Business Credit Bureaus: D&B, Experian, Equifax (2026 Reference)

The US business credit-reporting landscape is dominated by three bureaus that hold the bulk of business-credit data: Dun & Bradstreet (D&B), Experian Business, and Equifax Business. Each bureau holds a separate file on most US businesses, populated by data the bureau collects from trade vendors, lenders, public records, and a range of demographic sources. Each bureau computes one or more scores from its file using proprietary algorithms. The scores are used by trade vendors deciding whether to extend Net-30 terms, by lenders evaluating loan applications, by commercial-lease landlords screening tenants, and by other counterparties evaluating business-credit risk.

The three-bureau structure parallels the three-consumer-bureau structure (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) but with several important differences. The business bureaus operate under different legal frameworks (the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not apply), use different identifying numbers (the DUNS number at D&B; the EIN at Experian and Equifax), have different reporting-vendor relationships, and produce different scoring outputs.

For a business owner attempting to understand and manage the business's credit profile, the practical implication is that "the business credit score" is not a single number; the entity has three separate files with three separate scoring outputs, and a different number is what the counterparty sees depending on which bureau they pull from. Managing the business-credit profile requires attention to all three.

Dun & Bradstreet and PAYDEX

Dun & Bradstreet is the oldest of the three US business credit bureaus, with origins in commercial credit reporting dating to the nineteenth century. D&B's file is identified by the DUNS number, a free nine-digit identifier the bureau issues to any US business that requests one through the D&B website. The DUNS number is a prerequisite for some federal-contracting registrations and for some vendor accounts that report to D&B.

The PAYDEX score. D&B's flagship score, PAYDEX, measures payment behavior on tradelines in the entity's D&B file. The scale runs 0 to 100. The benchmark interpretation:

• 80: paid as agreed (payments received by the due date)
• 70-79: slow up to 15 days past due
• 60-69: slow 16-30 days past due
• 50-59: slow 31-60 days past due
• 40-49: slow 61-90 days past due
• 30-39: slow 91-120 days past due
• 0-29: severely delinquent or in collection
• Above 80: early payment (paying before the due date)

The score is computed from a dollar-weighted average of payment timeliness across reported tradelines, so a single $50,000 invoice paid 30 days late has more impact than ten $500 invoices paid on time. D&B publishes the scoring methodology in its public materials; the precise weighting formulas are proprietary.

Tradeline reporting at D&B. Many trade vendors (office supplies, shipping, industrial supplies) report payment experiences to D&B as part of standard accounts-receivable reporting. Some report automatically; some require the vendor's customer to be on a specific D&B-reporting program. Business credit cards from some issuers also report to D&B. The site's building business credit reference covers vendor selection for D&B reporting in detail.

Other D&B scores. Beyond PAYDEX, D&B publishes a Commercial Credit Score (predicting delinquency risk), a Financial Stress Score (predicting risk of severe financial distress), a Supplier Evaluation Risk Rating, and other specialty scores. PAYDEX is the most commonly cited; the others are used in more specialized contexts.

Experian Business and Intelliscore Plus

Experian Business is the commercial-credit division of Experian, the same company that operates one of the three US consumer credit bureaus. The business-credit file is identified by the entity's EIN (along with business name and address). Experian's business-credit file is built from tradeline data, public records (liens, judgments, bankruptcies), and demographic information (industry classification, time in business, employee count, sales volume).

Intelliscore Plus v2. Experian's flagship business-credit score is Intelliscore Plus, currently in its v2 generation. The scale runs 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating lower risk. The score is designed to predict the likelihood of serious delinquency on business obligations in the next 12 months. The interpretation bands published by Experian generally group:

• 76-100: low risk
• 51-75: low-to-medium risk
• 26-50: medium-to-high risk
• 11-25: high risk
• 1-10: highest risk

The exact factor weighting is proprietary, but Experian's published materials describe the contributing factors as including current payment performance, historical payment trends, age and depth of the credit file, presence of public-record events, demographic risk (industry, size, time in business), and outstanding-balance utilization on revolving accounts.

Experian Business Credit Report. The full Experian business report shows the score plus the underlying tradeline data, public records, demographic information, and any inquiries. A business owner can pull their own report for a fee through Experian's business-credit-report service.

Owner-credit interaction. Experian's Intelliscore Plus and related products sometimes blend personal-credit signal from the owner (where the owner's personal-credit information is on file with Experian and the entity is small) into the business-credit prediction. The blend is a real feature of the score; for very small or early-stage entities, the owner's personal credit may carry meaningful weight in the business score.

Equifax Business and the Credit Risk Score

Equifax Business is the commercial-credit division of Equifax, the same company that operates one of the three US consumer credit bureaus. The business-credit file at Equifax is identified by the entity's EIN, name, and address.

Equifax Business Credit Risk Score. Equifax's primary business-credit risk score uses a 101 to 992 range, with higher scores indicating lower risk of serious delinquency in the next 12 months. The wider numerical range (compared to D&B's 0-100 or Experian's 1-100) is a presentation choice rather than a more granular underlying calculation.

Equifax Business Failure Score. A separate Equifax score predicts the likelihood of business closure or formal failure (bankruptcy, dissolution) in the next 12 months. This is distinct from the delinquency-risk score and is sometimes used by counterparties evaluating long-term commercial relationships.

Equifax's data sources. Equifax's business file is built from tradeline reporting, public records, banking data (where available through bank-reporting relationships), demographic information, and (like Experian) some integration of owner personal-credit signal for smaller entities. The specific tradeline-reporter relationships differ from D&B and Experian, which is part of why a business's three-bureau scores often vary substantially.

Why the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not apply

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 USC 1681 et seq., is the federal statute that governs consumer credit-reporting agencies. The Act defines a "consumer report" as a written, oral, or other communication of information bearing on a consumer's credit worthiness used for a consumer-related purpose. Business credit reports are not consumer reports; they describe an entity's creditworthiness, not a consumer's. The FCRA's framework therefore does not apply.

The practical consequences of FCRA non-applicability for business credit reports.

Dispute procedures are bureau-discretionary. Each business bureau has its own dispute process for inaccurate or incomplete information on a business-credit file, but the procedures are governed by the bureau's own policies rather than by the FCRA's mandatory investigation timelines, mandatory response procedures, and mandatory notification requirements that apply to consumer disputes. A business owner disputing an item on a business-credit file may receive a thorough investigation, a perfunctory one, or no investigation at all, depending on the bureau and the circumstances.

No adverse-action notice requirement. Counterparties who pull a business-credit report and deny credit based on it are not required, under the FCRA, to provide the business with adverse-action notice or the credit-score that informed the decision (unlike the FCRA's notice requirements when consumer credit reports inform consumer-credit decisions). Some other statutes or contractual arrangements may impose disclosure obligations, but the FCRA does not.

No permissible-purpose limitation. The FCRA limits the purposes for which consumer credit reports may be pulled (specifically, to use for credit, employment, insurance, government-licensing, or limited other permitted purposes). No equivalent restriction applies to business credit reports. A counterparty with a business-relationship interest can typically pull a business-credit report for any reasonable commercial purpose without consent.

No reinvestigation or accuracy mandate. The FCRA's mandate of accurate reporting (the maximum-possible-accuracy standard, the obligation to reinvestigate disputed items) does not apply. Business bureaus have their own accuracy practices but operate without the federal accuracy floor.

No identity-theft framework. The FCRA's identity-theft provisions (fraud alerts, freezes, blocked-information procedures) do not apply to business credit reports. A business owner who suspects their business identity has been used fraudulently has to work through each bureau's own (more limited) identity-correction procedures.

The implication. Business credit reports require more active monitoring by the business owner than consumer credit reports do, because the federal protections that catch problems on consumer reports do not exist on the business side. A business owner who waits for the federal-protection framework to surface a problem on their business file may discover the problem only when a counterparty declines a credit application based on it.

Which issuers report to which bureau

The map of which credit-card issuers report to which business bureau is not published comprehensively and changes over time. Some general patterns at the time of writing.

Reporting to D&B. A subset of major issuers reports business-card activity to D&B as part of standard tradeline reporting. Many smaller issuers and most fintech corporate-card products do not report to D&B unless the entity has specifically registered a DUNS number and the issuer's reporting policy aligns with the registration.

Reporting to Experian Business. Experian's business-bureau reporting relationships are broader than D&B's at major bank issuers. Most large bank issuers report at least some business-card account data to Experian Business.

Reporting to Equifax Business. Equifax's business-bureau coverage of credit-card issuers varies; some major issuers report, some do not.

Personal-bureau reporting on business cards. Capital One is the major US issuer most consistently associated with reporting business-card balances and payment history to personal credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion on the consumer side). Most other major issuers limit personal-bureau reporting on business cards to serious delinquency events. The site's personal credit impact reference and the regional-bank family reference cover this in more detail.

For a business owner who wants to use credit-card activity to build a business-bureau file at a specific bureau, the practical step is to ask each prospective issuer about their reporting policy before opening the account. The answer varies enough that prospective applicants who care about bureau-building should ask explicitly.

Monitoring the file

Each business bureau offers a paid monitoring product for the business owner.

D&B CreditSignal and D&B Credit. D&B's free CreditSignal product provides basic change-alerts on the entity's D&B file. The paid D&B Credit product (and the higher-tier CreditMonitor and CreditBuilder products) provides fuller file access, scoring detail, and proactive monitoring. The pricing varies by tier.

Experian Business CreditScore Pro. Experian offers a paid monitoring subscription with full file access, score detail, and change alerts.

Equifax Business Credit Report. Equifax offers on-demand business-credit reports for a per-pull fee and subscription options.

Free alternatives. Free business-bureau monitoring exists in the form of ad-supported services (Nav and similar), but the depth of file access is typically more limited than the paid bureau-direct products.

For an early-stage business, manually pulling each bureau's file once a quarter is sufficient. For a more mature business with substantial vendor and lender relationships dependent on business-credit profile, a continuous monitoring subscription on at least one bureau (often D&B because of its commercial focus, sometimes Experian because of its broader issuer-reporting relationships) is the standard discipline.

What to look for on monitoring. New tradelines (verify they are accurate and properly attributed). Late-payment reports (investigate whether the underlying invoice was actually late or whether the vendor reported in error). Public-record additions (liens, judgments). Inquiry-list activity (which counterparties pulled the file, which can hint at customer or supplier evaluation). Score movement (correlate with file changes to understand what drove the move).

The FICO SBSS as an aggregator score

The FICO Small Business Scoring Service (FICO SBSS) is a separate scoring model that does not maintain its own bureau file but instead blends data from the three primary business bureaus (and sometimes from consumer-credit data on the owner) to produce a single score. The SBSS is widely used by SBA lenders and by some bank commercial-lending divisions; the SBA in particular requires an SBSS score on most 7(a) loan applications, with a minimum threshold for streamlined approval.

The SBSS scale runs 0 to 300, with higher scores indicating lower risk. The SBA's published threshold for 7(a) Small Loan eligibility has historically been 155 (subject to SBA policy updates); thresholds at private lenders vary.

What the SBSS contributes. By blending data across bureaus, the SBSS smooths out the bureau-to-bureau variance that single-bureau scores produce. The blended score is generally a better predictor of default than any individual bureau's score taken alone, which is why the SBA has standardized on it for the small-loan program. For a business owner whose application path involves SBA financing, understanding the SBSS in addition to the three primary bureau scores is part of the preparation.

FICO publishes general information about the SBSS methodology; the specific factor weighting is proprietary. The SBSS is not a score the business owner can pull directly from FICO; it is generated at the lender's request through FICO's small-business-scoring service when the lender evaluates an application.