Frequently Asked Questions

If a supplier you deal with isn't listed on your business credit report, it's most likely because the supplier doesn't report your business payment history to Experian. Your business payment history is one of the factors upon which your business credit report and score are based. However, not all suppliers report to business credit reporting agencies like Experian. In fact, of the more than 500,000 suppliers extending credit, only about 10,000 report. Only by working with suppliers who report can you improve your business credit report and score.

Experian includes a section titled: "Don't see all your business trade and financial accounts listed here? Tell us who your supplier or financial vendor(s) are so that we may contact them." in its Business Credit Advantage subscription report. If you're a Business Credit Advantage subscriber, please take a moment to provide us with your non-reporting suppliers by returning to your report and clicking on that link.

Business public records are records of actions or incidents filed or recorded with a government agency for tax and other regulatory requirements. These records are made available to the public to better protect the interests of the filer. Public records include: Bankruptcies, Liens, Judgments and Collections.

Financial services, insurance, real estate, legal and professional services, telecommunications, transportation, Fortune 1000 companies and small businesses use public records to reduce business credit risk and manage liability and fraud.

Experian uses standard industry and government guidelines for keeping data on file. Expiration dates for data ensures that the information presented in our reports is current enough to create an accurate picture of financial health. Bankruptcies remain on file for 10 years after the filing date. Judgments for 7 years after the filing date. Tax liens for 7 years after the filing date. Collections remain on file for 6 years and 9 months after the last report date. UCC filings for 5 years after the last filing date. Bank, government and leasing data for 36 months. Trade data for 36 months after the last report date. Credit inquiries for 9 months.

Experian requires minimum information to generate a score; so if a business doesn't meet these requirements, a score is not generated.  Minimum information is at least one tradeline and/or one demographic element.

If you believe that your company's Experian report contains inaccurate or outdated information, you can initiate an update to your company details by using Experian's www.BusinessCreditFacts.com/update website.

Owners or officers of a business who are reviewing or monitoring their own report will conveniently find a "Submit data dispute" function at the bottom of their online company report.

Requests are processed in the order received. Experian works with the source providers that have contributed data to the report and allows them sufficient time to conclude their investigations.

Generally an investigation is completed within 30 days, however, complex cases may take longer.

Updates are processed by Experian's Commercial Relations group reachable at BusinessDisputes@experian.com

When you submit a business dispute, a Commercial Relations Agent is assigned to conduct a thorough investigation of your credit file. Depending on your request, the investigation may take about a month or, in complex cases, longer. Your request will go through several steps before being completed:

1) The request is received and logged, pending assignment. In this phase, your email has been read and posted to the Commercial Relations case management repository. All documents you have provided are also stored in the repository. Cases are logged in the order received and placed in a queue to be assigned to an agent. Experian automatically escalates disputes regarding bankruptcies for prompt attention. Cases are typically assigned to agents within 5 to 7 business days.

2) Next, the request is assigned to an agent, in queue to be worked in order of date received. Once an agent is assigned, your case will be queued to be worked in the order of the email "sent" date. First come, first served. Expect your case to be queued for a few days to two weeks.

3) The next stage, when the investigation is in progress with an agent, your file is first reviewed to confirm that the data in your file relates to only your business. This process can sometimes be complicated and take a long time. The agent confirms, using public record sources, the acceptable variations of addresses and business names to be included in your file. It is always helpful to provide all current and past names and addresses in your dispute so this portion of the investigation is done quickly and accurately. Depending upon the type of changes requested, this process may occur over several days or weeks, with changes becoming visible to you as the agent processes them. In all situations, the agent is only authorized to make changes that are verified by supporting documents. Until you are notified that your case is closed, continual changes may occur.

4) In some, but not all cases, the agent will reach out to verify your disputed items with the reporting organization. For example, in the event your dispute involves creditor trade payment data or legal filings, the agent will contact Experian data providers on your behalf to support your disputed items. Your dispute status will be: case is awaiting information from external trade, legal data reporter, or internal contributor. During this phase, Experian is required to provide the data reporter ten business days to reply. The status of your case may change if the data reporter replies promptly, or the case may take longer if there is back-and-forth communication.

5) When the agent updates your credit file, your case status will be: awaiting report production to confirm updates. After updates are made to your file, a revised credit report, score etc. is generated. This process generally takes one business day, but in same rare cases, may take as long as one month. In many cases, the production processes run over the weekend.

6) When the production process has completed, your case is closed. Please see email from businessdisputes@experian.com for more information. Before the agent closes the case, they will review a current version of your credit report. Remember that the agent is only authorized to make updates that they can verify through supporting documentation. In some cases, the report will be under a new BIN. The agent will compile and send an email describing the updates made along with other pertinent information. You should have an email from businessdisputes@experian.com. The email will include your case number and the current Experian BIN for your business credit report.

Should you have questions regarding your dispute, please feel free to contact Experian Commercial Relations at BusinessDisputes@experian.com or 888-211-0728 to speak to an agent.

Experian business credit scores range from a low of 1 to a high of 100. The average business credit score is a 62.

Experian generates its scores based on a proprietary algorithm that compares your business with other businesses on:

• Payment behaviors
• Public record information like Liens, Judgments, and Bankruptcies
• Specific industry
• UCC filings
• Years in business
• and a variety of other information

Paying bills on time is not the only factor used in determining a score.

Experian has introduced the Business Credit Score Planner^TM that allows you to plug in specific information like your: lines of credit, amounts owed, payments past due, etc. to see how even a small late payment, or using a lot of credit from just one supplier, or other single item can affect your score. Try our Business Credit Score Planner to see how making minor changes can have a positive impact on your score.

Checking your business credit report does not affect your business credit score. Pulling your own business credit report is considered a soft inquiry. Soft inquiries do not affect your business credit score, and they are not revealed to potential lenders or creditors.

Experian's Business Credit Score (Intelliscore Plus^SM) is determined through a statistically derived algorithm that determines risk based on multiple factors:

• Credit: number of trade experiences, balances outstanding, payment habits, credit utilization, trends over time
• Public records: recency, frequency and dollar amounts associated with liens, judgments, bankruptcies
• Demographic information: years on file, Standard Industrial Classification code, business size

It is not uncommon for a business credit score to fluctuate slightly. Experian's proprietary model for business credit scores looks at over 140 modeling variables to derive the Experian Business Credit Score, so there are other factors beyond what is displayed on the business credit report that can cause a score to slightly change or shift.

Factors include, but are not limited to:

• The presence of derogatory public records on the business profile, such as collections, liens, judgments and bankruptcies
• The status, recent status, frequency and dollar amounts of any applicable liens, judgments, or bankruptcies
• An increased trend in slow payment of obligations
• An increase in the number of business credit inquiries or applications that are generated by the business or owner
• The number of trade experiences, balances outstanding, payment habits, credit utilization, and trends over time
• Years in business, line of business or Standard Industrial Classification (SIC), size of business and other demographic data

In today's challenging economy, the risk of slow pay turning into no pay is all too real. Experian's Financial Stability Risk Rating focuses on the small percentage of companies that are at higher risk for filing bankruptcy or simply reneging on obligations.

Identifying financial stability risk involves utilizing a wide range of Experian data -- from trade experiences and collection agency reporting to derogatory public records and business firmographics. All data elements are third-party-verified, with no self-reported information allowed.

Ratings range from a Low Risk Rating of 1 to High Risk Rating of 5.

The table below shows the percentile ranges associated with each risk class and the bad rate for the risk class.

Risk Rating	Risk Level	Bad Rate
5	High Risk	35.27%
4	Medium to High Risk	10.00%
3	Medium Risk	2.95%
2	Low to Medium Risk	1.11%
1	Low Risk	.55%

Since 2011 credit managers have had access to the Financial Stability Risk Rating from Experian as an additional factor used in extending credit.

A good Financial Stability Risk Rating may result in credit being extended even if the business credit score is weak since the likelihood of the business defaulting on payments or going bankrupt is low. The credit manager may decide to accept slow pay as long as they conclude that they will get paid.

Please review our Annotated Sample Report to help you understand the different sections in the reports. You can click on any of the blue text (without underlines) to pull up the glossary definition of that keyword.

Other report content questions are handled through our Online Helpdesk. Our representatives will review your question(s) and direct you to the proper help information or department(s) that may be able to assist you. Be specific about the issues or questions you have when contacting us.  Click here to contact our Online Helpdesk.

This website utilizes color icons to show, in graphical terms, individual items that may impact the overall creditworthiness of a company. Good (), caution (), and warning () are our choice of icons. Below is how we determine which icon to show based on specific criteria for each item.

Businesses Scoring Worse:
75% to 100% = ; 50% to 74% = ; < 50% =

Bankruptcies:
0 filed = ; 1 or more filed, 0 active = ; 1 or more active =

Liens:
0 filed = ; 2 or less filed = ; > 2 filed =

Judgments:
0 filed = ; 2 or less filed = ; > 2 filed =

Collections:
1 or less filed and 0 active = ; 4 or less filed and 1 or less active = ; more than one active or more than 4 filed =

Yes, there is a glossary of terms used on this website. You may want to print this glossary and keep it with any printed reports you purchase. See our glossary of terms.

Signing up is fast and easy. You sign up by clicking on the Sign in link located on the top right of most of our pages and following the Create account route. You don't have to be registered first to locate a company in our database. Non-members interested in purchasing a report will automatically be directed to login or register.

You may use the following credit card types here: American Express, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa.

Click here to contact us.

Click here to contact us.

Once logged in, receipts can be found by using the "My account" pulldown in our navigation bar; use the "My receipts" option from there.

Click here to contact us.

Click here to contact us.

Click here to contact us.

Experian collects sales taxes for registrants of this website with billing addresses in certain states. The list of those states is available here.

If you are tax-exempt, you can apply to be exempted from paying sales tax on future purchases. Please Contact us for more information.

Once logged in, the cached copy or your report (the copy you originally saw) is available for seven days following the purchase by going to your 'Dashboard' page and using the "See report again" buttons.

The system is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

This website has been designed and tested to work with the current revision browsers including: Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome. Your browser must be configured to allow for session cookies and javascript; by default, all of these browsers automatically accept session cookies and javascript. If your browser is not configured to accept session cookies or javascript, please update your browser settings to accept these on our website, or contact your support specialist.

You can start using this website today by accessing us through your Web browser. There is no additional hardware or software to purchase or install.

Yes, you can search for a company using the Experian BIN here.

By reviewing public records and other business information, companies save every year on the costs of acquiring new business and managing liability and potential fraud. Reviewing public records and other business information also establishes sound business relationships that can extend for years.

Experian provides value by delivering timely and accurate data with nationwide coverage. Experian offers competitive low prices and easy-to-read reports. All data behind our scoring (Experian Intelliscore Plus^SM) is third-party-reported, with no self-reported data allowed or influencing the score.

This website provides access to Experian's business database in real time. Experian receives public record information from government and vendor sources on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly schedule.

Once Experian receives public record updates from the government or vendor sources, turnaround time for formatting, cleansing and loading data is generally 48 to 72 hours. Turnaround time for bankruptcy reports being available online is typically within 24 hours of the original filing.

This website accesses Experian's business database in real time. Experian collects credit obligation information from thousands of businesses nationwide. These businesses are typically the suppliers or lenders with which a company has existing financial relationships.

Experian also collects legal filings from the various local, county and state courts across the United States. Company background information is collected from a variety of independent firms. Experian does not display information directly from a company about its business, unless that information has been verified.

This website provides access to Experian's business database. Experian provides tax liens, judgments and bankruptcies on businesses nationwide.

This website provides access to Experian's business database. Experian uses leading technologies to format, cleanse and load data that is acquired directly from government sources and industry leading vendors.

Our small business website does not provide access to Experian's personal credit information. You can call Experian's National Consumer Assistance Center at 888-397-3742 for questions regarding your personal account. To learn more about Experian's personal credit division, please go to Experian's Web site at www.experian.com.