Starting up
How much can I borrow with a Start Up Loan in 2026?
How much can I borrow with a Start Up Loan? Between £500 and £25,000 as one person, and up to £100,000 where four business partners each apply.
How much can I borrow with a Start Up Loan? Between £500 and £25,000. That is the cap for one person, not for one business. Up to £100,000 can be lent to a single business where several partners each apply.
Section 01
How much can one person borrow?
Each individual can borrow between £500 and £25,000 at any one time. The Start Up Loans Company's own figures put the average loan at £10,264.
The important word is individual. A Start Up Loan is a personal loan: a loan to you, not to your company. You apply in your own name and you repay in your own name, even though the money goes into the business.
That matters in two ways. Your own credit history is what gets checked, and that check is a hard search. And you are personally responsible for the repayments, whatever happens to the business.
If you trade as a sole trader rather than through a company, our guide to business finance for sole traders covers what that means.
Section 02
The £100,000 route for a founding team
Because the loan is personal, a business with more than one owner can hold more than one of them.
Every applicant applies individually, even when the money is invested in the same business. Up to four partners can apply for the same business, so the most a business can be lent is £100,000 split across those partners.
Two practical points come with it. All the partners have to apply through the same Business Support Partner. And the £100,000 is not a pot the business draws on. It is the combined ceiling of four first loans.
“£25,000 is the most a business can raise”
That is the cap for one person. A business with four owners can be lent up to £100,000, because each owner applies for their own loan.
Each partner is assessed on their own application. One approval does not carry the others.
Section 03
What the rate and the term mean for your repayments
The rate is fixed at 7.5% a year for the life of the loan. The representative example is £10,000 over 60 months at 7.8% APR: monthly payments £200.45, total interest £2,027, total repayment £12,027.
You choose a term of one to five years. A longer term lowers the monthly payment and raises the total interest you pay.
The loan is unsecured. There is no guarantor and no collateral, so your home is not put up against it. You are still personally responsible for the repayments.
There are no fees for applying, for receiving the loan, or for repaying it early. Every loan also comes with 12 months of free business mentoring. Our guide to the 2026 rate and eligibility rules goes through what changed in April.
Section 04
How much should you actually ask for?
The maximum is rarely the right answer. The right number is the one your cash flow forecast can carry every month. myplan, our free AI tool, builds that forecast from plain questions.
Start with the costs, not the cap
List what the money is actually for. Stock, equipment, a deposit, the first few months of wages. Add it up before you look at any limit.
Add a buffer for the slow months
Most new businesses take longer to reach steady income than the plan assumes. A few months of fixed costs on top is realism, not padding.
Test the monthly payment against your forecast
Work out the repayment at the term you want. If a normal month cannot cover it, either the amount is too high or the term is too short.
Count each partner separately
If two of you are applying, each application is judged on its own. Work out what each of you can repay, not what the pair of you can borrow.
If the number you land on sits above the cap, that is useful to know early. A broker can look at the deal across a wider range of lenders and put a different product beside it.
Section 05
Where bizbritain fits in
We are a Start Up Loans Business Support Partner. Your bizbritain adviser reviews the finished application and carries out the full assessment. Approved applications go to our Start Up Loans finance partner, which runs its final checks, issues the loan agreement and provides the funds.
Most of our applicants who submit a finished application are approved within one to two weeks. The fastest can be approved in as little as a week. Timing depends on any further work the documents need, prompt replies to information requests and the finance partner's final checks. Once approved, the loan can be drawn down within 24 hours. The part you control is the paperwork.
myplan builds the business plan, the personal survival budget and the 12-month cash flow forecast from plain questions. The workbook itself takes around 30 minutes rather than days or weeks, and it is free for every bizbritain applicant.
If you are ready to start, the first step is applying for a Start Up Loan through our eligibility check, which takes about a minute and involves no credit search.
This guide is general information, not financial advice. Applications are subject to status, affordability and lender criteria.
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