Small Business Loans
Small business loans are essential to finance small business operations, equipment, or even just an investment in the company. Here’s how it works. A bank or other lender will offer you a loan amount up to what is considered “acceptable risk,” — which is usually around 5-7%. The lender will then calculate your interest rate based on how much you owe and your plan’s risk if you have a high risk of defaulting.
Many small businesses need to borrow money to keep their doors open. Lenders prefer loans for small businesses because they can be more flexible in repayment of the borrowed money and because there isn’t the potential for huge losses when companies fail. Borrowers need to be careful, though, since some lenders will only consider loans to businesses with a high loan-to-value ratio (the amount that the lender believes is worth the risk of lending against it).
- Looking for small business loans to start a new business?
- You are a business owner and thinking of getting small business loans to grow your business?
- Do you need small business finance but don’t want to pay high interest rates?
- Need small business loans for veterans?
- Interested in finding best small business loans with bad credit?
Whether you need to borrow money for your startup or you need help with cash flow, you can get a small business loan easily.
We have reviewed and compared over 70 legitimate small business loan lenders in the country. This is the top 10 best small business loan lenders in September, 2021.
What is Small Business Loan?
There are several types of business loans. Depending on your business situation and income statement, you might be eligible to borrow money for your business from a government small business loans scheme, or you might prefer to approach a financial institute. Overall the amount of money you borrow for your startup, small business to operate or grow your business is categorized as a small business loan.
Generally, business owners seek business loans when they find themselves in these situations:
- You are operating a business and need a small business loan. It’s the clearest and straightforward situation.
- With the rise of female entrepreneurs, you may find yourself small business loans for women.
- Small business loans for entrepreneur helps fresh ideas to prove their capability and become a profitable business.
- There are situations where your business needs money, but your financial history is not that strong. In such cases, people normally go for lenders that offer small business loans with bad credit.
- To support the veterans, there are also other small business loans for veterans.
You may think of applying for business loans if you need money for buying equipment, need cash flow boost, a loan with no credit check, unpredictable Financial Difficulties such as Covid-19, etc.
Typically, the first thing that you must pay attention to is the small business loans interest rates. It can be offered as fixed-rate, or it might be incremental and complex. Your business loan lender might also offer you a secured loan or unsecured loan. You must know the pros and cons of each loan before applying signing any agreement.
6 Major Types of Business Loans
These are six types of small business loans that you can apply for. The best way to explain how the business loan works and whether any of these business loans are good for you is to categorize them into different types.
In fact, the correct question is this, What type of business loan is good for my business? They are sometimes called the best bank loan alternatives. Here is the quick list:
Business Term Loan
If you go for a traditional business term loan, you should know that even though it is one of the best business loan types in the market, it’s actually harder to qualify for because you need to have a significate credit score.
In brief, here is what you need to have when applying for traditional term loans.
- you should have been running your business for over two years
- You need to show a positive 650 credit score.
- Your annual revenue must be at least $300K.
How to Apply for Business Term Loan
Business term loans are not good for starting up a business but can be helpful when you are planning for growth.
You should think about applying for Term loans if you have a “longer-term” financing strategy” and plan to use the loan for equipment, land, or buildings, or even scaling another business.
The rule of thumb is to repay the loan on time, so you should have a strong cash flow to match the assets’ funding.
If you buy equipment or an asset, you should ensure that it will work efficiently for a longer period than the term of your loan. Therefore, committing to a five years loan is not wise to upgrade your company printers or buy new laptops with a maximum of two to three years life,
Now, if you meet the minimum requirements, you should prepare the following documents and apply for the loan:
- Valid Driver’s License
- Voided Business Check
- Company registrations that can be used as proof of Ownership
- Your latest Bank Statements that should not be older than 6 months
- Company Balance Sheet
- It would help if you showed your PnL (Profit and Loss)
- Proof of positive credit score
- Tax ID
Business loan for bad credit
If you can not get small business loans from your bank because of your credit score, online lenders also offer bad credit small business loans.
In any financial institute, online lender, lender match, or even bank, a low credit score equals high risk, which means your loan will be more expensive than others who have better credit scores.
If you are looking for a business loan for a bad credit business, search through the list below and shop around to compare the best terms possible and make sure the payments are fair. If you are lucky enough and find a reliable lender, you may end up having your startup business loans for bad credit guaranteed and fast approved with no credit check.
As money borrowers with bad credit, your FICO-defined score is somewhere around 300 and 629. Here is a list of small business loans for bad credit business owners:
Invoice Factoring Loan
Invoice factoring, also known as debt factoring, or Asset-based lending, is another common practice to increase cash flow to your business by selling your current and future invoices to a third party (a factor or factoring company) at a reasonable discounted price.
As a small business owner, you will sign an agreement with the factoring company to manage your invoices and access your ledger. The duration of the contract can often start from a year up to 24 months.
One advantage of factoring payments is having access to funds tied to factoring receivables and unpaid invoices that might take time to clear.
There is another similar loan called invoice financing, which is a self-secured loan. You can boost cash flow and reduce the waiting period for some outstanding invoices to accrue when you apply for invoice financing.
Since the loan is self-secured by the invoice, you can present your invoice as a piece of evidence when applying for an invoice financing loan and receive up to 90% of your invoice’s fees.
How to Apply for Invoice Financing Loan
The good thing about an Invoice financing loan is that it is much easier to apply for because it does not need credit minimum requirements.
Here is what you need to apply for an invoice financing loan:
- Proof to show that you’ve been running the business for the past 6 months.
- Your annual revenue should stack up to $50,000
- Driver’s License
- Latest Bank Statements
- Credit Score (It can be optional)
- The actual outstanding invoices that you want to claim
You will be most likely be charged:
- About 3% origination fee. It’s sometimes called the advance fees
- An additional 1% factor fee. This will be added to your debt every week the invoice is not cleared.
Equipment Financing Loan
As a business owner, you might need to buy a new piece of hardware or machinery. You can apply to equipment financing companies which is a self-secure loan. The top 15 industries that most business owners look for common equipment financing loans are:
- Office equipment financing
- tractor loan
- john deere credit
- semi truck financing
- equipment leasing loan
- Machinery loan
- tractor finance
- commercial truck loans
- Machinery finance
- business equipment financing
- farm equipment loans
- gym equipment financing
- heavy equipment leasing
- construction equipment financing
- heavy equipment financing
The terms of your equipment financing loan are equal to or less than the projected life of the piece of equipment. The advantage of borrowing money for purchasing equipment is that you might be able to secure your loan for a value up to 100% of the equipment’s price.
How to Apply for Equipment Financing Loan
The requirements may vary from lender to lender; however, generally, what you need to do to apply for equipment financing successfully is listed below.
- It would help if you had been running the business for at least a year
- You must show that you have a positive 600+ credit score
- Your business turnaround revenue must be at least $100,000+
- Present a Valid Government-issued ID like your driver’s license
- Latest Bank Statements
- Equipment Quote
SBA Loans:
Small Business Administration
The next type of business loan on our list is one of the most complicated to understand but one of the most affordable to pay off.
Let’s simplify this loan too. SBA loans, in other terms, Small business administration loans, are categorized as a long-term loans backed by the government sector: “Small Business Administration.”
The guarantee comes in the firm commitment from the government to the lender, so if the borrower can not pay the debt, the SBA unit will clear the payment.
Since a powerful part of the government guarantees it, the lenders feel more secure and willing to offer much higher amounts at lower APRs.
How to Apply for SBA Loan
As a guaranteed business loan, the duration and terms of this business loan can go up to 25 years. Of course, the amount varies from business to business ranges from anything over $5,000 up to a maximum of $5 million. The interest rate is fairly low and can start from 6%.
Here is what you need to know before applying for SBA Loans:
- Provide proof that you’re operating the business for at least two years
- A Valid Photo ID
- 620+ credit score
- Present a record that shows your annual revenue return is over $100,000
- Lates Valid Bank Statements
- Company Balance Sheet
- A Clear PnL Statement
- Tax ID &Tax Returns
- Your documented Business Plan
- Business Debt Schedule
Business Lines of Credit
The concept of a business line of credit is very similar to owning a business credit card.
If you meet the requirements and qualify for a line of credit for your business, you’ll be able to use a credit line limit every month.
In terms of installment and repayment terms, you should only pay back what you have spent and used from your credit line and nothing more. The other Pros of having a line of credit are working with cash. That means you don’t need to pay extra interest to receive the cash advance.
The credit limits always vary from one lender to another, and it relies on several factors, including your business sustainability and cash flow strengths.
How to Qualify for Business Lines of Credit
Normally, if qualified, you should be able to open your line of credit. Here are the advantages of having a line of credit:
- The credit limit ranges from a couple of thousands of dollars up to $1 million.
- The repayment terms can be set monthly, and the terms can vary from half a year to half a decade.
- The interest rates may vary from 7% up to a maximum of 25%.
TO apply for a line of credit, you must present the following:
- No minimum personal credit score requirement is needed.
- Proof of operating the business for half a year
- An annual income of $50,000
- Passport or a Valid driving license
- Solid Bank Statements
- Company Balance Sheet
Top 10 Cities for Getting Small Business Loan in the U.S
Apart from government’s business loans, there are a lot of reliable financial institutes that offer low interest business loans. As per our latest research (updated in September, 2021.) Most of small business loans was applied in the following states:
- small business loans in Virginia.
- small business loans in California
- small business loans in Texas
- small business loans in Florida
- small business loans in Ohio
- small business loans in Michigan
- small business loans in New York City
- small business loans in Georgia
- small business loans in Illinois
- small business loans in Colorado
- small business loans in Pennsylvania
- small business loans in Maryland
- small business loans in Missouri
- small business loans in Indiana
- small business loans in Alabama
