Checking and correcting your business credit report

A business credit report is the file a business credit bureau keeps on how a company pays. Checking it is worth doing. Correcting it works differently from correcting your personal report, because the law behind your personal rights was written for people.

Why the personal credit rules do not carry over

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is the federal law that gives you free copies of your personal credit reports and a way to dispute errors in them. It defines a "consumer" as an individual. The free annual report it requires from the nationwide agencies goes to the consumer, at the consumer's request, and its dispute process starts when a consumer disputes an item in the consumer's own file. Its definition of a consumer report is built around information on a consumer used for things like credit or insurance for personal, family or household purposes.

A company is not an individual. So the FCRA's free report and dispute rights are not written for a business's file, and you should not expect a business bureau to follow the FCRA's process or its deadlines for the company's record.

What you can still do

• Ask the company that keeps the file. Each business bureau shows a company its own file on its own terms, and decides how corrections work. Start at the bureau's own site, not one that promises to raise a score. Ask what proof it wants and how long a correction takes, and keep a copy of everything you send.
• Go to the source. Most of a file is what suppliers, lenders and card issuers reported. If one of them reported a late payment you did not make, ask that company to correct what it sent, so the error does not come back with the next report.
• Check what your vendors report. Ask each supplier and lender whether it reports, to whom, and under what name and address. A file can split in two when the details do not match (see how to build business credit).
• Fix public records with the paper. A lien or judgment that was paid or released should have a release behind it. Send the bureau a copy.

What a score built from the file reads is covered in business credit scores, explained.

Where the FCRA does apply: your own report

Small business credit often reads the owner too. The SBA notes that loan eligibility for a new business is typically based on the owner's personal credit score, and a personal guarantee ties you to the debt yourself. When a lender looks at your personal report, that report is about an individual, you, and your FCRA rights apply to it.

• Free copies. The CFPB says you can view your credit reports online for free once a week at AnnualCreditReport.com, the official site, and warns about sites that make you buy something first.
• Disputes. A credit reporting agency generally has 30 days from receiving your dispute to reinvestigate it. The CFPB suggests disputing in writing, with copies of your proof, both with the credit reporting company and with the company that supplied the information.

Credit Help's guide to disputing a credit report error walks through the personal side step by step.