What credit score do you need for equipment financing?

The term is years rather than months, so the funder is taking a view on you over a much longer horizon than a nine-month advance requires.

The asset covers part of the risk but not all of it — recovering and selling equipment costs money and takes time, so the funder is not indifferent to whether you pay.

That is why equipment financing sits between an advance and a bank loan on both price and difficulty.

How resaleable the asset is. A common truck can carry a weaker file a long way; a specialised machine cannot.

The deposit. Cash in the deal is the most direct substitute for credit, and it is the lever most applicants have.

Time in business and deposit history. Two years of trading with steady banking outweighs twenty points of score.

Whether the equipment generates the revenue that repays it. A truck for a carrier with signed freight is a different proposition from a speculative purchase.

Expect a larger deposit rather than a decline. Twenty to thirty percent frequently makes a file work that would otherwise not.

Consider a more standard asset. Resaleability substitutes for credit better than almost anything else.

Do not put the equipment on an advance instead. It is the most expensive way to buy a machine, and it uses up the capacity you would need for working capital.