To report business credit to Dun & Bradstreet, request a free D-U-N-S Number for your business, subscribe to D&B Credit Insights Plus, and use that portal to submit trade references and financial statements for D&B to verify. The D-U-N-S Number and basic profile cost nothing, but actively adding payment history to your file requires the paid Plus tier.
Step 1: Get a D-U-N-S Number
A D-U-N-S Number is the nine-digit identifier D&B assigns to each business location in its database. Every company that wants a D&B credit file needs one, and requesting it is free.1Dun & Bradstreet. Get a D-U-N-S Number
Before applying, run your company through the D-U-N-S Number Lookup on D&B’s site. Many businesses already have a number assigned from vendor or public records without ever asking for one. If you need a new number, the application asks for your legal business name as registered with the state, physical address, business phone, the name of the owner or principal, legal structure, year the business was formed, primary industry, and employee count. Apply separately for each physical location.
Standard processing takes up to 30 business days. D&B offers a paid expedited option that delivers the number in about eight business days. A representative may call to verify your information before the number is issued.1Dun & Bradstreet. Get a D-U-N-S Number
One boundary worth knowing: the federal government no longer uses the D-U-N-S Number for grant or contract award identification. That role has been taken over by the Unique Entity ID assigned through SAM.gov.2GSA. Unique Entity ID is Here The D-U-N-S Number still anchors your commercial credit file at D&B, but it won’t help you register as a federal vendor.
Step 2: Subscribe to D&B Credit Insights Plus
Having a D-U-N-S Number lets D&B hold a file on you. It does not let you add anything to that file. For that, you need a D&B Credit Insights subscription, and specifically the Plus tier.
The free tier shows basic score ranges and company information with no submission tools. The Basic tier, at $49 per month or $499 per year, adds full credit scores, monitoring, and alerts. The Plus tier, at $149 per month or $1,499 per year, is the only level that lets you submit trade references, payment records, banking statements, and financial statements for review and possible inclusion in your profile.3Dun & Bradstreet. D&B Credit Insights Plus
If your goal is to build the file, Plus is the plan. Basic is a monitoring product.
Step 3: Gather and Submit Trade References
Trade references are the core of what you report. Each one records a payment relationship between your business and a supplier, and together they drive your PAYDEX score. D&B captures seven data points per reference: the reporting date, how you paid, the highest credit used in the last 12 months, the current amount owed, any past-due amount, the payment terms, and the date of the last transaction.4Dun & Bradstreet. What Is a Trade Reference and Its Potential Impact on Business Credit Scores and Ratings
What to Pull from Your Records
Before you log in, work from actual invoices rather than memory. For each vendor you plan to list, gather:
- The vendor’s legal name exactly as it appears on billing statements
- Your contact person at that vendor, with email and phone
- The vendor’s billing address
- The highest credit the vendor has extended to you
- Your current balance owed
- Payment terms, such as Net-30 or Net-60
Mismatches between what you enter and what the vendor confirms during verification can cause a reference to be rejected, so check names and addresses against the paperwork.
Submitting Through the Portal
Inside Credit Insights Plus, go to the documentation submission area, upload your payment records and vendor details, and submit them for review. The portal produces a confirmation screen once the data enters D&B’s processing queue; save it. D&B may run a brief check to confirm you have authority to act for the business before processing the submission.
Not every reference you submit will be accepted. D&B may reject references for incomplete information, inability to verify the vendor, or an ineligible category.4Dun & Bradstreet. What Is a Trade Reference and Its Potential Impact on Business Credit Scores and Ratings
How Many References You Need
Your profile won’t generate a PAYDEX score until you have at least three payment experiences from at least two different suppliers. Below that threshold, the score shows “UN” for unavailable.5Dun & Bradstreet. Frequently Asked Questions – PAYDEX Score and Weighting Key
PAYDEX runs from 0 to 100 and is weighted by invoice size, so larger invoices move the score more than smaller ones. A score of 80 means you pay within agreed terms; scores above 80 signal early payment, and scores below 80 reflect increasing lateness.5Dun & Bradstreet. Frequently Asked Questions – PAYDEX Score and Weighting Key If you want a PAYDEX above 80, pay before the due date, not on it.
Step 4: Add Financial Statements
Trade references show how you pay other businesses. Financial statements show your overall position, and the Plus portal accepts them alongside payment records. Prepare your most recent balance sheet and income statement (also called a profit and loss report). D&B uses figures like total assets, liabilities, revenue, and net income to feed its scoring models. Statements prepared or reviewed by a CPA carry more weight, but self-prepared statements are accepted. PDF or spreadsheet formats upload directly through the portal.
Both kinds of data matter. A clean balance sheet without trade references still won’t produce a PAYDEX score, and trade references without financial context leave the picture incomplete.
What Happens After You Submit
D&B’s analysts verify trade references by contacting the vendors you listed to confirm amounts, terms, and history. If something doesn’t match, an analyst may come back to you for documentation. Financial statements go through internal quality-control checks before posting.
Expect several weeks between submission and verified data appearing on your report. Watch your Credit Insights dashboard during that window to see each reference clear.
A Faster Path: Vendors That Report on Their Own
You don’t have to self-report every account. Many suppliers furnish payment data to D&B directly. Large industrial and office supply companies, including sellers of shipping materials, hardware, power tools, and office products, commonly report on their business credit accounts. Some commercial credit cards report to D&B, Experian Business, and Equifax Business automatically.
Opening net-30 trade accounts with suppliers that report to D&B builds your file without manual submissions. Each on-time payment adds a trade experience, and paying early pushes the score above 80.
Monitoring Your File and Fixing Errors
Once the profile is active, Credit Insights alert rules can notify you when your Failure Score drops below a threshold you set, when bankruptcy or insolvency is filed, when collections, claims, or judgments post, when ownership or principal names change, or when new financial or secured-borrowing information appears.6Dun & Bradstreet. Receiving Alerts – Managing Alert Profiles
If you spot something inaccurate, you can dispute it at no charge through D&B customer service or the online dispute process. A Federal Trade Commission order governing D&B’s practices requires the company to either delete the disputed information or reinvestigate the specific concerns you raise.7Federal Trade Commission. Dun and Bradstreet Modified Decision and Order
For payment-related disputes, the deadlines run as follows. D&B must complete its review within 14 business days of receiving the dispute, with up to 14 additional business days allowed if reasonable efforts require more time. You must be told the outcome within five business days after the investigation closes. If the information is inaccurate or can’t be verified, D&B must correct its records within four business days for daily-updating products, or by the next scheduled update for products on a periodic cycle.7Federal Trade Commission. Dun and Bradstreet Modified Decision and Order If D&B doesn’t remove the item, you can request the name of the source that reported it and the date of the payment at issue, which lets you take the dispute to the vendor.
Active monitoring matters more here than for personal credit. The Fair Credit Reporting Act and Regulation V apply to consumer credit used for personal purposes; credit extended primarily for a business purpose is excluded from requirements like risk-based pricing notices.8eCFR. Title 12 Part 222 – Fair Credit Reporting (Regulation V) You don’t get the statutory annual free report, accuracy standards, or adverse-action notices on your business file that you get on your personal file. The FTC order provides some D&B-specific protections, but those come from an enforcement action, not a general statute, so the burden of catching errors sits with you.