To run a credit check on a company, collect the business’s full legal name and its federal tax ID, then buy a report from a commercial business credit bureau such as Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, or Equifax. Reports generally cost between $50 and $200 depending on depth, and some bureaus offer free basic summaries. Learning how to credit check a company is simpler than running a personal credit check, because federal consumer protection law does not cover business credit data: anyone can pull a report on any company, without that company’s knowledge or consent.
You Don’t Need the Company’s Permission
The Fair Credit Reporting Act restricts who can pull a personal credit report and requires a “permissible purpose,” such as a pending loan application or employment screening. Those rules do not reach business credit reports. Under federal law, a “consumer” is an individual, and a “consumer report” covers information used to evaluate a person’s eligibility for personal credit, insurance, or employment, not commercial transactions.1GovInfo. 15 USC 1681a – Definitions The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has said FCRA’s user requirements apply only to credit or insurance for personal, family, or household purposes.2Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Consumer Laws and Regulations – FCRA
In practice, you do not need the company’s consent, the company is not notified when you pull the report, and you owe no one an explanation for why you want it. That makes a credit check a routine due-diligence step for vendors, investors, landlords, lenders, and prospective business partners.
Information to Gather First
Start with the company’s full legal name as registered with the state, not a marketing name or an abbreviation. Many companies also operate under a “doing business as” (DBA) name, so note both to capture all relevant credit activity. The physical headquarters address helps narrow results when several businesses share similar names.
The most precise identifier is the nine-digit Employer Identification Number (EIN), the federal tax ID a business uses. You can often find an EIN on invoices, procurement documents, or W-9 forms the company has shared. For publicly traded firms, EINs appear in SEC filings, which you can search through the EDGAR database.3SEC.gov. EDGAR Full Text Search You can also just ask the company’s accounting department. Most businesses share their EIN freely because it is not sensitive in the way a Social Security number is.
If you plan to use Dun & Bradstreet, having the company’s D-U-N-S Number speeds up the search. That is a separate nine-digit identifier D&B assigns to each business location. The company may know its own, or you can look it up through D&B’s free search tool.
Choosing a Credit Bureau
Three bureaus dominate commercial credit reporting, and each pulls from different data, so reports from one will not match reports from another.
- Dun & Bradstreet maintains the largest commercial credit database, with files on more than 600 million businesses worldwide. Its reports lean heavily on trade payment data — how a company pays suppliers and vendors — and its signature metric is the PAYDEX Score, a 1-to-100 rating of payment behavior.4Dun & Bradstreet. What Is a D-U-N-S Number
- Experian Business blends trade payment data with public record filings and collection activity. Its main score, Intelliscore Plus, runs 1 to 100, with higher numbers indicating lower risk.5Experian. Risk Ranking and Recommendation – Intelliscore Plus
- Equifax Business draws heavily from the Small Business Financial Exchange, a data-sharing consortium of lenders, so its reports emphasize bank loan performance, business credit card use, and lease payment history. That makes Equifax especially useful when your concern is institutional debt rather than vendor invoices.6Equifax Inc. Investor Relations. Equifax Designated Small Business Financial Exchange Certified Vendor
If a single report will drive a meaningful decision, pulling from more than one bureau gives a fuller picture, since each sees different parts of the company’s borrowing and payment life.
How to Order a Report and What It Costs
Every bureau runs an online portal where you enter the company name, address, or tax ID to locate the right business profile. After confirming the match, you choose a reporting tier, pay, and typically receive the report as an immediate PDF download or an interactive dashboard. Most portals also require account creation, which lets you save reports and set up monitoring alerts.
Dun & Bradstreet
D&B’s Credit Insights platform includes a free tier with basic score ranges and company information. The Basic plan costs $49 per month, or $499 per year, and unlocks full scores, historical rating trends, and alerts for legal events such as judgments and UCC filings. The Plus plan runs $149 per month, or $1,499 per year, and adds peer comparisons and the ability to submit supplemental documentation to the credit file.7Dun & Bradstreet. Business Credit Scores and Ratings
Experian Business
Experian sells one-off reports without a subscription. A CreditScore Report costs $49.95 and covers the core score, payment trends, and account histories. A ProfilePlus Report runs $59.95 and adds inquiry details and fuller tradeline data. For ongoing monitoring of a single business, Business Credit Advantage is $199 per year. If you need to vet many companies, Business Credit Score Pro covers up to 30 reports per month starting at $1,495 per year.8Experian. Products and Pricing – Business Credit Reports and Scores
Equifax Business
Equifax sells individual business credit reports through its website, but you have to contact customer service for pricing. Equifax leans on SBFE-sourced lending data, so these reports are most useful when you want to see how a company handles bank debt and credit lines.9Equifax. Small Businesses Benefit from Renewed Equifax-SBFE Partnership
Reading the Report
Format varies, but most business credit reports share the same building blocks.
Credit Scores
Each bureau runs its own scoring model. D&B’s PAYDEX Score runs 1 to 100 and tracks payment timing. A PAYDEX of 80 means the business pays on time; above 80 means early; 50 to 79 is moderate risk; below 50 is high risk.7Dun & Bradstreet. Business Credit Scores and Ratings Experian’s Intelliscore Plus also uses a 1-to-100 scale, but 76 and above counts as low risk, while 1 to 10 is the highest risk tier.5Experian. Risk Ranking and Recommendation – Intelliscore Plus The same number can carry very different meaning across bureaus, so do not compare them directly.
Trade Payment History
The heart of most reports is a detailed record of how the company pays its vendors. Each tradeline shows the credit limit, current balance, payment terms, and whether invoices were paid on time, paid late, or still outstanding. This is where you can tell whether late payments are rare slips or a steady pattern.
Credit Limit Recommendation
Reports typically include a suggested maximum credit amount, meaning the dollar figure the bureau considers safe to extend given the company’s size, industry, and debt capacity. It is a benchmark for setting your own terms, not a guarantee.
Public Record Filings
Reports flag tax liens, civil judgments, collection accounts, and bankruptcy filings, each with a filing date and dollar amount. These items stay visible for a long time: bankruptcies for nine years and nine months, and judgments, tax liens, and collections each for six years and nine months.10Experian. How Long Data Stays on a Business Credit Report
Public Records Worth Checking Separately
Credit bureaus pick up many public filings, but searching government records directly can surface things a report summarizes or misses.
Secretary of State Records
Every state keeps a business entity database through its Secretary of State office or equivalent agency. A quick search tells you whether the company is currently registered and in good standing, meaning it has filed required annual reports and paid any applicable fees. A status of “dissolved,” “suspended,” or “revoked” means the company has lost its legal authority to do business in that state. Most states offer free online searches, and a formal Certificate of Good Standing usually costs $5 to $25.
UCC Filings
Uniform Commercial Code filings are records lenders file with state offices to publicly claim a security interest in a borrower’s assets.11Uniform Law Commission. Uniform Commercial Code A UCC-1 financing statement identifies the specific collateral securing a loan, such as equipment, inventory, or accounts receivable.12NASS. UCC Filings If several UCC filings already cover a company’s major assets, its property is heavily leveraged and may not be available to secure your own dealings with it. Most Secretary of State offices let you search UCC records online, often for free.
If You Find an Error on Your Own Report
Because federal consumer credit protections do not cover business reports, each bureau sets its own dispute process. The FTC has intervened in at least one case. In 2022, the agency required Dun & Bradstreet to overhaul how it handles disputes from small businesses. Under that order, D&B must either delete disputed information or reinvestigate it; if the data turns out to be inaccurate or unverifiable, D&B must remove it and keep it from being re-added, inform the business of the results, and provide free access to the corrected report.13Federal Trade Commission. In Response to FTC Charges, Dun and Bradstreet to Clean Small Business Credit Reporting Process
Experian lets you file a dispute through an online form linked at the bottom of your report, or by emailing the report with a written explanation to its business disputes team. Experian forwards the dispute to the original data source and generally completes its review within 30 days, though complex cases take longer. If corrections are made, Experian sends an updated report.14Experian. How to Correct or Dispute Information on Your Business Credit Report
Whichever bureau holds the error, submit documentation with your dispute: canceled checks, lien release letters, or corrected invoices. Clear proof speeds the review and lowers the chance the bureau closes the dispute without a full investigation.