Home Business credit scores and reports Your Experian business credit report, explained

Your Experian business credit report, explained

A first look at what Experian keeps on your company, and what goes in the report.

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Your business has a credit file of its own, separate from yours. Experian's page says its business credit reports include credit scores. They also include risk factors. These help monitor customers' ability to pay. Experian is one of the bureaus that keeps these files. Here is what an Experian business credit report holds.

Do businesses have a credit score?

Yes. Experian's page says its business credit reports include credit scores and risk factors. Experian is one business credit bureau. Dun & Bradstreet and Equifax are others.

What Experian puts in a business credit report

Experian lists what goes in a report:

  • Background: who owns the company, plus any parent or child firms.
  • Money facts, used to judge the risk of giving the firm time to pay.
  • Scores and risk signs that show if a buyer can pay.
  • Banking, trade, and collection history, which shows how an account has been paid over time
  • Liens, judgments, and bankruptcies, used to weigh a possible customer
  • Uniform Commercial Code filings, which show your credit position relative to other creditors

So the report is more than a list of debts. It shows who owns the company, how it has paid, and what legal filings touch it.

How business credit differs from personal credit

Experian says a business score does not affect your personal score in any way. Your personal score leaves the business score untouched too. The two files sit apart.

Checking business credit across bureaus

Each bureau keeps its own file. Our guide on how to check my business credit score goes through them.

Where to go from here

Experian is one of several bureaus. Equifax keeps its own business files. Equifax's side is covered in the business credit report equifax page. Dun & Bradstreet issues the D-U-N-S Number. You can check duns number to see whether a business already has one. Read each file the same way you read Experian's.

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