The 5 Best Business Construction Loans for Your Building Company
5 Construction Business Loans to Consider
Business construction loans are small business loans that cover hefty construction expenses, including materials, on-site facilities, temporary machine parts, and wages for crew members. But with all the available small business loans—short-term loans, bank loans, invoice financing—which is right for your construction company?
Our list of best construction business loans will streamline your research. These loans will suit various stages of your construction company’s growth, so you can choose based on your company’s age, size, and loan eligibility.
The Best Small Business Construction Loans: Quick Facts
Before getting into the intricate details of each type of best construction business loan out there, we’ll do a quick rundown to familiarize you with any loans you might not have heard of before.
We’ll include who the loan is best for and the eligibility you’ll likely need to secure that type of funding.
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The 5 Best Construction Business Loans
1. Equipment Financing
Best for: New businesses
No matter what type of project your construction company hopes to undertake, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll need equipment—and lots of it—to carry out the job. But even a single piece of equipment is expensive, meaning newer construction companies might not have the funds available to finance all the tools they need to get themselves off the ground.
Your business construction loan solution is equipment financing. With an equipment loan, you come to a lender with a quote, and if you’re approved, they front you 80% to 100% of the cash you need to purchase the equipment.
Like a traditional term loan, you’ll repay your lender in regular installments, usually on a monthly basis. The life of your loan depends on how long the lender anticipates that the equipment you’re borrowing against is useful and valuable.
What really sets this type of loan apart from many of the other business loans you might know about, however, is that your lender uses the equipment itself as collateral. That means if you fail to repay your loan, the lender will seize that equipment to satisfy their debt.
That baked-in collateral mitigates the lender’s risk. They’re guaranteed to be repaid if you default, whether that’s through your agreed-upon repayment, or by repossessing the equipment.
Since this is a relatively low-risk business construction loan scenario, lenders aren’t so concerned with working strictly with low-risk businesses—i.e., established businesses with years’ worth of evidence of profitability and good credit scores. So, it’s a little easier for newer construction companies to qualify for equipment loans.
Requirements
- Credit score: 600+
- Time in business: 11+ months
- Average revenue: $100,000
Even if your business can’t meet these approximate minimum requirements, you might still have a shot at securing equipment financing.
For the most part, lenders are as concerned with the value of the equipment itself as they are with your personal creditworthiness. But, as always, borrowers with the strongest applications will be eligible for the lowest interest rates on their loans.
2. Business Lines of Credit
Best for: Growing businesses
Think of a business line of credit a bit like a business credit card, but without the actual card and without the rewards that usually accompany a credit card. Essentially, your lender gives your construction company access to a renewable pool of capital, with an amount they determine based on your business’s financial profile and your personal creditworthiness.
You can choose how much of those funds you want to borrow from, and access the money whenever you need or want them most. You’ll only pay interest on the money you use. Plus, interest rates on business lines of credit tend to be lower than those on business credit cards—unless you make late payments, in which case that interest rate can spike.
Business lines of credit are ideal financing solutions for most small businesses, but construction companies, in particular, can benefit from their flexibility.
You can rely on this revolving resource to replace defunct or broken equipment, hire and train a wave of employees, and have a cash cushion during seasonal dips, slow periods, or if a customer is dragging their feet on payment.
Business lines of credit can also offer backup if you need to jump on unexpected opportunities to grow your business. Even if you need to apply for a business term loan to finance big, one-time purchases down the line, you can still keep a business line of credit in your back pocket to fill in those intermittent cash-flow gaps.
Requirements
- Credit score: 550+
- Annual revenue: 100,000+
- Time in business: Two or more years
These numbers will vary depending on which lender you work with—and which type of lender, as both banks and certain alternative lenders offer business lines of credit. Typically, bank business loans extend larger amounts than alternative lenders but almost universally have tougher qualifications.
Depending on the financial institution you work with, and your overall financial profile, you can expect line of credit amounts to be as small as $5,000, or up to over $1 million for the most eligible borrowers working with bigger banks.
3. SBA 7(a) Loans
Best for: Established businesses seeking general financing
If you’re a long-time business owner with strong financials, you might qualify for the SBA 7(a) loan. Although they’re backed by the U.S. government, SBA loans are actually issued by banks. The Small Business Administration guarantees the majority of the loan amount if a borrower defaults—up to 85%.
That safety net reduces the risk to the lender, so banks are actually incentivized to extend SBA loans, and at extremely favorable terms to borrowers. SBA loans carry low interest rates, long repayment periods, large business loan amounts, and low down payments.
The SBA offers a few loan programs, all of which differ according to eligible use-cases and amounts funded. But the SBA 7(a) loan is definitely the most popular and flexible type of these government-backed loans because you can use them for the widest range of business purposes.
That said, even though banks are guaranteed to be repaid one way or another, SBA loans are in high demand, so banks still have the privilege of picking and choosing which borrowers they want to work with. As always, that means low-risk borrowers with great credit scores and several years’ worth of profitability.
Established construction companies have the best shot at meeting all the qualifications of the SBA loan application. But if you do qualify for an SBA loan, you aren’t likely to find a more generous loan amount or better terms anywhere else.
General Requirements
- Credit score: 650+, but 700+ is ideal
- Annual revenue: $100,000+
- Time in business: At least two years
SBA Requirements
- U.S.-based business
- For-profit entity
- Record of investment into building your business—both time and money
Minimum eligibility requirements differ according to the lender you work with—and although the SBA technically doesn’t have a hard credit score requirement for SBA 7(a) loans, you’ll always have a better chance of securing a loan with a higher credit score.
Keep in mind that you’ll need to provide a good amount of paperwork on your SBA loan application, but the process is worth it for a shot at one of the best loans available on the market.
4. SBA CDC/504 Loans
Best for: Established businesses seeking financing for fixed assets
With SBA CDC/504 loans, you gain access to 90% financing and repayment terms up to 25 years. SBA CDC/504 loans can be used to purchase equipment or machinery, build new facilities, and remodel existing facilities—ideal for your construction company. Since SBA CDC/504loans are reserved mainly for fixed assets, you cannot use this financing as working capital.
Unlike other SBA loans, this loan is comprised of three parts—the CDC’s maximum contribution is $5 million. The bank’s contribution can be up to triple the CDC’s portion. Just remember: you must front 10% of the total loan amount.
SBA CDC/504 loans have one rate for the CDC’s portion and another rate for the bank’s portion. The CDC’s interest rate is based on the current rate for U.S. Treasury bonds, ranging between 3% and 6%. The bank portion’s rate can be either fixed or variable, and typically will not exceed 10%. You should also be mindful of additional fees, including an SBA guarantee fee, CDC servicing fee, and a central servicing agent fee.
Requirements
- Credit score: 650+
- Net worth not exceeding $15 million
- Average net income not exceeding $5 million after federal income taxes for two years prior to application
- The project must create or retain jobs or promote public policy goals (e.g., diversify the local economy, assist manufacturing firms, expansion of exports)
- Among other general SBA loan requirements
5. Business Credit Cards
Best for: All businesses
We recommend that every business, no matter their size, age, or industry, responsibly uses a business credit card for their everyday purchases. By responsibly, we mean paying your balance in full and on time every month.
That can get a little tricky for construction companies that may need to carry a balance from month to month to pay down extra-large expenses. But carrying a balance on a credit card means having to pay a lot of interest, which can cause a serious dent in your cash flow. And paying credit card bills late will lower your credit score.
You have several different options for business credit cards as a construction or building company, and your strategy for picking one will change depending on your exact needs. Here are three very different ways to think about using business credit cards as construction business loans.
American Express Blue Business Plus
If you’re clever about it, you can use a business credit card with a long 0% intro APR period like an interest-free loan. The American Express Blue Business Plus is an excellent example of this approach.
This card comes with a 12-month 0% intro APR period on purchases. That’s a year during which you’ll be able to carry a balance without any additional interest (after that, a variable APR will kick in, based on your creditworthiness and the market Prime Rate, so see the issuer’s terms and conditions for details).
This will allow you to put a large purchase onto your card and pay it off, interest-free, over the next 12 months.
Of course, just make certain you do pay it back—because you don’t want to end up paying credit card interest fees. But if you’re able to make a setup like this work for you, you can not only take advantage of the great introductory offer but also build credit to work toward a great business loan product, too.
American Express Plum
If payment flexibility is appealing to you, you know you don’t need a full year to pay off a purchase, and you want flexibility, consider the American Express Business Plum Card, which will give you all of that—plus rewards and discounts.
The Amex Plum is actually a charge card, not a credit card. That means you’ll be able to spend big on the card with no credit limit. You also have a full 60-day grace period from your due date to pay off your spending—and you’ll get a 1.5% discount on every dollar you spend and pay off early.
There are costly late fees on this card as it’s a charge card, so if you don’t think you’ll be able to pay off your balance in full each month, this won’t be a great tool for your business. It’s also important to note that this card has a sizable annual fee—$250.
Bento for Business
If you’re not ready to fully make a jump into a business credit card, try the Bento for Business card. The Bento is actually a prepaid business debit card. Rather than receiving an assigned credit line from a card issuer—as is the case with a true credit card—you’ll load the Bento with your own cash after securely hooking it up to your business bank account.
That way, you’ll never be carrying a monthly balance, nor need to worry about paying on time. Using the Bento won’t affect your personal credit score at all, either positively or negatively—but that also means there’s no credit check required to apply for a Bento card.
What Bento does do, though, is it allows you all the convenience and control of a business credit card, and then some. First, your Bento account lets you create as many employee cards as you need, which you’ll pay for according to a sliding scale, so you can you easily delegate cards to your team.
Plus, you can use Bento’s card-management tools, including a mobile app and a dashboard, to oversee, limit, and adjust the budgets on all of those cards.
Bento will hook directly into whatever business accounting software you’re using, too, so you can see your spending patterns—and when the time comes for a real business credit card, you’ll know exactly what you spend on, and how much.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Bottom Line
Sure, it can be overwhelming to sort through all of the small business financing options on the market. And it’s certainly true that not every form of financing makes sense for your construction business.
But, on the flip side, with all of these small business loans for construction companies available, you’re likely to find some form of financing that suits your construction company and its needs—even as it grows and evolves.
Meredith Wood
Meredith Wood is the founding editor of the Fundera Ledger and a vice president at Fundera. She launched the Fundera Ledger in 2014 and has specialized in financial advice for small business owners for almost a decade. Meredith is frequently sought out for her expertise in small business lending. She is a monthly columnist for AllBusiness, and her advice has appeared in the SBA, SCORE, Yahoo, Amex OPEN Forum, Fox Business, American Banker, Small Business Trends, MyCorporation, Small Biz Daily, StartupNation, and more. Email: meredith@fundera.com.
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