You can look up a business credit score for free using a couple of consumer-facing tools, but the free view is a baseline rather than a full report. Nav offers a free general credit standing check, and Dun & Bradstreet lets business owners view their own scores and monitor changes through its small business portal.1Nav. A Recommended Solution for Building Business Credit2Dun & Bradstreet. Check Your Small Business Credit Those are enough to spot obvious problems and track trends. For the granular detail behind a score, or to look up a company that isn’t yours, you’ll need to pay.
What You Can See Without Paying
Free business credit tools generally show where your company sits in broad terms: a standing indicator, a summary of what the bureaus have on file, and alerts when something changes. They don’t typically show the full trade line history, the public records section, or every scoring model a bureau produces.
If you’re preparing for a loan application or negotiating vendor terms, the free view usually isn’t enough. If you’re monitoring your file between major events, it is. Start free, and upgrade only when you need the detail.
What You Need Before You Search
Every business credit search starts with identifiers that distinguish one company from another in large commercial databases. At minimum, you need the full legal name of the entity exactly as it appears on government filings, including the suffix (LLC, Inc., Corp.). A headquarters address helps narrow results when multiple companies share similar names. You can confirm both by searching the Secretary of State database in the state where the business was formed.
The nine-digit Employer Identification Number is the most reliable identifier for credit searches. The IRS issues this number when a business registers, and it appears on the EIN confirmation letter and federal tax returns.3Internal Revenue Service. IRS Publication 1635 – Understanding Your EIN If you’re looking up your own company, you already have it.
For Dun & Bradstreet specifically, the key identifier is the D-U-N-S Number, a unique nine-digit code assigned to each business location in their database.4Dun & Bradstreet. What Is a D-U-N-S Number? If your business doesn’t have one, you can request one for free on D&B’s website. The standard process takes up to 30 business days; an expedited option delivers it within eight business days for a fee.5Dun & Bradstreet. Get a D-U-N-S Number Before applying, use D&B’s lookup tool to check whether your business already has one. Many companies receive a D-U-N-S Number automatically when they appear in public records or trade credit data.
Free Tools for Checking Your Own Business Credit
Two free options cover most of what a business owner needs for a quick look.
Nav’s free account gives a general credit standing check that offers a baseline view of where your business sits.1Nav. A Recommended Solution for Building Business Credit Nav’s paid tiers pull actual scores from D&B, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, but the free version is enough to catch red flags.
Dun & Bradstreet’s small business portal lets owners view their own credit scores and monitor changes through a free account.2Dun & Bradstreet. Check Your Small Business Credit You’ll need your D-U-N-S Number to register.
Either tool will put you through a verification step confirming you’re authorized to view the data. That usually means answering questions based on public records that only an owner or officer would know: previous business addresses, names of associated officers, or incorporation dates.
One practical note on timing: creditors and data reporters typically update the credit bureaus once a month, and each reporter follows its own schedule. A score reflects the contents of the report at the moment it’s generated, so pulling the same report a week apart can yield different results.6Experian. How Often Is a Credit Report Updated If you just paid down a large balance, give it 30 to 60 days before expecting the score to reflect the change.
Looking Up Another Company’s Credit
Free tools generally cover your own file. For a company that isn’t yours, you’ll be paying for a report, but anyone can order one. Business credit reports can be pulled by anyone, as often as they want, without the subject company being notified.7Experian Business. Can I Look at Business Credit Reports on Other Companies? This is the fundamental difference from personal credit, where a lender needs a permissible purpose under federal law.
The process: use the guest or commercial lookup tool on any bureau’s website, enter the company name and location, and review the matches carefully. Many businesses share similar names, and selecting the wrong entity is the most common mistake. Experian’s single-report pricing runs $59.95 for the CreditScore report and $69.95 for the more detailed ProfilePlus; an annual monitoring subscription called Business Credit Advantage is $199 per year and includes change alerts.8Experian. Products and Pricing Equifax and D&B reports tend to run higher per pull.
The cost of a business credit report is generally deductible as an ordinary business expense, whether you’re checking your own file or screening a potential partner. Keep the receipt.
Reading the Score the Free Check Shows You
Each bureau uses its own scale, so a number by itself means little until you know which bureau produced it.
The D&B PAYDEX Score runs from 1 to 100, with 100 being the best. It measures past payment performance relative to invoice terms. 80 or above signals low risk and indicates on-time or early payments. 50 to 79 is moderate risk. Below 50 suggests a pattern of late payments and puts the business in high-risk territory.9Dun & Bradstreet. Business Credit Scores and Ratings Because PAYDEX is built almost entirely from trade credit data, a business that pays suppliers promptly but has a recent tax lien might still carry a high PAYDEX while looking risky on other bureaus’ reports.
Experian’s Intelliscore Plus also uses a 0 to 100 scale, where higher scores mean lower risk. It predicts the likelihood of serious delinquency within the next 12 months and draws on both trade data and public records.10Experian. Intelliscore Plus Product Sheet A score of 76 or above is generally considered low risk; below 25 is high risk.
Equifax uses a wider range. Its business credit risk score spans roughly 101 to 992, measuring the likelihood of payment delinquency. Equifax also produces a separate business failure score on a scale of approximately 1,000 to 1,880, estimating the probability of closure within 12 months.11Equifax. Business Credit Reports for Small Business Higher numbers mean lower risk on both scales. The Canadian version of the report uses slightly different ranges, so confirm you’re reading the U.S. model.
Business Credit Has Fewer Legal Protections Than Personal Credit
It’s worth knowing where the free-report rights for consumers stop and commercial reporting begins, because the two aren’t the same.
Personal credit reports are governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which defines a consumer report as information bearing on an individual’s creditworthiness used for personal, family, or household purposes.12Federal Trade Commission. Fair Credit Reporting Act That law gives individuals the right to free annual reports, the right to dispute errors with a mandated investigation timeline, and restrictions on who can pull their credit.
Business credit reports fall largely outside those protections. There’s no federal law entitling you to a free annual business credit report, which is why free monitoring exists only as a product offering, not a legal right. The bureaus have dispute processes, but they aren’t held to the strict investigation timelines that apply to consumer disputes.
The line blurs when a sole proprietor or small business owner personally guarantees a commercial loan. In that situation, the lender may pull a personal consumer report alongside the business file, and the FCRA protections apply to the personal report.13Federal Reserve. Fair Credit Reporting If a denial rests solely on the business credit file, no adverse action notice is required. That gap makes free monitoring of your business file worth setting up before you need it.
Fixing Errors You Spot in a Free Check
If a free check surfaces something wrong, each bureau has a dispute process. A single misreported lien or wrong payment status can pull down a score that took years to build.
At Experian, start by reviewing the “key score factors” section of the report, since corrections to data mentioned there are most likely to move your score. You can submit a dispute using the button at the bottom of the report or by emailing a copy of the report with a note to BusinessDisputes@Experian.com. Investigations are generally completed within 30 days, though complex cases take longer. If Experian makes corrections, it sends a complimentary updated report for confirmation.14Experian. How to Correct or Dispute Information on Your Business Credit Report
Dun & Bradstreet’s dispute process was overhauled after the FTC found problems with how the company handled small business credit disputes. Under the resulting settlement, D&B must either delete disputed information or conduct a reinvestigation to confirm its accuracy. If the reinvestigation finds the data is inaccurate or can’t be verified, D&B must delete it and prevent it from being readded. The company is also required to inform businesses of investigation results and provide free access to the corrected file.15Federal Trade Commission. In Response to FTC Charges, Dun and Bradstreet to Clean Up Small Business Credit Reporting Process and Refund Customers
Equifax accepts business credit disputes, though its process is less publicly documented than the other two bureaus. With any bureau, keep copies of supporting documents: bank statements showing on-time payments, lender letters confirming account corrections, or court records showing liens were satisfied. The more specific the evidence, the faster the resolution. Focus on entries that are actually wrong and provide proof for each.