our Nottinghamshire office, and East Sussex's 23,105 enterprises (Nomis, 2025) plus the West Sussex coast are the patch. Nobody from CapExpand is stationed on the south coast; the person who reads your accounts is the person who answers the phone.

We work with UK limited companies, LLPs, sole traders and partnerships.

The panel behind this page

We can place unsecured business loans cases with 55 lenders, and 200+ lenders across all products on our panel. That range matters more than any single rate: the lender that suits a five-year-old limited company with clean accounts is rarely the one that suits a seasonal business or a director with a past blip, and a broker with a shallow panel has to force your case into whichever box it holds.

Names you may recognise on the panel

iwocaFunding CircleYouLendAllica BankOakNorth BankFleximizeCapify365 Finance

Examples from our panel as at September 2026, not an endorsement of any lender and not the full list. We check criteria first and put your case only to lenders whose requirements you fit. The full panel by product is in our lender directory, and how we choose is set out on our how we work page.

Brighton business loan questions

Can a young Brighton agency get funding before it has two years of accounts?

Sometimes. 21 of the 55 unsecured lenders on our panel will look at a business trading under a year, and 15 of the 20 invoice lenders will too (checked September 2026). With signed client contracts, the invoices are often the stronger route.

Does a director need to own a home to borrow?

Not with every lender. 39 unsecured lenders and 17 invoice lenders on the panel do not require a homeowning director (checked September 2026), which matters in a city where the council's own evidence base says renting a one-bed flat takes over 30% of an average earner's pay.

Is a merchant cash advance a good fit for a Lanes shop or a seafront bar?

It fits a business whose money arrives by card and swings with the season, because the repayment is a share of daily takings rather than a fixed sum. It fits poorly where sales are on account or by transfer. We show both an advance and a term loan side by side and the lender decides on its own criteria.

What happens if there is a CCJ or a missed payment on file?

24 unsecured lenders accept minor adverse older than 24 months and 8 consider moderate adverse (checked September 2026). On the invoice side 8 lenders accept minor adverse and 12 will look at a phoenix company. Adverse usually moves the price rather than closing the door.

Can you arrange a commercial mortgage on a Brighton studio or office?

Yes, for a limited company or LLP. 45 commercial mortgage lenders sit on the panel, 36 lending on offices and 34 on retail units (checked September 2026). For property-secured lending we work with UK limited companies and LLPs only, for business and commercial purposes.

Is the South East Investment Fund available to Brighton businesses?

Sussex is inside its area, so yes, through the fund managers the British Business Bank appointed. It is not part of our panel and we do not arrange it; a business can pursue both routes at once.

Where is CapExpand actually based?

At Pure Offices, Lake View Drive, Annesley, Nottinghamshire, and nowhere else. Brighton cases are handled by phone and email by a named case handler, and we do not claim a local presence we have not got.

Do you work with sole traders in Brighton?

Yes. We work with sole traders and partnerships as well as limited companies and LLPs for business loans, asset finance, invoice finance and merchant cash advances. Property-secured lending (commercial mortgages, bridging, development and buy-to-let) is for limited companies and LLPs only. Lender criteria differ by structure, so tell us how you trade and we will go to the right part of the panel.

Size a Brighton case in two minutes

Fill in the form and a named case handler rings you back with the lenders your figures fit. Enquiring does not affect your credit score, and no lender sees your file until you have said yes.

Start the form

Sources and references

The local figures on this page were read from the sources below on 21 September 2026. Nomis rounds to the nearest five, and the ONS 2026 release of 24 September 2026 will update the enterprise counts.

CapExpand Ltd (FRN 1060885) is an Appointed Representative of White Rose Finance Group Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 630772). We are a credit broker, not a lender. We do not provide financial advice.