Asset-Based Lending Ireland: Borrow Against What You Own (2026)

Plenty of Irish businesses are worth far more than their bank balance suggests. Stock sitting in the warehouse. Machinery on the factory floor. A debtor book full of unpaid invoices. Often a premises the company owns outright.

On paper the balance sheet looks strong. In the current account, cash is tight and payroll is looming. Sound familiar?

That gap is exactly what asset-based lending closes. Instead of judging you on profit and forecasts alone, the lender looks at what you own and advances against it.

We arrange these facilities for Irish businesses every week, so this guide is written the way we'd talk you through it. How asset-based lending (ABL) works here in 2026, how much you can raise against each class of asset, when it beats a term loan, and what lenders really look at before they say yes.

What Asset-Based Lending Actually Is

Asset-based lending flips the usual credit question on its head.

A term loan asks one thing: can your profit cover the repayment? ABL asks a different question. What do you own, and what can we lend against it?

Your assets become the security. So a company with a thin profit line but a heavy balance sheet can raise money a standard term loan would never touch.

It sits alongside asset finance, which funds the purchase of a specific machine or vehicle, and revenue-based lending, which advances against future card and sales income rather than physical assets.

The most common ABL structure we set up is a revolving facility secured on your debtor book. Often it's bundled with lines against stock, plant and machinery, and sometimes property too.

Here's the clever part. As those assets grow, so does your funding. Sell more, invoice more, hold more stock, and the facility scales with you.

That's the real appeal. A €300,000 term loan is €300,000 forever. A debtor-backed facility advancing 85% of your invoice book climbs automatically as you get busier.

It's why we see manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors lean on it hardest through a growth phase.

The Asset Classes and What Each One Raises

Not every asset is worth the same to a lender. Each class carries its own advance rate, and it comes down to one thing: how quickly and cleanly could the lender turn it into cash if the deal went wrong?

1. Debtors and Invoices (80% to 90%)

Your unpaid sales invoices are the strongest security a trading business holds. So they attract the highest advance rate, usually 80% to 90% of approved debtors.

Picture a Limerick engineering firm with a €400,000 debtor book on 60-day terms. It can draw around €340,000 against that book within days.

Then it repays as customers settle, and redraws as new invoices go out. Money in, money out, on repeat.

One thing to know: the lender will exclude anything overdue, disputed or concentrated in a single risky customer before setting the figure.

2. Stock and Inventory (around 50%)

Stock raises less, because it's slower and messier to sell. Expect roughly 50% of value, and less again for perishable, seasonal or bespoke goods that few buyers would rush to take.

A Dublin wholesaler holding €200,000 of steady, sellable stock might raise €100,000 against it.

What works best here:

• Raw materials and finished goods with an obvious resale market
• Anything you could shift quickly if you had to

What tends to get excluded:

• Work-in-progress
• Slow-moving or bespoke lines

3. Plant and Machinery (60% to 70%)

Got machinery with a clear second-hand market? Think CNC machines, forklifts, commercial ovens or a full production line. That typically supports 60% to 70% of its independently valued forced-sale value.

Say a Cork manufacturer is sitting on €250,000 of owned plant. Refinancing it could release around €165,000 of trapped equity to fund a bigger order.

No machine gets sold. Nothing slows down. You just unlock the cash that was already there.

4. Property (up to 70%)

If the company owns its premises, a commercial mortgage or property-backed line commonly advances up to 70% of market value.

This is the cheapest money of the lot, because property is the security lenders trust most.

Own a €500,000 unit outright? You could raise in the region of €350,000 against it, releasing long-term capital while you keep trading from the same address.

When Asset-Based Lending Beats a Term Loan

Reach for ABL when your balance sheet is strong but the profit-and-loss is thin. That's exactly where a term loan runs out of road.

A lender assessing profit will cap or decline a business carrying heavy stock and slow-paying customers, even when that same business owns hundreds of thousands in assets. ABL ignores that cap and lends against the assets instead.

It also wins when your need is revolving rather than a one-off lump sum. Scaling fast, taking on a large contract, buying out a partner, trading through a seasonal swing? You need funding that flexes with the activity.

A term loan hands you a fixed amount that starts shrinking the day it lands. An asset-based facility grows with your debtors and stock, and only charges for what you actually draw.

Bottom line: if you're genuinely asset-rich and cash-tight, ABL nearly always releases more money than a term loan will.

What Lenders Actually Look For

The first thing a lender assesses is the quality of your assets, not the headline value on the balance sheet.

On debtors, they want a spread of solid, creditworthy customers, not one client owing 60% of the book. They want invoices for delivered goods rather than work in progress, and a clean track record of customers actually paying.

On stock and machinery, they'll send in an independent valuer to set a forced-sale value. So a business claiming €300,000 of stock may be lent against a far lower assessed figure.

Here's what we tell every client: well-kept aged debtor and stock reports move an ABL decision more than any glossy forecast ever will.

Then there's the paperwork, where we see avoidable declines happen all the time. Get these squared away first:

• Revenue. Every VAT and PAYE return filed, and either paid or under an agreed instalment arrangement. A current tax clearance cert is the simplest way to prove it, because outstanding Revenue debt can sit ahead of the lender's claim on your assets.
• Central Credit Register. The lender pulls your file and wants it clean, or at least any past arrears clearly back under control.
• CRO filings. These need to be up to date so the lender can register and rank its charge cleanly.

Sort any Revenue arrears before you apply, not after. In ABL it's one of the most common reasons a well-secured deal still gets a no.

How the Lenders Differ

Not all lenders play the same game here. We place deals across all three, and the right home for yours depends on what you're trying to do.

• Pillar banks (AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB): the strictest requirements. Two years of accounts, six months of business statements, a current tax clearance cert and full CRO compliance. Best rates on property-backed and larger facilities, but slower to move and more conservative on stock.
• Specialist ABL and invoice finance houses: built for exactly this. Comfortable lending against debtors, stock and plant together, and quicker to fund because they assess the assets rather than two years of filed profit. Higher cost, but usually the realistic route for an asset-rich, cash-tight business.
• Alternative and fintech lenders: lightest touch. They price straight off three to six months of statement and debtor data, and they're the fastest option when speed matters more than the last point on the rate.

What You Need Before You Apply

Want to make this quick? Have this pack ready before you approach anyone:

• Two years of accounts and up-to-date management figures
• A current aged debtor listing and aged creditor report
• A stock report, plus recent independent valuations for plant and property
• Six months of business bank statements
• A current tax clearance cert and clean CRO filings
• A short note on your largest customers and their payment history

Lenders fund businesses that can prove the assets are real, valued honestly and cleanly owned. So those aged reports and valuations do more work than anything else in the pack. Get them right and everything moves faster.

Final Thoughts

Asset-based lending suits the business the term-loan model leaves behind. Strong on the balance sheet, tight in the current account, growing faster than retained profit can fund.

Learn to read your own assets the way a lender does. Sort the strongest security first, and the ceiling on what you can raise lifts well above anything a profit-based loan would offer.

So where do you start? Map what you own, debtors, stock, machinery and property, and match each to its advance rate before you approach anyone.

Get the aged reports and valuations right, keep Revenue and the CRO square, and an asset-rich business can turn a strained balance sheet into working cash without selling a thing.

That's where we come in. We know which lender says yes to which assets, and we'll structure the facility so you draw the most your balance sheet allows.

Frequently Asked Questions