What documents do I need for a business loan?
Two things do most of the work: six months of business bank statements as PDFs from online banking, and your latest filed accounts, the full set rather than the abbreviated version. Everything else is situational.
The rest, and when it is asked for
- Management accounts — a profit and loss and balance sheet dated within six months, if your filed accounts are old enough to be misleading
- VAT returns — only if you are registered, and useful as evidence of turnover between filings
- Existing borrowing — lender, original amount, balance and monthly payment for each. Affordability is worked out on what is left after these
- Photo ID and proof of address — passport or licence, plus something dated within three months
Why the statements matter most
Accounts describe last year. Statements describe now, and underwriters read the shape of the account rather than the balance: whether income is steady, whether direct debits bounce, whether the balance lives at the overdraft limit. That is why a business with modest accounts and a well-run account often beats the reverse.
The most recent statement needs to be within the last month. An out-of-date pack is the single most common cause of a delay that looks like a slow lender.
What happens to them
Documents you send us are encrypted while we hold them, only your adviser can open them, and they are deleted automatically after 90 days whether or not the application went ahead. The privacy policy sets out the detail.
Statements in a form lenders accept
Download statements as PDFs straight from online banking, not as screenshots or spreadsheets. Lenders check that statements have not been altered, and anything that looks cropped, edited or re-typed slows things down or stops them.
Send every page, including the near-empty ones at the end of a month. A gap in the sequence is the first thing an underwriter asks about.
More than one business account
Send statements for every account the business trades through. A lender seeing turnover in the accounts but only half of it in the statements will assume something is missing, because something is. The same goes for a savings account the business sweeps money into.
For a larger facility
Beyond the smaller unsecured amounts, expect more questions: a list of who owes you and whom you owe, your position with HMRC, and sometimes details of assets or property that could support the deal. Invoice finance has its own list, built around the sales ledger rather than the bank account.
Common questions
Do I need to send personal bank statements?
Not usually for a limited company, because the lender is lending to the business. Some ask for a director’s personal statements where the business account is new, where money moves between personal and business accounts, or on larger guarantees. Sole traders are a different case, because their business and personal finances are one and the same.
What if my latest accounts have not been filed yet?
Some lenders will work from draft accounts signed off by your accountant, or from recent management accounts. Others will only use what is filed at Companies House. If the filing deadline is close, it can be quicker to file and then apply than to explain the gap.
Do lenders accept statements from app-only banks?
Yes. Statements from app-based business accounts are read like any other, as long as they are full statements rather than transaction exports and show the account name, number and the period covered.
Do I need to send a tax return?
For a limited company the filed accounts usually do that job, and a corporation tax return is rarely asked for on smaller facilities. For a sole trader or partner, a recent self assessment return and HMRC’s tax calculation are often the main evidence of income.
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