The short answer
Business vintage is how long your business has been operating, evidenced by documents rather than by memory. It is the single biggest gate in unsecured business lending: under two years, most lenders will not look at an unsecured loan whatever your turnover.
How lenders establish it
They take the earliest date they can evidence from your documents — usually whichever of these is oldest:
- Your GST registration certificate
- Udyam or MSME registration
- Trade licence or shop and establishment certificate
- The first income tax return filed for the business
- The date your current account was opened
- Certificate of incorporation, for a company
Note the implication: if you traded informally for four years and only registered last year, your evidenced vintage is one year, not five. This catches people out constantly.
Why it gates everything
Vintage is a proxy for survival. A large share of new businesses do not last three years, and a lender extending unsecured credit has no asset to fall back on. Trading history is the only real evidence that a business can withstand a bad quarter.
It also determines how much you can borrow. Most lenders scale the turnover multiple with vintage — a business trading ten years might be looked at for 18% to 25% of turnover where a three-year-old business is looked at for 10% to 18%.
The practical thresholds
| Vintage | What is realistic |
|---|---|
| Under 1 year | Unsecured lending is very unlikely. Property-backed lending, or borrowing personally, are the practical routes. |
| 1 – 2 years | A small number of lenders, small amounts, higher pricing. |
| 2 – 3 years | The door starts opening. Amounts remain conservative. |
| 3 – 5 years | The mainstream range. Most lenders will engage. |
| 5 years + | Best multiples and best pricing, all else equal. |
If your business is young
- Register everything now. Udyam registration is free and takes a day. Vintage only starts counting from evidence, so the sooner it exists, the sooner the clock starts.
- File returns even in a loss year. A filed return is evidence; an unfiled one is a gap.
- Look at secured lending. Against property, vintage matters far less.
- Do not apply everywhere. A young business collecting rejections is worse off than one that waits six months and applies once, properly.
Free, and it does not ask for your phone number.
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