Declined for a Start Up Loan? Six months to reapply, 30 days to appeal, and what to do in between

Every Start Up Loan application is assessed on three things: credit history, affordability and viability. Affordability means whether you can afford the repayments. Viability means whether the business plan holds up. A decline comes from one of those three.

The credit check is a personal one, because a Start Up Loan is a personal loan for business purposes. A poor credit record does not rule you out on its own. Certain live arrangements do: current bankruptcy, a Debt Relief Order, an outstanding IVA or Trust Deed, or a debt management plan.

Affordability is judged on your personal survival budget. That is the document showing your income and your monthly living costs. If the repayment does not fit inside real numbers, the application is declined on affordability.

Viability is judged on the business plan and the 12-month cash flow forecast. The question is whether the business will earn enough to meet the monthly repayment. If the forecast does not support that, the application is declined on viability.

Your decline letter says which of the three it was. Keep it. Everything that follows depends on it.

Yes. You have 30 days from the date you received your outcome email to raise an appeal. You raise it with the partner that assessed your application. If that was bizbritain, you raise it with us.

What does an appeal involve?

You give a reason why the original decision was wrong, and any new information that supports it. The application is then reviewed again, with the new information alongside the original.

Does an appeal usually work?

No. Every application goes through a dual assessment before a decision is issued, so it is rare for a decline to be overturned on appeal. An appeal is worth raising when something was genuinely wrong or missing. It is not a second chance to make the same case louder.

A credit decline is a special case. If you were declined after the credit check, you are asked to check your credit report first. If the report holds an error, get it corrected with the credit reference agency before you appeal. The credit decision can then be reviewed against the corrected report.

After a decline, you must wait at least six months before applying again. If your appeal is not upheld, the six months run from the original decision, not from the appeal.

When you reapply, you go back to the Business Support Partner that assessed your first application. That partner already knows your business and your personal situation, so the reassessment starts from what is on file rather than from scratch.

The reassessment asks one thing: what has changed? You need to show either that your circumstances have changed or that you have dealt with the concerns in your decline letter. Expect to submit updated documents and to go through the scheme's checks again, including a fresh credit check.

The eligibility rules still apply on the second attempt. The business must have been trading for under 60 months, or not yet trading. You must be 18 or over, living in the UK, and applying for a first Start Up Loan.

Match the work to the reason in your letter. Here is what each reason usually needs.

We are a Start Up Loans Business Support Partner. If we assessed your first application, we are the partner you come back to, and we already know what needs to change. If another partner declined you, you return to them to reapply. We can still help you understand what a decline letter is asking for.

A decline from one place is not a verdict on the business. If the decline came from a bank rather than the scheme, read what to do when your accounts do not tell the whole story. If the worry is your credit file, read what the credit check weighs before you reapply.

The part you control is the paperwork, and that is what myplan is for. It builds the business plan, the personal survival budget and the 12-month cash flow forecast from plain questions. It is free for every bizbritain applicant. Our eligibility check takes about a minute and does not involve a credit search. The formal application's credit check is a hard search, so it is worth running the free check first.

When your reapplication is ready, most applicants who submit a finished application are approved within one to two weeks. Timing also depends on any further information the assessment needs and on the finance partner's final checks. If you are ready to try again, start with the Start Up Loans scheme page and our one-minute check.