Lender Minimum Requirements at a Glance: Revenue, Credit & Time in Business (2026)

Every lender publishes a version of the same three numbers: a minimum credit score, a minimum time in business, and a minimum annual revenue. Those three floors decide, before any underwriter reads your file, whether you are in the conversation at all. This guide puts the published floors for the lenders Premium covers side by side, so you can skip the ones you do not clear and apply to the two or three you do.

Two honesty notes before the table. First, a published minimum is a floor, not a promise: clearing every bar gets your file read, not approved. Second, where a figure is not published anywhere we could verify, the table says Not published rather than guessing. A guessed minimum that sends you to the wrong lender costs you a hard inquiry and a week; an honest blank costs you nothing.

Lender minimums at a glance

Figures below are the lenders' published minimums as summarized in Premium's own comparison and cost guides, which draw on the lenders' websites and 2026 third-party reviews. Where Premium's guides disagree or a figure is reviewer-reported rather than lender-published, the note says so.

Where each figure comes from. OnDeck, BlueVine, Fora, and Credibly figures are consistent across Premium's BlueVine vs. OnDeck, Fora vs. BlueVine vs. Credibly, and Credibly vs. Fora Financial guides. Kapitus figures come from Premium's Kapitus vs. OnDeck guide. National Funding figures come from Premium's National Funding cost guide and National Funding vs. OnDeck. Rapid Finance figures come from Premium's Rapid Finance cost guide, cross-checked against Premium's credit-score guide, which notes Rapid publishes no credit minimum. Forward Financing, Expansion Capital Group, and Giggle Finance figures come from Premium's 8 MCA funders compared guide. Banks and SBA lenders, for context, typically expect a personal credit score of 680 or above — a different universe from the online lenders above.

The three tiers, in plain terms

The low-bar tier — 500 credit, 3–6 months, $30K–$240K revenue. Giggle Finance (3 months, $30K revenue, no published credit floor), Expansion Capital Group (500 credit, 6 months, $100K), Forward Financing (500 credit), and Credibly (around 500–550 credit, 6 months) are where thinner files start. These are mostly revenue-based products: the funder reads your bank statements more than your credit report, and pricing reflects that risk. If your file lives here, deposit consistency matters more than any single score.

The middle tier — 570–625 credit, 6–12 months, $100K–$240K revenue. Fora Financial (570, 6 months, $240K), National Funding (600, 6 months, $250K), OnDeck (625, 12 months, $100K), and BlueVine (625+, 12 months, $120K on its line of credit) cover the broad middle of the market. This is where product choice starts to matter as much as approval: a line of credit, a term loan, and a revenue advance at the same revenue level behave very differently month to month, so compare total repayment in dollars, not just the headline rate.

The high-bar tier — 650 credit, 2 years, $200K–$250K revenue. Kapitus (650, 2 years, $250K) and Rapid Finance (24 months, $200K, no published credit floor) set the highest bars among the online lenders Premium covers. Clearing them usually buys larger checks and, at Kapitus in particular, a broader product menu — but a file that clears Kapitus's bar will also clear nearly every bar below it, so it pays to compare downward, not just upward.

What the table does not show

Platform funding works differently. Square Loans, Shopify Capital, and PayPal Working Capital do not publish revenue, credit, or time-in-business floors the way the lenders above do; eligibility runs on your sales history inside the platform itself, with backstops like Square's minimum payment every 60 days and Shopify's milestone requirements. If most of your revenue runs through one of those platforms, that platform's offer is worth comparing alongside the open market — and Premium's Square vs. Shopify vs. PayPal guide walks through the trade-offs.

Minimums are not the whole underwrite. Beyond the three floors, funders weigh bank statement health (consistent deposits, average balances, overdrafts), revenue trend, industry risk, and existing debt. A business clearing every published minimum with erratic deposits can still be declined, and a business just under a revenue floor with clean, growing statements can sometimes be approved — the floor is where the conversation starts, not where it ends.

Figures change. Lenders adjust published minimums without announcement, and third-party reviews disagree with each other — Credibly's credit floor reads 500 in one Premium guide and 500–550 in another, because the underlying sources differ. Treat this table as a verified snapshot from November 2026, and confirm the current figures on the lender's application page before you rely on any single number.

How to use this table

1. Find your row band. Write down your credit score band, your months in business, and your last twelve months of revenue. Cross out every lender whose floor you miss on any of the three — a miss on one is a miss, even if you clear the other two.

2. Apply to two or three survivors. One application rarely produces the best price. Two or three comparable offers, converted to total repayment dollars, tell you what your file is actually worth this month.

3. Bring the right documents. Recent business bank statements, typically the last three months, are the core requirement for every lender on this table. A photo ID and a voided check may be requested as optional verification items, but they are not upfront requirements for getting a quote — so a lender demanding them before a quote is adding friction the market does not require.

Frequently asked questions

What is the lowest credit score a business lender will accept?

Several established funders publish floors at 500: Forward Financing and Expansion Capital Group both publish a 500 minimum credit score, and Credibly publishes around 500 to 550 depending on the source. Below 500, the fundable universe narrows to funders that publish no credit minimum at all and underwrite primarily on bank statements.

How long does my business need to have been operating?

It depends on the lender. Giggle Finance works with businesses as young as 3 months, Fora Financial, Credibly, and National Funding start at 6 months, OnDeck and BlueVine at 12 months, and Kapitus and Rapid Finance at 2 years.

How much annual revenue do lenders require?

Published revenue floors run from $30,000 a year (Giggle Finance) to $250,000 a year (Kapitus and National Funding). OnDeck starts at $100,000, BlueVine's line of credit at about $120,000, Credibly at $180,000 to $240,000, and Fora Financial and Rapid Finance at $200,000 to $240,000.

What does Not published mean in the minimums table?

It means neither the lender's own pages nor Premium's published guides state that figure in a form we could verify. It does not mean there is no requirement — the lender may still underwrite that factor without publishing a floor. We would rather show Not published than guess.

Do minimums guarantee approval?

No. Published minimums are floors, not approvals. Clearing every minimum gets your file read; the offer still depends on bank statement health, revenue consistency, industry risk, and existing debt.

What documents do I need to apply?

Recent business bank statements, typically the last three months, are the core requirement. A photo ID and a voided check may be requested as optional verification items, but they are not upfront requirements for getting a quote.