Salon & Beauty
Business Funding
£10,000 to £100,000 for equipment, renovations, staff, products, or expansion.
A named person calls you back within one working day.
What Salons Use Funding For
Equipment & Chairs
£8K-£35KNew styling chairs, dryers, backwash units, treatment beds, or specialist equipment.
- Styling stations
- Professional dryers
- Backwash units
- Treatment beds
Salon Refurbishment
£12K-£50KA full salon refurbishment: layout, fittings and finishes.
- Interior redesign
- New mirrors & lighting
- Reception upgrade
- Customer experience
Staff Recruitment & Training
£10K-£20KHire experienced stylists, provide advanced training, or cover wages during transition periods.
- Stylist recruitment
- Advanced courses
- Product training
- Apprenticeships
Product Stock
£10K-£15KProfessional products, retail ranges or exclusive brands bought in bulk.
- Professional products
- Retail stock
- Exclusive brands
- Bulk purchases
New Services Launch
£10K-£30KAdd nail bar, spa treatments, aesthetics, or other premium services to diversify income.
- Nail bar setup
- Spa equipment
- Aesthetics machines
- Massage rooms
Second Location
£20K-£60KAn additional salon location or a franchise expansion.
- Lease deposit
- Equipment for new salon
- Initial stock
- Marketing launch
The amounts are illustrative of what salons typically ask for under each heading, not offers; the lender sizes every loan on the business's own figures.
How lenders read a salon
Salons get read as retail with a booking diary attached. Hair and beauty equipment and a shop fit-out can both be financed as assets, and buying rather than renting the unit makes it a retail premises case for a commercial mortgage lender.
The number that decides most salon cases is not the credit score. It is whether a director owns a home. Some unsecured lenders will proceed without a homeowning director and some will not. Plenty of salon owners rent. It is better to know which list you are on before an application goes anywhere.
Age of business is the second gate. Some lenders will look at a business trading under a year, and fewer at a genuine start-up. A second chair in an established salon is an easy conversation. A first salon, on a lease signed last month, is a different one, and the honest answer is that fewer doors are open.
Turnover caps catch people out because almost nobody publishes them. Some unsecured lenders limit a loan to a share of annual turnover, which can set a small salon's ceiling before the credit file is read, and each lender draws that line in its own place.
Pricing on a small unsecured loan is set on the salon's own statements, and the floor a lender advertises is where its pricing starts, not where a salon lands.
Adverse credit is survivable and worth being straight about. Some lenders will consider adverse credit more than two years old, and against equipment the picture is different again, because the styling units and the treatment beds are the security.
Chairs, dryers and the shrinking soft-asset market
Salon equipment is what the trade calls a soft asset: it does not hold value like a digger or a lorry, and fewer lenders will fund it. Asset lenders publish their own appetite for chairs, dryers and treatment beds, and that appetite can narrow when a lender changes hands or strategy.
Where a lender sits on new versus used kit matters as much as the rate. Two asset lenders offering the same product can set different minimum loans and different trading histories for the same salon. That is the whole argument for checking criteria before applying rather than after being declined.
Buying the kit outright costs nothing in finance and empties the account in an afternoon. Spreading it keeps cash for the things no lender funds, like the six weeks of marketing that fills the new nail bar. One comparison owners make is whether the cash kept earns more than the finance costs over the same months. We show the costs each lender provides so you can make it, and the decision is yours.
The three shapes a salon borrows in
Facts checked 8 September 2026
Product mapping from lenders' published criteria, which carry no salon-specific field.
Fit-out, lent as a term loan because plumbing cannot be repossessed
A refit is the shape lenders like least, because most of the money goes into walls, electrics and plumbing that no funder can take back. Fixed items such as backwash units, mirrors and reception counters can be funded as an asset by a lender that takes shop and office fit-out. The building works themselves are usually lent as an unsecured term loan over a fixed term.
Equipment on hire purchase or a lease, secured on the kit itself
Chairs, dryers, treatment beds and nail stations are financed on the asset, with the funder holding title until the last payment. Aesthetics devices sit closer to medical and dental equipment, though whether a given laser or IPL machine qualifies is each funder's call. Because the kit is the security, the lender weighs it alongside the credit file.
Cash flow between quiet months, sized on takings rather than the file
A slow January after a busy December is a cash flow problem, and a short unsecured loan over months rather than years is one product used for it. A fit-out, by contrast, is usually lent over years.
A word on what this page describes. Lenders do not sell a product named for salons, so each reference here is to the kind of lender whose published criteria fit what a salon buys: the equipment, the fit-out, the premises or the cash between quiet months.
Sources
Each lender publishes its own criteria, and they change without notice.
What a lender asks for
A salon is read on its takings, its chairs and its lease, and a lender asks for the evidence of each.
- ✓Recent business bank statements or an Open Banking connection, read for the pattern of takings through the week and for the rent leaving on time.
- ✓The card acquirer’s statements, since card takings are the salon’s verifiable turnover and seasonality shows in them.
- ✓The lease and its remaining term, because a fit-out or a chair is funded over a period the lease has to outlast.
- ✓How the chairs are worked: employed stylists, self-employed renters, or both, because rent-a-chair income is read differently from employed takings.
- ✓For equipment, the supplier’s quote in the company’s name, with the make and model, since beauty and hair equipment is soft security that fewer lenders fund.
Which stages are in your hands
A salon facility is small and quick to arrange when the paperwork is clean, and the stages below are the ones the owner controls.
Clean statements
Takings paid in full to the business account and personal spending kept off it, for three months before the enquiry, make the trading pattern readable at a glance.
The landlord’s consent
A fit-out needs the landlord’s written consent under most leases. A lender funding the works will ask to see it, and it is the tenant’s to obtain.
Choosing hire purchase or a lease for the equipment
Chairs, basins and dryers can be bought on hire purchase or leased, with different VAT and tax treatments. The choice is the owner’s, often made with the accountant.
The deposit
Soft assets carry a larger deposit because the lender’s security in them is weaker. Knowing the deposit the business can pay narrows the lender list before any application.
What can go wrong
Salon borrowing fails on the lease, the equipment’s resale value and the shape of the repayments.
- Equipment no lender will take back. Hair and beauty equipment has little second-hand value. Lenders that fund it price for that or ask for more deposit, and a case sent to a lender that publishes hard assets only declines late.
- A loan that outlives the lease. A fit-out funded over five years on a three-year lease leaves the business paying for a salon it may have left.
- Daily collections on a Tuesday-to-Saturday trade. Facilities that collect every working day fall on days a salon is closed or quiet. The collection pattern is worth reading before the rate.
- Rent-a-chair income counted as the salon’s. Rent from self-employed stylists is the salon’s income; their takings are not. A lender sizes on the salon’s own figure.
Salon and beauty funding questions
Are there beauty business loans for a small salon?▼
Yes, and size is the first filter. A small unsecured loan is priced on the salon's own statements, and where a lender caps lending at a share of turnover, that cap decides a small salon's maximum first.
Can I get a beauty salon business loan if I rent my home?▼
A renting director narrows the unsecured lenders open to a salon without closing the door, since some ask for a homeowner and some do not. Equipment finance cares less, because the chairs and beds are the security.
What is a beauty salon loan, and what is it used for?▼
Nothing more than an unsecured business loan used by a salon; no lender on our panel names one as a product. Salons commonly use it for a fit-out or the launch of a new treatment room, where there is no single asset to finance. We work with UK limited companies and LLPs only, for business and commercial purposes.
Can I get a business loan for a hair salon that is under a year old?▼
Some lenders will consider a business trading under a year, and we take enquiries from three months of trading. A young salon is underwritten more on the owner than on the trade, and on equipment finance the kit is the security.
Can I get a business loan for a beauty salon with bad credit?▼
Depends on the age and shape of the problem. Some lenders will consider defaults or CCJs more than two years old, and against equipment the field is different, because the kit is the security. 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.
The panel behind this page
We have access to a range of UK commercial finance lenders through our principal, White Rose Finance Group Limited. We check criteria first and approach only the lenders whose requirements you fit.