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Part of What business credit scores cannot tell you
5 points on business credit scores rules that matter
Business credit scores rules live in four separate rulebooks. How to tell which one governs your question, and where to check each one directly.
When somebody tells you "the rules" about business credit scores, they are quoting one of four different things, and only one of the four is written down somewhere you can read.
Learning to tell them apart is more durable than memorizing any particular rule, because three of the four change without announcement.
The five points
- No single rulebook.Law, model design, counterparty policy and vendor marketing all get described using the same word, and only law is written down somewhere you can read. Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business and Equifax Business each publish their own model, so one file can look different from one bureau to the next.
- The consumer law you know stops at the business file.The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the CFPB's Regulation V govern consumer reports. A commercial report on your business generally is not a consumer report, so the disclosure and dispute rights you may have in mind do not carry over automatically.
- Each bureau's model is its own rule, and it changes without asking you.Dun & Bradstreet publishes PAYDEX, Experian Business publishes Intelliscore Plus, and Equifax Business sells its own business risk scores. FICO's Small Business Scoring Service (SBSS) is a score SBA lenders use. Your number can move while your business does not.
- A correction runs bureau by bureau.You correct an entry with the bureau that published it, through that bureau's own process, and the change does not propagate to the others. Start with the furnisher that reported the entry, because it is the party that can change what it sends.
- A tradeline is a reporting relationship, not a rule.Reporting to a business bureau is largely voluntary, so a tradeline sits on your file only because a furnisher chose to send it. Anyone who tells you what "the rules" require should be able to point to a dated source.
Four rulebooks
Who sets it
- Law and regulation
- Legislatures and regulators
- Model design
- Each bureau, for its own indicators
- Counterparty policy
- Each lender, supplier, insurer or landlord
- Vendor marketing
- Whoever is selling you something
Can you read it?
- Law and regulation
- Yes, and it is published, but what covers business files differs from what covers consumer files
- Model design
- Only in summary. The weights are a product, not a disclosure
- Counterparty policy
- No. It is internal and it changes with their appetite
- Vendor marketing
- It is not a rule at all, however confidently it is phrased
Most arguments about business credit are two people quoting different rows and
Four rulebooks compared
Law and regulation
- Who sets it
- Legislatures, regulators
- Can you read it
- Yes, published
- What changes it
- Legislature acts
Model design
- Who sets it
- Each bureau
- Can you read it
- Only in summary
- What changes it
- Bureau revises model
Counterparty policy
- Who sets it
- Lender, supplier, insurer
- Can you read it
- No, internal
- What changes it
- Credit committee meets
Vendor marketing
- Who sets it
- Whoever is selling
- Can you read it
- Not a rule
- What changes it
- Marketing copy rewritten
Telling them apart in practice
Ask where the rule came from and what would have to happen for it to change.
A rule that changes when a legislature acts is law. A rule that changes when a bureau revises a model is design, and your number can move without your business moving, which is one of the ordinary surprises owners run into.
A rule that changes when a credit committee meets is policy. That is why two similar businesses get opposite answers from two lenders in the same week.
A rule that changes when the marketing copy is rewritten is not a rule.
What "the rules changed" usually means
Rarely law. Usually one of these: a bureau revised or retired an indicator, a furnisher changed what or when it sends, a counterparty tightened its policy, or a vendor rewrote its pitch.
The response to the first two is to read the file rather than the number. The response to the third is to ask the counterparty directly, which is often the fastest route to a real answer. The response to the fourth is to stop reading.
Where to check, in order
- The bureau that issues the indicator. For what its product measures, on what scale, over what horizon, and how to see your own file. Nobody else is
Where to check, in order
- Bureau that issues the indicator
- Regulator's current guidance
- Counterparty about to make the decision
- Your own agreements
The SBA's outline of establishing business credit is a reasonable neutral starting point for the sequence, though it is a guide rather than a rulebook.
Rules that hold without looking anything up
A short list, true by how the system is built rather than by regulation.
- Reporting to a business bureau is largely voluntary, so a perfectly paid account may contribute nothing anywhere.
- A correction is made at each bureau separately, through that bureau's own process, and does not propagate. That is the practical shape of raising a dispute.
- A score is an input to somebody's decision and never the decision itself.
- A model output is not separately negotiable. It moves when the data moves.
- Business files are broadly more available to third parties than consumer files are. Treat yours as semi-public.
- Your signature on an application is yours regardless of who advised you.
None of those requires a citation because none of them is a figure. Everything that is a figure requires one, which is the whole distinction this page is about.
When a figure or an obligation genuinely matters to you, go to the text, not a summary.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes its credit reporting requirements for the consumer system. How much of that framework reaches a report about a business is a question for a lawyer, not a page like this.
For business lending there is a separate federal rule: Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which the CFPB administers and which requires covered lenders to collect and report data on small business credit applications. It governs a lender's paperwork, not how a score is built. For the score itself, the published rules are the ones each bureau writes about its own product, and then the credit policy of whichever counterparty is deciding.
Common questions
Do the protections I know from personal credit apply here?
Do not assume so. The frameworks are different, and the differences are structural rather than cosmetic. The groundwork guide sets out where they diverge, and the regulator's own current material is the place to confirm anything specific.
Is there a rule about how long something stays on a business file?
Retention practice belongs to each bureau and is described in that bureau's own material. Take it from there, dated, rather than from anywhere that states it as a general fact.
Who can I complain to if something is wrong?
Start with the furnisher that sent the entry and the bureau that published it — Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business or Equifax Business — because they are the two parties who can change it. For a report about you personally, the FCRA gives you a dispute route and the CFPB's Regulation V sets the rules for it; for a commercial report on your business, each bureau's own process is the route, and it does not propagate. What a bureau will not do is revisit the number itself as a separate matter.
