Business credit scores decoded: PAYDEX, Intelliscore, Equifax and SBSS

The main scores at a glance

The Equifax and SBSS ranges in this table come from Chase's business credit guide, because Equifax's and FICO's own pages weren't available to confirm them. Dun & Bradstreet also sells delinquency and failure scores on other scales. When a report shows one of those, read its legend before assuming which end is good.

PAYDEX: how fast you pay

D&B calls PAYDEX "a dollar-weighted indicator intended to reflect a business's past payment performance," built from trade experiences that suppliers report. Its supplier documentation lays out what each level means.

Two rules shape how fast you can get one. D&B says a PAYDEX "will not be calculated for businesses with less than three experiences," and there must be at least two suppliers reporting.

"Dollar-weighted" changes the strategy. Example: you pay six small suppliers on time, $300 invoices each, but run 30 days late on a single $8,000 supplier invoice. The big late invoice carries far more of the weight than the six small on-time ones. D&B doesn't publish the formula, so nobody can tell you the exact result, but the direction is clear: your largest bills matter most.

Paying before the due date, not on it, is what moves you from 80 toward 100.

Experian Intelliscore Plus: two scales in use

Experian's small business page describes a business score from 1 to 100 that "helps predict how likely a business is to make timely payments." It lists the inputs: number of trade experiences, outstanding balances, payment habits, utilization, trends, public records such as liens and judgments, and profile data like years on file, industry code and company size.

Experian's product page for Intelliscore Plus V3 describes a new scale that "ranges from 300-850," lined up with familiar consumer score ranges. It also offers a blended score using "both business owner and business information," which Experian calls the most predictive for small businesses.

So a 72 and a 720 can both be Experian business scores. Ask which version a lender or monitoring service is showing you.

Equifax's three numbers

Equifax publishes several business numbers rather than one. The Payment Index looks backward at payment behavior. The Credit Risk Score and the Failure Risk Score look forward, at overall credit risk and at the chance the business closes. On Chase's description, a lower failure score means higher risk.

FICO SBSS and SBA loans after March 1, 2026

FICO's Small Business Scoring Service is a lender's tool on a 0 to 300 scale. For years, SBA ran its smaller 7(a) applications through SBSS as a prescreen, which is why it still comes up whenever people ask what score an SBA loan takes.

SBA's Procedural Notice 5000-876777, published February 20, 2026, ended that. It discontinued use of the SBSS score for 7(a) Small loans, which top out at $350,000, effective March 1, 2026, and replaced an earlier notice from January 16, 2026. A lender making one of those loans now has to:

• Analyze the credit history of the applicant, its associates and its guarantors.
• Show a debt service coverage ratio of at least 1.10 to 1, on a historical or projected basis.
• Get and analyze the two most recent months of bank statements for the main operating account.
• Explain in its credit memo why credit isn't available elsewhere.

A lender can still use a scoring model, but only if its federal regulator allows it, it uses the same model for similar non-SBA loans, and the model "does not rely solely on consumer credit scores." Experian's summary puts the shift plainly: "Lenders must now conduct full commercial credit analysis consistent with how they underwrite non-SBA loans." SBA keeps revising its rules, and its main operating manual, SOP 50 10, moved to version 8.1 on October 1, 2026, so ask your lender which version applies on the day you apply.

SBA itself has never published a minimum credit score. Its lending criteria at 13 CFR 120.150 say the applicant must be creditworthy, and lenders "may consider" the "credit score or credit history of the applicant," its associates and guarantors, and "may use a business credit scoring model." Any specific minimum you hear is a lender's own standard, much like a mortgage lender's overlay. Credit score for an SBA loan covers what lenders now have to document instead, including the cash-flow test.

What SBA lenders read on your personal report

A business score doesn't replace your personal score with most small business lenders. Many still read both, and some blend them. See business vs. personal credit for why an EIN doesn't fully separate the two.

With SBA loans the link is written into the rules. Under 13 CFR 120.160, holders of at least a 20% ownership interest "generally must guarantee the loan," and SBA or the lender can require guarantees from others too. Because guarantors' credit history is part of the required analysis, lenders pull their personal reports. Experian notes that SBA is stressing that guarantors, as well as the business, must have the capacity to support the loan.

What tends to draw questions on a guarantor's report:

• Recent late payments, especially in the last 12 to 24 months
• Unpaid collections, judgments or tax liens
• High card utilization, which reads as stretched cash flow
• A bankruptcy or foreclosure that needs an explanation

Expect a question about each, because the lender's credit memo has to account for the credit history of everyone guaranteeing the loan. A short written explanation, with dates and what changed, saves a round trip. Standards differ from one SBA lender to the next, so a no from one lender doesn't settle the question.

What "good" looks like

There's no single official cutoff, but the Federal Reserve Banks' Small Business Credit Survey offers a useful yardstick. For its 2025 survey, it grouped firms by self-reported scores:

• Low risk: business score of 80 to 100, or personal score of 720 or higher.
• Medium risk: business score of 50 to 79, or personal score of 620 to 719.
• High risk: business score of 1 to 49, or personal score below 620.

When a firm reported both, the survey used the weaker one. Lenders do something similar more often than owners expect.

How to raise and protect your business scores

1. Get listed. Request a free D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet so trade reports have somewhere to land.
2. Open accounts that report. A PAYDEX needs at least three trade experiences from two suppliers. Ask each supplier which bureaus it reports to.
3. Pay early on the biggest invoices. Dollar weighting means large bills move PAYDEX most.
4. Keep balances on business cards and lines low. Experian lists utilization among its inputs.
5. Watch public records. Liens and judgments feed Experian's score directly, so resolve them quickly.
6. Check each file and correct errors through the bureau's own process. Building business credit with an EIN walks through the setup.
7. Before an SBA application, pull every owner's and guarantor's personal reports at AnnualCreditReport.com, dispute real errors, and pay card balances down a few statement cycles ahead. Reading your credit report line by line shows what a lender will ask about.
8. Ask each lender which score and standards it uses before a full application. If you're declined, ask for the reasons; adverse action notices shows how to use them.