Data
Invoice finance charges on the Companies House register
38,275 UK companies have had a charge registered by an invoice finance lender since January 2015, across 49,268 charges. In 2025, invoice finance lenders filed 2.62% of all charges registered at Companies House (5,725 of 218,833), and the five lenders that filed the most held 43.8% of those. Counts only: the register holds no amounts.
38,275
companies with an invoice finance charge dated January 2015 to 2026-10
2.62%
of all charges filed in 2025 were registered by an invoice finance lender
3,599
companies whose first invoice finance charge on our record was in 2025
Source: Companies House register of charges, analysed by Established Finance: the Companies House free company data product (1 November 2026), each company's charge records from the Companies House public data API, and the Companies House charges stream. How we counted. No borrowing company is named.
Cite this dataset: Parker, A. (2026). UK company charges statistics from the Companies House register of charges, November 2026. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23977084
Companies
How many companies have had an invoice finance charge
38,275 companies have an invoice finance charge dated January 2015 to 2026-10, across 49,268 charges. Across every year on the register, 59,784 companies have one on record (87,411 charges, dated 1966-08 to 2026-10). 3,599 companies had their first invoice finance charge on our record in 2025. Source: Companies House register of charges (company data file, charges data, charges stream), analysed by Established Finance (method).
These are floors, not totals. We hold 96.9% of the charges the register counts (3,450,166 of 3,560,414), and companies already dissolved are not in the data. They count companies with a charge, not current users: a charge can stay on the register after the facility ends. First on our record is not the same as first ever funding.
Lenders
How many invoice finance lenders filed charges each year
69 lenders on our list have filed an invoice finance charge since January 2015. In 2025, 49 filed at least one. Source: Companies House register of charges (company data file, charges data, charges stream), analysed by Established Finance (method).
| Year | Lenders with a charge | First charge on record | Last charge on record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 53 | 3 | 3 |
| 2023 | 50 | 1 | 1 |
| 2024 | 48 | 0 | 1 |
| 2025 | 49 | 0 | 4 |
Last on record means no later charge in our data, not that a lender closed. A small lender may simply file again later, so the latest year overstates leavers. A new lender that is not yet on our list is missed.
Two lenders
Companies with two or more invoice finance lenders on record
1,202 companies have charges from two or more different invoice finance lenders, none of them recorded as ended. That is 3.4% of the 35,107 companies with an invoice finance charge not recorded as ended. Source: Companies House register of charges (company data file, charges data, charges stream), analysed by Established Finance (method).
This is not proof that a company uses two lenders at once. The older charge is often never marked as satisfied: filing a statement of satisfaction (form MR04) is optional. An asset-based lender and a bank can also both hold charges by design. Some lender names we keep apart may be one business after a rename, so the true figure is lower.
Company age
How old a company is at its first invoice finance charge
For companies whose first invoice finance charge on our record was in 2025, the median age at that charge was 4.9 years. For first charges from January 2015 on, it was 4.2 years. Source: Companies House register of charges (company data file, charges data, charges stream), analysed by Established Finance (method).
| Age at first charge | First charge 2015 on | First charge in 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Under 1 year | 23.3% | 22.5% |
| 1 to 2 years | 10.8% | 10.0% |
| 2 to 5 years | 20.4% | 17.8% |
| 5 to 10 years | 18.0% | 19.1% |
| 10 to 20 years | 15.5% | 16.7% |
| 20 years or more | 12.0% | 13.8% |
| Companies with a usable date | 32,028 of 32,367 | 3,575 of 3,599 |
Age runs from the incorporation date on the register to the date of the first invoice finance charge. A business that moved into a new company looks younger than it is. Companies dissolved since are not on the register, so the 2015 group counts survivors only. Source: Companies House register of charges (company data file, charges data, charges stream), analysed by Established Finance (method).
Insolvency
Liquidation and administration rates
Of companies still on the register that have had an invoice finance charge, 7.8% are in liquidation and 1.2% in administration. For companies with any charge the rates are 4.3% and 0.4%, and for all companies 1.9% and 0.1%. Source: Companies House register of charges (company data file, charges data, charges stream), analysed by Established Finance (method), register at 1 November 2026.
| Group | Companies | In liquidation | In administration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Companies that have had an invoice finance charge | 59,239 | 4,623 (7.8%) | 718 (1.2%) |
| Companies that have had any charge | 831,742 | 35,985 (4.3%) | 3,654 (0.4%) |
| All companies on the register | 5,711,779 | 107,871 (1.9%) | 4,276 (0.1%) |
This says nothing about whether invoice finance causes failure. Lenders may take charges at firms already under strain, and an older charge gives more time for anything to happen. Liquidation includes solvent members' liquidations. Administration counts four status spellings on the register. Dissolved companies are not on the register, so every rate leaves them out. Charges at insolvent companies of every kind: charges at companies in liquidation or administration.
By lender
Invoice finance charges not recorded as ended, by lender
40,634 invoice finance charges have no record of ending, across 101 lender names. The 15 below hold 76.4% of them. Source: Companies House register of charges (company data file, charges data, charges stream), analysed by Established Finance (method), status read to 3 November 2026.
| Lender | Charges not recorded as ended | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance | 6,586 | 16.2% |
| RBS / NatWest Invoice Finance | 5,748 | 14.1% |
| HSBC Invoice Finance | 5,327 | 13.1% |
| Bibby Financial Services | 4,241 | 10.4% |
| eCapital Commercial Finance | 1,608 | 4.0% |
| Skipton Business Finance | 1,088 | 2.7% |
| Nucleus Commercial Finance | 872 | 2.1% |
| 4Syte | 858 | 2.1% |
| Cynergy Business Finance | 761 | 1.9% |
| Apollo Business Finance | 697 | 1.7% |
| Time Finance | 696 | 1.7% |
| Arbuthnot Commercial ABL | 682 | 1.7% |
| IGF (Independent Growth Finance) | 667 | 1.6% |
| Team Factors | 620 | 1.5% |
| Advantedge Commercial Finance | 591 | 1.5% |
Not recorded as ended is not the same as current, live or book size. Lenders differ in how reliably they file satisfactions, so a high count can mean slow paperwork as much as a large book. Older names carry charges never marked as satisfied. It is a count of charges, not money.
Sector
Invoice finance charges by sector, per 1,000 active companies
For every 1,000 active recruitment companies, 16.3 had a new invoice finance charge filed in 2025. Across whole sectors the highest rate was water and waste, at 4.0 per 1,000. Source: Companies House register of charges (company data file, charges data, charges stream), analysed by Established Finance (method); charges filed in 2025, register at 1 November 2026.
| Sector | Per 1,000 | Companies with a charge | Active companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water and waste | 4.0 | 65 | 16,189 |
| Manufacturing | 3.8 | 792 | 210,823 |
| Administrative and support | 3.3 | 1,159 | 348,966 |
| Transport and storage | 2.8 | 371 | 132,879 |
| Mining | 1.9 | 14 | 7,386 |
| Financial and insurance | 1.5 | 335 | 220,436 |
| Construction | 1.0 | 515 | 503,878 |
| Agriculture | 0.9 | 37 | 41,772 |
| Health and social care | 0.9 | 187 | 213,087 |
| Wholesale and retail | 0.9 | 593 | 656,128 |
| Energy supply | 0.8 | 14 | 16,521 |
| Professional and scientific | 0.6 | 350 | 589,056 |
| Education | 0.5 | 49 | 105,378 |
| Other services | 0.5 | 108 | 207,815 |
| Information and communication | 0.4 | 155 | 439,385 |
| Hospitality | 0.2 | 52 | 249,579 |
| Real estate | 0.1 | 65 | 609,863 |
| Arts and recreation | 0.0 | 5 | 121,663 |
| Recruitment (SIC division 78, part of administrative and support) | 16.3 | 733 | 45,000 |
Each rate counts active companies with at least one new invoice finance charge filed in 2025, per 1,000 active companies in the same sector. A company can use invoice finance under a charge filed in an earlier year, so this is not a count of users. Sector is the SIC 2007 section of the company's first SIC code, which the company chooses. 98.6% of the companies with a charge (4,866 of 4,937) and 90.6% of active companies (4,690,804 of 5,179,256) have a usable code. Codes left out on both sides: none supplied, old four-digit codes, 99999, 74990 and 98000. Small sectors rest on small counts.
Region
Invoice finance charges by region, per 1,000 active companies
By region of registered office, West Midlands had the highest rate at 1.6 per 1,000 active companies and Northern Ireland the lowest at 0.4. Source: Companies House register of charges (company data file, charges data, charges stream), analysed by Established Finance (method); charges filed in 2025, register at 1 November 2026.
| Region of registered office | Per 1,000 | Companies with a charge | Active companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| West Midlands | 1.6 | 630 | 393,589 |
| East Midlands | 1.3 | 375 | 281,105 |
| North West | 1.3 | 646 | 507,749 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 1.3 | 390 | 309,579 |
| North East | 1.2 | 135 | 116,347 |
| Wales | 1.2 | 166 | 141,609 |
| East of England | 1.1 | 555 | 485,376 |
| South East | 1.1 | 753 | 686,450 |
| Scotland | 0.8 | 232 | 286,276 |
| South West | 0.8 | 262 | 334,997 |
| London | 0.5 | 760 | 1,437,532 |
| Northern Ireland | 0.4 | 32 | 83,242 |
Region is where the registered office is, which is often an accountant's or a head office address rather than where the business trades. We map each postcode district to a region from a sample of postcodes; 5,063,851 of 5,179,256 active companies could be mapped.
Method
How we counted
- Sources. The Companies House free company data product dated 1 November 2026 (status, incorporation date, SIC codes, registered office postcode and charge counts). Each company's charge records from the Companies House public data API, read between August and 3 November 2026. And the Companies House charges stream, captured by us, for charges filed after a company was read.
- Coverage. We read the charges of 805,926 of the 831,742 companies on the register with a charge (96.9%), and hold 3,450,166 of 3,560,414 registered charges (96.9%).
- Invoice finance charge. A charge whose first-named holder is on our invoice finance lender list (version 2026-10-22): 682 names as filed at Companies House, merged to 104 lenders. The list comes from our own classification of every charge-holder name on the register.
- Charge date. The date Companies House received the charge, or the date it was created where that is missing.
- Not recorded as ended. No statement of satisfaction on our record, after taking any later stream event for the same charge into account.
- What we publish. Counts and shares only. No borrowing company is named, no charge-level record is published and the register holds no amounts.
- What the figures are not. Not an official statistic, and not a measure of lending by value. Dissolved companies are not in the data, so older years count companies that still exist.
- Downloads. The same figures as CSV and JSON, under CC BY 4.0, with the other charge figures on this site.
- Corrections. If a figure changes, the fix goes in the methodology changelog.
Working through a funding decision?
If this is part of a finance question for your business, tell us what's happening and we'll tell you whether it's something we can help with.
Adam Parker
Founder of Muswell Rose Consulting Ltd, which trades as Established Finance · Managing Director of Penny, an invoice finance business, from July 2020 to November 2023, and working in mortgages, commercial finance and fintech lending since 2010 (career history; career record).
Last updated:
Common questions
Questions about this
How many UK companies have had an invoice finance charge?
38,275 companies have had a charge registered by an invoice finance lender since January 2015, across 49,268 charges (charges dated to 2026-10). These are floors, not totals, and they count companies with a charge, not current users. Source: Companies House register of charges, analysed by Established Finance.
What share of company charges are invoice finance?
2.62% of the charges filed at Companies House in 2025 were registered by an invoice finance lender: 5,725 of 218,833. That is a share of filings, not of money lent. Source: Companies House register of charges, analysed by Established Finance.