Short-term business loan lenders: 3 to 24 month loans compared

Start with the lenders that will accept your business, then compare cost. Short term business loan lenders publish similar amounts but very different entry rules, so the first filter is your trading history, turnover and legal form. Only then is it worth comparing the total you would repay.

• Minimum trading time. The lenders below publish anything from 3 months to 2 years.
• Minimum turnover. Some set a monthly figure, others an annual one, and some publish none.
• Legal form and location. Most lend only to limited companies, and some only in England and Wales.
• Term. Check the lender offers the term you want inside the 3 to 24 month window, not just a longer loan you could repay early.
• Repayment frequency. Daily, weekly or monthly. Match it to how money comes into your account.
• Security and guarantees. Most short-term business funding is unsecured but asks for a personal guarantee.
• Early settlement. Whether repaying early saves anything, or whether a fixed fee is owed in full.

For how a short-term loan works and what it suits, read our guide to the short-term business loan. In short, it is a lump sum repaid over months rather than years, used for a defined need such as stock, a tax bill or a gap before customers pay. This page is about who publishes one.

The tables below are built from each lender's Capzy profile, which records only what the lender publishes on its own site. Lenders are in alphabetical order. We do not rank or rate them, and a lender's published range is not an offer.

Other lenders in our directory of business lenders publish longer terms that you can also repay early. Those are worth a look when a 24 month limit would make the repayments too high, but they are not short-term products, so they are not listed here.

This is where short term loan companies differ most. The figures come from the same lender profiles. Meeting them does not mean an application will be accepted, and every decision is subject to status and lender criteria.

Lenders with low entry points lean on recent bank data. Cubefunder, at 3 months, asks for 90 days of business bank transactions and prefers Open Banking; SimplyFunded, at 6 months, says it assesses bank statements and business performance rather than credit score alone. Lenders asking for longer records want accounts as well: LendingCrowd asks for two years' accounts, and Funding Circle says it may ask for your latest full accounts. If your business is young, our guide to start-up business loans covers the options before a trading record exists.

Cubefunder lends £5,000 to £100,000 over 3 to 12 months for any business purpose. Its FAQ says the fixed cost of credit is divided across working days and collected daily or weekly, and that early settlement carries no extra penalty.

Funding Circle lists a shorter term loan of £10,000 to £750,000 over up to 12 months alongside its longer business loan. It says its loans are unsecured and need a personal guarantee if approved.

LendingCrowd lists a shorter-term loan of 12 to 24 months alongside its main business loan of £75,000 to £500,000. It says unsecured loans of up to £350,000 are supported by a personal guarantee, subject to credit assessment.

Little Business Loans lends up to £20,000 for up to 12 months, secured against business assets the borrower keeps using, with a personal guarantee. Repayments can be daily, weekly or monthly.

Nucleus Commercial Finance offers Credit Builder, £3,000 to £25,000 over up to 12 months with weekly repayments, for businesses outside the criteria for its other two loans.

Playter's PlayterBoost is an unsecured loan of up to £500,000. Its profile records a conflict on its own page: 2 to 24 monthly instalments in one place and a maximum of 12 in its FAQ, so confirm the term with Playter.

SimplyFunded publishes unsecured loans of £5,000 to £500,000 over fixed terms of up to 26 weeks, with weekly or monthly repayments. It says initial eligibility checks use a soft credit search.

Swiftfund offers unsecured advances of £10,000 to £1,000,000 over 3 to 12 months, priced as a fixed fee agreed upfront. Its FAQ says it requires a personal guarantee, typically from a shareholder.

Swishfund lends £10,000 to £400,000 over up to 24 months, with interest charged on a straight-line basis so every repayment is the same. It may take a debenture and a guarantor.

It depends on how the lender prices the loan. Where interest runs on the reducing balance, a shorter term costs less in pounds, because you owe the money for less time. Where the lender charges a fixed fee, as Swiftfund and Cubefunder describe, the fee is the same whatever the term, so a shorter term means a higher annual rate for the same pounds.

The second point is cash flow. Halving the term roughly doubles each repayment, so the lowest-cost loan on paper can be the one that empties your account in month two. Our guide to APR explained shows how to put fee-based and interest-based offers on the same footing.

Expect to share recent business bank statements, often through Open Banking, plus filed accounts if the lender asks for a year or more of trading. Most of the lenders above ask a director for a personal guarantee, which makes the director personally liable if the company cannot pay. Our guide to personal guarantees explains what you sign.

On regulation, article 60C of the Regulated Activities Order exempts a credit agreement for more than £25,000 entered into wholly or predominantly for business purposes. Lending to a limited company is generally outside consumer credit rules in any case. A sole trader borrowing £25,000 or less may have a regulated agreement. This is a general description, not legal advice, so ask the lender.

• A revolving credit facility for a gap that comes and goes, with interest on what you draw.
• Invoice finance when the gap is customers paying slowly.
• A merchant cash advance when most takings come through a card terminal.
• A business overdraft for small, short dips on your current account.
• VAT loans when the need is a single tax bill.

You can check your eligibility with a soft search that does not affect your credit score. Capzy is a credit broker, paid by the lender, and introduces you to lenders whose criteria fit. A lender's full application may use a hard search, and any offer is subject to status and lender criteria. Capzy does not give financial advice.