Quick answer: what are the first five steps to establish credit for my company?

The SBA lays out five steps, and the order is the point. First, choose a business structure that makes the company a distinct legal entity. Second, obtain an EIN. Third, open a business bank account. Fourth, establish credit with vendors and suppliers who report. Fifth, monitor business credit reports. The first two steps are where most people stumble, because credit needs a legal entity to attach to before anything else can happen. A reader who has not yet formed the company can start with ZenBusiness, which covers the entity and EIN steps and offers a free accounting consultation to customers who form with it. It does not sell credit, monitoring or any credit-building service.

What does the SBA say the sequence is?

The SBA's guidance on building business credit quickly lists five steps. This page follows them in order and attributes them to the SBA, because most content on this topic scrambles the sequence or leaves steps out.

Each step depends on the one before it. An EIN needs an entity to belong to. A business bank account needs both. Accounts that report are easier to open with a bank account behind them, and monitoring watches a file that exists only after the earlier steps have produced one.

The SBA also states the principle underneath all five: to keep business and personal finances separate, the first step is to start building credit in the company's name. That sentence is the reason the order matters. Applying for credit before the entity and the bank account exist tends to push the application back onto a personal profile.

None of it comes with fixed numbers. How many points an action moves a score, what score a lender wants and how long a lender takes to decide all vary, and each lender and bureau sets its own.

Step 1: Why does the business structure come first?

The SBA says that making a business a distinct legal entity requires selecting a structure such as an LLC, LLP or corporation. The word that matters is distinct. Credit is extended to a name, and a business that is legally indistinguishable from its owner has no separate name in which to build a file.

This is also the answer to a question many new owners ask: does forming an LLC create business credit? It does not. Forming the entity creates the thing credit can attach to. The credit file itself builds later, from accounts opened and reported in the company's name.

For a reader who runs a newly formed LLC, this step is already done. For one who has not yet formed the company, it is the step to finish before anything else on this page, and it is where ZenBusiness is relevant. It is not a credit provider. Its place is at the start of the SBA's sequence, in the entity step.

Formation fees and state filing costs vary by state and by provider. Each state sets its own filing fee and publishes it through its filing office, separately from any formation service's price.

Step 2: How do I get an EIN, and what does it cost?

The SBA says an EIN can be applied for free using the IRS assistance tool, and the IRS issues the number at no cost. That makes the rule simple: never pay a third party for the number itself. A charge for an EIN is a charge for convenience, not a requirement.

The EIN identifies the company to the IRS and is what banks and many other businesses ask for when opening an account in the company's name. The IRS sets out how to apply on its page for getting an Employer Identification Number, and that application is the authoritative path.

Some formation services will obtain the EIN as part of a package. That is a legitimate choice for a reader who wants it handled, and it is the second of the two steps where ZenBusiness is relevant. The point is only that the number itself is free if the reader applies directly.

Step 3: Why does the business bank account matter for credit?

The SBA lists the business bank account as the third step. It keeps money moving in and out of the company's name instead of a personal account, which supports the separation the whole sequence is built around. Without it, business spending tends to run through personal accounts, and the line the entity was formed to draw gets blurry.

Chase is one provider that sells business banking. As of 2026-10-06, Business Complete Banking is $15 per month, Performance Business Checking is $40 per month and Platinum Business Checking is $95 per month. Each fee is waivable on stated balance or activity conditions. Chase lists each business card's annual fee on that card's own page.

What documents a given bank requires to open an account for a new LLC is set by that bank. The bank's own account-opening page is the place to confirm, and requirements vary by bank.

Step 4: What actually reports, and how do I build a file?

This is the step where a credit file begins to form. The SBA's wording is about vendors and suppliers who report, and the operative word is report. An account that does not report to the business credit bureaus does not build a file, however reliably it is paid.

Each card issuer, vendor or platform can say whether it reports, and it is the question worth asking each provider before opening an account. The providers below are listed alphabetically, which is not a ranking, and every figure is dated as of 2026-10-06.

American Express sells business credit cards. Annual fees vary by card, so no single figure applies, and each card's own page lists its fee.

Brex is a corporate card and spend platform. Essentials is free, Premium is $12 per user per month and Enterprise is quote-only.

Ramp is a corporate card and spend platform. Its Free plan is $0 per user per month, Plus is $15 per user per month and Enterprise is quote-only. The corporate card itself is free on every tier.

Each of these sets its own approval requirements for a company with no operating history, and its own application page is the authority. Whether a lender asks the owner for a personal guarantee is also that lender's decision, and no step removes it.

Step 5: How do I monitor business credit reports?

Monitoring is the SBA's fifth step, and it comes last for a practical reason: it watches a file, and a brand-new company has little or nothing in one. A free summary is usually enough at the start. Paying for continuous monitoring before any account reports is paying to watch an empty file.

The bureaus own the scores and sell the monitoring, which is why they are covered here as providers. The order is alphabetical, not a ranking.

Dun & Bradstreet lists D&B Credit Insights with a free tier at $0. The paid tiers are Basic at $49 per month or $499 per year, Plus at $149 per month or $1,499 per year, and Premium at $199 per month or $1,999 per year. The CreditSignal name has been retired and the current product is D&B Credit Insights.

Equifax lists $49.99 for a one-time report and monitoring from $39.99 per month. It does not sell business credit reports directly. They are sold through approved resellers: eCredable for the one-time report and Nav for monitoring. That is a real difference from Dun & Bradstreet and Experian, which sell their own.

Experian sells its own reports. The CreditScore Report is $59.95 and the ProfilePlus Report is $69.95, both one-off. Business Credit Advantage is $199 per year and Business CreditScore Pro is $1,995 per year.

Nav has a free plan at $0 that shows business credit summaries from all three bureaus. Its paid plans are Track at $39.99 per month, Build at $49.99 per month and Expand at $74.99 per month. For a first look, Nav's free tier is the broadest no-cost option, and that is the one concession worth making here. Where a reader wants a report straight from a single bureau, going to that bureau directly is the cleaner route.

What happened to the D-U-N-S number?

Much of the content on this topic gets this wrong. The General Services Administration announced that on April 4, 2022, SAM.gov and its other systems would switch to the Unique Entity ID, which is obtained at SAM.gov. The federal government no longer uses the D-U-N-S number as its identifier.

The number has not disappeared. It remains Dun & Bradstreet's own commercial identifier and still matters for D&B credit files. A reader who needs a federal identifier goes to SAM.gov. A reader who wants a Dun & Bradstreet credit file will still meet the D-U-N-S number.

The practical result is two separate questions that older articles blur into one. One is whether the business needs a federal identifier, which is a SAM.gov matter. The other is whether the business wants a Dun & Bradstreet file, which is a commercial matter. Neither is a required step in the SBA's five.

What does the FTC say about services that promise guaranteed credit?

Some services sell fast business credit for a fee. The FTC's guidance on advance-fee loans gives a plain test. It says banks and other legitimate lenders will not promise or guarantee a loan or credit before an application. It also says any up-front fee collected before a loan is granted is a cue to walk away, especially one described as insurance, processing or paperwork.

The FTC lists ad language used by scam operators, including "Bad credit? No problem," "No hassle, guaranteed" and "We don't care about your past. You deserve a loan!" Any offer built from those phrases, paired with a fee, matches the pattern the FTC warns about.

The FTC has also published a consumer alert on fraudulent funders aimed at small businesses, which is worth reading before responding to an unsolicited offer. A real application involves a decision by the lender. A promise of approval in advance does not.

The five steps above cost little or nothing to begin. The EIN is free, and no step requires paying someone to guarantee an outcome. A monitoring subscription is a different thing from a guarantee: a bureau or reseller selling monitoring is selling visibility into a file, not a result.

What does the order look like in practice?

Form the entity, get the free EIN, open a separate business bank account, set up accounts in the company's name that report, and then monitor. That is the whole procedure, and the discipline lies in doing it in that order.

For a newly formed LLC, a sensible first month is the bank account and one or two reporting accounts, with a free summary from Nav or D&B to confirm the file exists. Paid monitoring can wait until there is activity to watch.

Forming the LLC is necessary but not sufficient. It creates the entity, and everything after it builds the file.

Sources

This is general information, not legal, tax or accounting advice, and requirements vary and change.