Borrowing for a business is not the same as borrowing for yourself.
What you can raise, what you keep the right to challenge and what you are promising if things go wrong all turn on how your business is set up, and that is the ground worth covering before you sit down with a lender or an adviser.
What decides which finance fits your business
Borrowing for a business is not one decision. Before a lender or a rate comes into it, three separate things decide what is actually open to you: what the money is for, what kind of business you run, and whether you are willing to put your own name behind the debt if things go wrong.
What the money is for
A loan to cover a gap in cashflow and a loan to buy equipment are not interchangeable, even at the same amount. The purpose behind the borrowing rules some instruments in and others out before anything else is weighed up, so it is worth answering properly.
Your legal form
A limited company, an LLP, a sole trader and a partnership do not borrow under the same rules. Your legal form decides which consumer-credit protections travel with the money and which do not, and that difference can matter more than the rate you are quoted.
Whether you'd stand behind it personally
Some finance is only available if you are willing to give a personal guarantee, a promise that if the business cannot pay, you will. Being willing to sign one opens certain instruments. Refusing closes them, and either way it is worth knowing before the conversation starts.
What sorting by these three gives you
FinanceForCompanies.co.uk sorts business finance by purpose, legal form and guarantee, so you can see which families of finance fit your situation and what each one would commit you to before you approach a lender or an adviser. What it returns is a starting point for that conversation, not a recommendation to apply for anything. It can only describe what typically applies, not what a particular lender will decide for your business.
What the money's for
The purpose behind a loan decides which kinds of finance can even work, before anything else is considered.
Your legal form
A limited company, an LLP, a sole trader and a partnership carry different consumer-credit protections when they borrow.
The guarantee
Being willing to give a personal guarantee opens certain finance and refusing closes it, so it's worth knowing in advance.
No commission, a source for every rule
No lender pays to be here
The site carries no affiliate links and no paid placements, and it recommends no lender or broker. Nothing you enter into the finance type navigator is submitted anywhere: it runs in your browser and stays there, and no reader detail is passed to a third party. It holds no FCA authorisation, and nothing here is financial advice, credit broking or an introduction to a lender.
Where a rule comes from, and when it was read
A threshold, an exclusion or a named commitment is stated with its source next to it, and the date that source was read:
- an article of the Regulated Activities Order
- a reference in the FCA Handbook
- the published terms of a scheme such as the Growth Guarantee Scheme
Scheme terms and guidance change after that date, so the date sits beside the claim. Where the triage tool returns a result, it names a family of finance and the rule that decides whether consumer-credit protections apply to it. It does not tell you which lender to approach.