Guides

Funding at 6 Months in Business: What to Do Before Year One

Six months in business? Many revenue-based lenders want more history. The options that fit now, their tradeoffs, and how to build a file ready for year one.

Six months in is a strange place to stand. The customers are real, the work is real, and so is the cash gap, which usually opens right when revenue starts arriving faster than the money to support it. Search for funding and plenty of pages will tell you six months is enough. Here is the honest version instead.

Updated October 5, 2026. An earlier version of this guide said Express Capital funds businesses at six months. That is no longer accurate. Our published minimums are 1+ year in business (no startups), $250,000+ in yearly revenue, a 580+ credit score, and the last 6 months of business bank statements.

At six months, many revenue-based lenders say 'not yet', and so do we

Revenue-based working capital is sized and repaid from the deposits a business already produces, so the lender's whole question is whether that revenue will hold. Time in business is the evidence. By year one, an operation has lived through every month of its own calendar once, the slow stretch included. At six months, half of that calendar is still a guess. That is why many revenue-based lenders want more operating history than six months, and why our minimum is a full year.

Files that clear those minimums are reviewed for revenue-based working capital from $10K–$350K. Clearing them starts a review; it doesn't decide one. The minimums decide whether we can look at a file. The full file, led by the bank statements, decides whether and what we can offer.

So if you are six months in, the honest answer is that it's too early for us. That is a statement about timing, not about your business. Young businesses grow fast, and a not-yet at month six is genuinely not yet, which is why most of this guide is about your next six months rather than about us.

A six-month business has real options, just smaller or narrower ones

There is money available at six months. Each kind fits one job well and others badly, and every one of them asks you to trade something: size, speed, or flexibility. These are general product categories, not offers. Requirements, terms, and costs vary by provider.

What the SBA microloan program is built for

The SBA describes its microloan program as helping small businesses start up and expand, so it is built for this stage on purpose. Loans go up to $50,000, and the SBA puts the average at about $13,000. They are made through intermediary lenders: nonprofit community-based organizations with experience in lending as well as management and technical assistance. The intermediary makes the credit decision and sets the terms, so requirements differ from one to the next. With repayment terms that can run up to seven years, it is patient money, if you can plan far enough ahead to arrange it.

Expensive capital can't fix a structural shortfall

This is the part a funding page usually skips. If the business needs money every month because it spends more than it brings in, that is a structural shortfall, and no form of capital fixes it. Short-term funding is built for a gap with an end: a job that pays on completion, a season that turns. Put against a gap that never closes, it just adds a payment to the problem.

Six months is when this mistake is most tempting. You may find capital offered to younger files, and a thinner history is less evidence, which tends to show up in the price. Before you take any of it, ask two questions. What is the total cost in dollars? Will the payment still clear in your slowest month? If the money isn't tied to something that earns it back, like a job, inventory that turns, or a hire who bills, fix the margin first. Borrow for a return, not to survive.

The statements a lender reads at year one haven't happened yet

This is the most useful fact in this guide. If you apply on your first anniversary, the last 6 months of business bank statements are months seven through twelve: the months you are about to live. At month six, the file that gets read at year one is still blank, and every line of it is yours to write. Here is how to write it well.

1. 1

   Run everything through one business account

   Open a dedicated business account if you haven't, and put every dollar of revenue through it: invoices, card payouts, and transfers from payment apps. The SBA's business guide recommends a business bank account partly because it keeps business funds separate from personal ones. Underwriting can only weigh deposits it can see, and revenue that lands in a personal account never reaches the file.

2. 2

   Deposit steadily, not in lumps

   Deposit as you get paid instead of saving checks for one big trip to the bank. The same money reads better arriving steadily than in spikes, because underwriting reads consistency as well as size, and a short file has few months to show it.

3. 3

   Don't stack short-term advances

   Every open advance is a daily or weekly debit on the statements the next lender reads. If you already carry one, plan to pay it down before year one rather than adding a second on top of it.

4. 4

   Keep the statements clean

   Hold a cushion so the balance never touches zero. Negative-balance days and NSF returns (payments bounced for non-sufficient funds) are among the first things an underwriter notices, and a young file has little history to absorb them. Keep personal spending out of the account, and note what large transfers were for.

5. 5

   Write down your seasonality

   If your business has a slow stretch, record when it hits, why, and what happens after, and keep the contracts, invoices, or bookings that show the rebound. Seasonality you explain reads as context. A dip an underwriter finds on their own reads as a question.

6. 6

   Protect the personal credit side

   Our published minimum is a 580+ credit score. If you are carrying business costs on personal cards, high balances can weigh on that score, so paying them down before year one keeps the number from becoming the issue.

At year one, apply once and on purpose

Apply when the statements tell the story, not when the account is empty. How fast you need money doesn't make a file stronger, and the best time to line up working capital is before the gap arrives. Apply with one direct lender rather than a dozen at once, because over-shopped files are read as higher risk across the industry. And don't round up: lenders differ on whether the clock starts at formation or at first revenue, so ask rather than calling month ten a year.

When you do clear the minimums, what follows is deliberately small: a short application, your last 6 months of business bank statements, and one advisor reading them with the context you bring. That is the start of a review, not the end of one.

Keep reading

Guide

How a Business Funding Decision Actually Gets Made

Guide

What You Need to Get Funded (and How to Prepare It)

Insight

Bank Statement Red Flags Underwriters See First

Insight

The Stacking Trap: How a Cash-Flow Gap Becomes a Structural One