Commercial lenders assess your business’s risk and creditworthiness primarily based on your personal and—if you have one—business credit scores. With this in mind, you might think that you always need to have great credit to secure a business loan. Good news—there is no universal minimum credit score requirement for a business loan, which means you don’t necessarily need to have a stellar credit rating in order to get the funding you need.

Ultimately, how good your credit needs to be depends on the type of funding you’re seeking and the lender you’re working with. Government-funded and traditional lenders typically require high credit scores, while alternative lenders focus more on the health and potential of your business, with less emphasis on credit score.

To help you understand how your credit score can impact the small business funding options available to businesses in Canada, we took a deep dive into credit scores in our latest article for Smarter Loans, an online lending resource in Canada.

Read the full article to learn more about:

• The difference between personal credit and business credit
• Why credit scores matter
• The difference between traditional lenders and alternative lenders
• Small business loan options for businesses with low credit scores