Invoice finance for haulage: paid when the load lands, not when the shipper gets round to it
Load delivered, POD signed, invoice sent. Then the wait. The terms say 30 days. The diesel went on the card this morning, the drivers get paid on Friday, and the VAT quarter does not move for anyone. Invoice finance is built for that gap: a lender advances most of the invoice once it is raised, and the rest, less its fee, when your customer finally pays.
About two minutes. 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. Nothing goes to a lender until you say so.
Why the cash gap bites harder in haulage
Your costs are weekly and your income is monthly at best. Fuel, wages, tolls and tyres go out as the trucks move. The money for the job comes in 30, 60, sometimes 90 days after you did it, and the customer sets the clock: a pallet network or a freight forwarder pays on its own cycle, and one big account paying late can tie up a month of turnover.
Growth makes it worse, not better. Every new contract is more diesel and more drivers before the first invoice on it is paid: win a 5-truck contract on 60-day terms and you fund roughly two months of running it before the first pound comes back. That is the point at which a haulier with plenty of work runs out of cash, and it is the case we hear most often from the yards we ring.
Then there is the licence. An operator has to show the traffic commissioner money it can reach, not turnover: on a standard licence that is £8,000 for the first vehicle and £4,500 for each one after it, so £48,500 on a 10-truck licence, and the figure is re-tested when you apply to add trucks. A facility that pays you on delivery is also money the commissioner will count. The table further down works the figure out for your fleet.
How it works on a haulage book
- 1
You raise the invoice as normal, POD attached.
The lender advances a share of it, usually 80% to 90% and up to 95% on a strong debtor book, on the lender’s own timing. A newer business or a spread of smaller customers tends to start nearer 70% to 85% until the book has a record.
- 2
Your customer pays on its usual terms.
Either to you, with the lender never mentioned (confidential invoice discounting), or to the lender, which chases it for you (factoring). The difference is whether you keep control of the customer relationship or the lender does the chasing.
- 3
You get the balance, less the fee.
Two charges usually apply: a service fee for running the facility, a small percentage of turnover, and a discount charge, which is interest on the money drawn and runs from the advance to the day the customer pays. A slow payer costs a little more; a quick one costs less.
A worked example of how a facility is structured is on our invoice finance page. The rate a lender offers depends on turnover, who you invoice and how they pay, so we do not print one here.
The financial standing figure for your fleet
These are the Senior Traffic Commissioner's figures from Statutory Document 2, version 21.0, in force since March 2025. Standard licences (national or international) are £8,000 for the first vehicle and £4,500 for each additional one. Restricted licences are £3,100 and £1,700.
| Vehicles on the licence | Standard licence | Restricted licence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | £8,000 | £3,100 |
| 3 | £17,000 | £6,500 |
| 5 | £26,000 | £9,900 |
| 10 | £48,500 | £18,400 |
| 20 | £93,500 | £35,400 |
What counts is money you can reach: cash at the bank, an agreed overdraft that is not drawn, and the unused availability on an invoice facility, each backed by a formal agreement and the statements to go with it. The commissioner averages it over 28 days on an application or a variation, and over three months on a licence already in force. So the unused availability on a facility already in place when the application goes in, about nine weeks before the vehicles are needed, is part of what the standing test reads.
Who uses it, and its limits
Commonly used by
- ✓ You invoice other businesses on terms: pallet networks, forwarders, manufacturers, retailers, other hauliers.
- ✓ Fleets of 3 to 30 adding trucks, where each new contract is paid for before it pays.
- ✓ Limited-company hauliers running two or three regular accounts, one invoice at a time where the lender offers it.
- ✓ Businesses that are young but well booked. The invoice is the security, so the customer's record matters as much as yours.
Where it does not apply
- – Cash-on-delivery work or parcels for the public. There is no invoice to advance against.
- – Invoices that are often disputed or part-paid. A lender advances against clean invoices.
- – One customer that is 80% of the book and pays badly. Some lenders will still look at it, with a lower advance.
- – A debenture already held by another lender over the debtors, unless it can be released or ranked. We check the charges register first.
What the lenders on our panel ask
Five things decide most haulage cases, and we ask them before a lender does, usually in one 10-minute call: who you invoice and how concentrated the book is; your turnover and average invoice size; how long you have traded; what charges sit on the company at Companies House; and whether your terms and PODs are in writing. Have those to hand: each lender publishes its own timing for an indication and for a facility going live, and the speed of the paperwork sets the rest.
We have access to a range of UK commercial finance lenders through our principal, White Rose Finance Group Limited. Each invoice finance lender writes its own invoice products, so a haulier declined by one lender has not been declined for the product. A case only goes to a lender whose criteria it fits.
The panel behind this page
We have access to a range of UK commercial finance lenders through our principal, White Rose Finance Group Limited. Some of them write invoice finance. Lenders set different criteria on trading history, seasonality and credit history, and each lender makes its own decision.
We check each lender’s published criteria first, and your case goes only to lenders whose requirements it meets. How a case is checked against criteria is set out on our how we work page.
Questions hauliers ask
Can an owner-driver use invoice finance?▼
If the business is a limited company or LLP that invoices other businesses on terms, yes. We work with UK limited companies and LLPs. What matters to the lender is who owes you the money and whether they pay, more than how many trucks you run.
Will my customers know?▼
Only if you want them to. With confidential invoice discounting you raise the invoice, the lender advances against it, and your customer pays you as normal without knowing a lender is involved. With factoring the lender collects the invoice for you, which some hauliers prefer because chasing a forwarder for payment is time they would rather spend on the road.
Does it count towards financial standing on my operator licence?▼
It can. Statutory Document 2 (Finance) lists a formal invoice finance agreement among the evidence a traffic commissioner will accept, alongside bank statements and an agreed overdraft. What counts is the money you can actually reach on the facility, not its headline limit, averaged over 28 days on an application or variation and three months on a licence already in force. Ask the lender for the letter that sets it out.
What happens if my main customer pays late?▼
You have already had most of the invoice, so a late payer is the lender's wait rather than yours. The discount charge runs for longer, which costs a little more, and most facilities have a point (often 90 or 120 days from the invoice date) after which an unpaid invoice is handed back to you. A customer who pays late every time is worth talking through before the facility is set up.
Do I need to have been trading for years?▼
Not necessarily. Because the security is the invoice, an invoice lender weighs your customer’s ability to pay as much as your accounts, so its trading-age criteria differ from a term lender’s; each lender sets its own minimum, and we take enquiries from companies with at least three months of trading. New businesses tend to see a lower advance (nearer 70% to 85%) until the book has a track record.
I have finance on the trucks already. Does that get in the way?▼
Sometimes. A truck finance lender may hold a debenture over the whole business, which includes the debtors, and an invoice lender will want that released or ranked behind it with a deed of priority. We read the charges register at Companies House before the case goes anywhere, so you know about it before a lender does.
Does CapExpand lend the money?▼
No. We are a commercial finance broker: we check your case against the criteria the invoice lenders on our panel publish, put it to the ones it fits, and you see the terms before anything is agreed. The lender decides, and we will receive commission from the lender; the model, calculation and amount are disclosed to you throughout your customer journey.
Start a haulage invoice finance enquiry
Two minutes on the form, or one call. We check the case against the invoice lenders on the panel and put it only to the ones whose criteria it meets, once you have said yes. Each lender sets its own advance. Finance arranged for UK limited companies and LLPs.
Sources
- Senior Traffic Commissioner, Statutory Document 2: Finance, version 21.0 (March 2025): the standing figures, what counts as evidence and the 28-day and three-month averaging.
- GOV.UK, Senior Traffic Commissioner statutory document summaries: the plain-English summary of the same rules.
- GOV.UK, Being a goods vehicle operator: licence types and the variation process for adding vehicles.
- GOV.UK, Late commercial payments: the 30-day default where no payment terms have been agreed.
- CapExpand, invoice finance: the advance percentages, the two charges and the worked example this page refers to. Checked 21 September 2026.