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A complete guide to UK Growth Guarantee Scheme eligibility — the British Business Bank scheme rules, the lender-level credit policy that sits on top of those rules, the businesses that are excluded, and the realistic alternatives if your business falls outside the GGS box.
Check my GGS eligibility →There are two separate eligibility tests for any UK Growth Guarantee Scheme application:
Your business needs to clear both tests to receive a GGS offer. Failing the scheme test means no GGS lender can help. Failing one lender’s credit policy doesn’t mean failing all of them — this is where having an introducer / broker matters.
Your business must pass all of the following BBB scheme criteria.
Where lenders typically draw their credit-policy lines (these vary materially across the panel):
High-street banks: typically prefer 24+ months trading. Challenger / specialist non-bank lenders: 12 months or in some cases 6 months trading is acceptable.
Clean files price tightest. CCJs, defaults and historic IVAs need full disclosure — specialist lenders have broader appetite here, but ticket size and pricing reflect that.
3–6 months of business bank statements (or open-banking PSD2 read-only access) is standard. Returned direct debits, gambling activity and wage-day overdraft hits all matter.
Lenders apply their own affordability tests — usually based on EBITDA, free cash-flow or a serviceability ratio. A loss-making year typically isn’t fatal, but the trend matters.
The 70% BBB guarantee does not remove the borrower’s liability. Personal Guarantees from material directors are standard on most GGS facilities. Property-backed cases price tighter.
Each lender publishes its own restricted-sector list. Hospitality, retail and certain construction sub-sectors are sometimes restricted at specific lenders — but never restricted across the whole panel.
If you’re unsure which fits, our short enquiry will run a single soft-search across both GGS and non-scheme lenders and come back with the best-fit indicative offers from the panel.
A UK trading business with group turnover up to £45m, deemed viable by the lender, not in financial difficulty under subsidy-control rules, not in an excluded sector and using funds for a legitimate UK business purpose. Each lender then applies its own credit-policy test on top.
The scheme itself doesn’t set a minimum — it’s set lender by lender. High-street banks typically want 24+ months. Challenger and specialist non-bank GGS lenders can write business at 12 months trading, occasionally as little as 6 months.
Pre-revenue startups don’t typically pass GGS lender credit policy. The British Business Bank Start Up Loan (up to £25k personal-name) is usually the right product at that stage. Once trading is established (6–12 months in), GGS may become accessible.
Yes — in many cases. Specialist non-bank GGS lenders have broader credit appetite, particularly for historic adverse that is settled and dated. Active IVAs, recent bankruptcies and fresh material CCJs are the main hard blockers.
Yes — sole traders, partnerships and limited liability partnerships are all eligible alongside limited companies, provided the wider scheme criteria are met.
Most likely yes for material directors. The 70% BBB guarantee is to the lender, not to the borrower — it does not remove the borrower’s underlying liability. Personal Guarantees are standard on most GGS facilities.
Tell us about your business and we’ll soft-search across our accredited GGS panel — with non-scheme alternatives where GGS isn’t the right fit.
Check my eligibilityEvery page below feeds the same panel of British Business Bank-accredited GGS lenders. Pick the deep-dive that matches your question, or jump to grants and alternative funding routes.
© 2026 The Loans Hub. All rights reserved.
