Ten years ago Experian, Equifax and D&B were the major players in business credit reports and scores. Experian's Intelliscore, Equifax's Small Business Financial Exchange and D&B's Paydex score. While those business credit agencies are still around and producing their reports and scores, the "cash lending" industry has mostly moved to FICO SBSS (Small Business Scoring Service). The Paydex score is still widely used by Vendors who are providing business to business lines of credit on Net 30 terms for their products or services, but most cash lenders such as banks, SBA loans and many others have moved to FICO SBSS.

Just like FICO scores have become the standard for all things consumer lending, in 2025 FICO SBSS scores have become the standard for all things business cash lending. Banks, credit Unions, the SBA, large fintech lenders, leasing companies are now using FICO SBSS in their approval process. The FICO SBSS score is not used as the standalone approval gauge as are FICO scores for personal lending but rather it is used as a method of declining applications along with factoring into the offer of amount, rate and term.

Generally if your FICO SBSS is below a 160 your business will not be considered bankable. The range of FICO SBSS is 0 to 300 with a score of 160 and being considered the minimum to not get declined.

• Poor: 1–159
• Fair: 160–189
• Good: 190–209
• Excellent: 210–300

35% - Personal credit of the owners - Anyone owning 20% or more (up to 5 owners) will have their personal credit factored into their FICO business score.
30% - The business financials - This includes the business bank rating, debt ratio, number of NSFs, taxes, financial statements, and average receivables.
20% - The business itself - The scoring system factors in the business industry, time in business, location, industry margins/ratios and web presence.
15% - The other business credit reports - Experian, Equifax and Dun &: Bradstreet business reports and scores will make up about 5% each of the FICO SBSS.

The issue with FICO SBSS is that every lender has the ability to design and weight their own. What this means is that for their FICO SBSS scoring method lenders have a list of items they can select from and assign weight to such as the personal credit of up to five owners that could make up as much as 35% of the FICO SBSS score. Other items that can be part of the score are; Experian/Equifax/D&B business credit scores, the time in business, bank rating, web presence, industry, gross annual revenue, net income, gross margins, debt to income, and more. This means that your business FICO SBSS score might be different at Wells Fargo than it is at BofA. This is why there is no place to simply purchase your FICO SBSS.

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