Quick answer: how do I establish business credit from scratch?

Follow the SBA's five steps in order. First, choose a business structure that makes the company a distinct legal entity. Second, get an EIN. Third, open a business bank account. Fourth, establish credit with vendors and suppliers who report. Fifth, monitor business credit reports. Each step depends on the one before it, and the first two are the ones most often skipped or done out of order. A reader who has not formed the company yet should 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 is the sequence for building business credit from nothing?

The SBA's guidance on building business credit quickly lays out five steps. This page follows them in the same order, because the order is the point. Skipping ahead, for example applying for credit before the entity and bank account exist, tends to push the application back onto a personal profile.

The SBA also says that to keep business and personal finances separate, the first step is to start building credit in the company's name. Everything below is a way of doing that.

None of these steps comes with a fixed timeline. How long a lender takes, how far an action moves a score and what any score threshold is all vary by lender and bureau.

Step 1: How do I choose the right business structure?

The SBA says that making a business a distinct legal entity requires selecting a structure such as an LLC, LLP or corporation. The distinction matters because credit needs something to attach to. Without a separate entity, there is no company's name in which to build a file.

This page is written for a newly formed LLC, so the structure question is largely answered. For a reader who has not yet formed one, this is the step to finish first, and it is where ZenBusiness is relevant. It is not a credit provider. What it covers is the first two steps in the SBA's order.

Forming an LLC does not create business credit by itself. It creates the entity that credit can later attach to.

Step 2: How do I get an EIN?

The SBA says an EIN can be applied for free using the IRS assistance tool. The IRS issues the number at no cost, so a charge from a third party for the number itself is a charge for convenience, not a requirement.

The EIN identifies the company to the IRS and is used when opening accounts. The IRS sets out how to apply on its page for getting an Employer Identification Number, and the application is the authoritative path.

This is the second of the two steps where ZenBusiness is relevant, as the SBA's sequence puts the entity and the EIN at the start. Both can also be done directly with the IRS at no cost.

Step 3: How do I open a business bank account?

The SBA lists this as the third step. A business account 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.

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 any given bank requires is set by that bank. The bank's own account-opening page is the place to confirm.

Step 4: How do I establish credit with vendors and suppliers who report?

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

Each vendor, card issuer or platform can say whether it reports, so it is worth asking each one 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 history, and its application page is the authority.

Step 5: How do I monitor business credit reports?

Monitoring is the SBA's fifth step, and it comes last because it watches a file that exists only after the earlier steps. A brand-new company has little to see, so a free summary is usually enough at first. Paying for continuous monitoring before any account reports is paying to watch an empty file.

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.

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.

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.

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, and one who wants a D&B file will still meet the D-U-N-S number.

What should be avoided when building credit from scratch?

Some services promise fast business credit for a fee. The FTC 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" and "No hassle, guaranteed." The five steps above cost little or nothing to start, and no step requires paying someone to guarantee an outcome. A guarantee of approval, paired with a fee, is the pattern to avoid.

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 is in doing it in that order.

Forming the LLC is necessary but not sufficient. Whether a lender asks for a personal guarantee is that lender's decision, and no step removes it.

Sources

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