Business credit questions people actually ask

Personal credit is tied to your Social Security number and follows you individually. Business credit is tied to your EIN and, once established, is reported separately — meaning your business's credit history doesn't automatically show up on your personal credit report, and vice versa, once you've built it correctly.

Yes, practically speaking. An EIN (Employer Identification Number) is what most vendors, card issuers and lenders use to report business credit activity. It's free and quick to get directly from the IRS.

It's a unique nine-digit identifier issued by Dun & Bradstreet, one of the main business credit bureaus. Many vendor accounts and some lenders check your D-U-N-S file, so getting one (it's free directly from D&B) is usually one of the first steps in building business credit.

It's a supplier account that reports your payment history to a business credit bureau — office supplies, shipping, or similar net-30 accounts are common starting points. A handful of vendor tradelines reporting on-time payments is typically how business credit files start to build a real history.

It depends on the card. Many business cards still require a personal guarantee and can report to your personal credit file, especially for missed payments. Read the card's terms specifically — 'business credit card' does not automatically mean fully separated from your personal credit.

Meaningfully, several months to a year of consistent on-time payments across a few reporting vendor and card accounts. There's no shortcut — the point of a credit history is that it's built over time, not established instantly.

Time in business, monthly or annual revenue, cash flow consistency, and whatever business credit history exists so far — plus, for most small businesses, the owner's personal credit as a backstop. Our guide on what lenders look at breaks down each factor.

It's Dun & Bradstreet's business credit score, scored 0-100 based on how promptly your business pays its vendors and creditors, with 80+ generally considered good. It's separate from your personal FICO score and from other bureaus' business scores.

Not exactly — an SBA loan is a loan made by a participating lender (often a bank) where the Small Business Administration guarantees a portion of it, which can make approval easier and terms more favorable than an unguaranteed loan. The application still goes through a regular lender, not the SBA directly.

Mixing personal and business finances from day one — no separate business bank account, no EIN used consistently, no dedicated vendor or card accounts. Without that separation, there's no clean data for a business credit file to be built from.

To a limited degree — some vendor tradelines don't require revenue history to open, which is why they're usually the first step. Most card issuers and virtually all lenders, though, will want to see revenue and time in business before extending credit.

No. Everything here describes the US business credit system — EINs, the US business credit bureaus, SBA loans and US lender criteria. Despite the .id domain, none of this describes another country's business financing system, and the rules differ everywhere.