Can I get a business loan with no trading history?

Why no history means no assessment

Short-term working-capital finance is priced on cash flow a lender can actually see. With no trading, there is nothing to read — no revenue, no pattern of payments, no sense of whether income is stable or lumpy. A forecast is not the same as evidence, however careful it is. This is not a verdict on your idea; a lender can only assess what has happened, and for a pre-revenue company nothing has yet. The fix is trading, not a better pitch. See what lenders check on a business loan application.

Routes before you are trading

If the company is genuinely pre-revenue, working capital is the wrong product for now. Government-backed start-up loan schemes, founder investment, grants and supplier credit are the usual ways to get the first months funded. The aim is to start trading and build a clean bank record, because that record is what unlocks revenue-based finance later. The practical sequence almost every founder follows is: trade first, bank cleanly, then borrow against what the company has proven.

What changes once you start

A few months of real trading transforms the picture. Money moving through the business account, invoices being paid, a consistent rhythm of income — that is exactly what a working-capital lender wants. Credicorp lends to the UK limited company on its own trading, with no personal guarantee, so a clean, active account history is what counts. For the threshold, see how long a business must trade before borrowing and whether a new business can get a business loan.