Start Up Loan documents: the checklist and what each is for

What the loan is, briefly

A Start Up Loan is a government-backed personal loan, delivered through the British Business Bank, that you use for your business. Because it is personal and unsecured, you repay it whether or not the business works. As at October 2026 the Start Up Loans site quotes £500 to £25,000 per person, a fixed rate of 7.5 per cent a year, a term of one to five years, no application or set-up fees, and eligibility for businesses trading for less than 60 months. The terms change, so check the current figures on startuploans.co.uk.

The documents

The Start Up Loans site lists four core documents. Proof of identity, proof of address and visa documents are requested as needed.

The site says the assessment comes down to three things: your credit history, from a credit check; the viability of the business, from the plan and the forecast; and whether you can afford the repayments, from the survival budget. Every document maps to one of those tests, so write each one with its test in mind.

The business plan

The plan has two jobs. It has to convince an assessor who has never met you that the business can trade, and it has to say exactly what the loan buys. "Working capital" is not an answer. "£6,000 on a second-hand van, £4,000 on opening stock, £2,000 on a website and three months of advertising" is. The site is clear that the loan cannot be used to repay debts or to pay for training and education, so keep both out of the plan. Then cover the product, who buys it and why, who else sells it, how you will reach customers, and how the work gets done.

The cash-flow forecast

Twelve months, monthly columns. The loan comes in as a receipt in month one. The repayments go out every month from the month after, at the figure the Start Up Loans repayment calculator gives you. Your own drawings go in as a cost, at no less than the gap in your survival budget. If you will be VAT-registered, show the VAT payments in the right quarters. Sales should start low and build, because they will. A flat sales line from month one tells the assessor you have not thought about how customers find a new business.

The personal survival budget

This is a household budget, not a business one. Income: any salary, a partner's income, benefits, savings you will draw on. Outgoings: rent or mortgage, council tax, utilities, food, loan repayments, childcare, the car. The difference is what the business has to pay you each month, and it must appear in the forecast as drawings. If the forecast cannot pay you that amount, the assessor will conclude that you will either take the money anyway and sink the business, or default on the loan.

The bank statements

Three months, consecutive, from the account the survival budget describes. The assessor reads them against the budget. If the budget says £150 a month on food and the statements show £500, or if there are returned payments and regular gambling transactions, the budget loses its credibility and so does the rest of the application. Tidy the account up for three months before you apply if you can; if not, be straight about what the statements show.

The quickest way to lose an assessor is two documents from the same applicant giving two different numbers for the same thing.

How the documents must agree

As an analyst, the first thing I did with any set of company documents was cross-check them: did the sales in the narrative match the model, did the spend described match the cash flow. Assessors do the same. The loan amount in the plan is the loan receipt in the forecast. The spend list in the plan is the month-one payments in the forecast. The survival budget gap is the drawings line. The statements support the survival budget. The forecast's year-one sales match the plan's year-one sales to the pound. Check all five before you submit, and if you change one document, change the others.

Common mistakes

• No loan repayments in the forecast.
• No drawings, or drawings lower than the survival budget gap.
• Full sales from month one.
• Asking for the maximum because it is available, with no itemised use for it.
• A survival budget that the bank statements contradict.
• Including anything the loan cannot be used for.

How long to allow

The Start Up Loans site says the process typically takes four to six weeks, and as little as two if your documents are final when you start. Once you begin an application you have up to 90 days to complete it, the assessment itself usually takes about five working days, and a loan offer is valid for 90 days. Allow two to three weeks before that to prepare the documents if you are starting from scratch. If I prepare the plan and forecast, the first draft takes five working days and I check that the survival budget ties to the drawings line. I do not fill in the survival budget for you; only you know those numbers.

Common questions