How Much Can I Borrow for a Business Loan in Ireland? How Lenders Size It (2026)

"How much can I borrow?" It's the first question nearly every business owner asks us, and it's the one most lender websites dodge. Plug a number into a bank calculator and it'll happily tell you the repayment on €500,000. It won't tell you whether anyone would actually lend you €500,000.

The honest answer is that every lender runs a few simple sums on your figures before it ever looks at what you asked for. Once you know those sums, you can work out your own ceiling in about ten minutes, and you stop asking for amounts that get declined or cut in half.

So in this guide we'll show you exactly how Irish lenders size a business loan: the 1.25x cash flow test, debt multiples, revenue-based sizing, asset values and the trading-age caps that sit over all of it. Then we'll run one business through four different products so you can see how far apart the answers can be.

How Irish Lenders Decide How Much You Can Borrow

Here's what most owners don't realise. Lenders don't start with the amount you ask for. They start with your figures, work out the most you can safely carry, and then see whether your request fits underneath.

There are four main ways they do it, and which one applies depends on the product:

• Cash flow cover (DSCR) for bank and term loans: can your profits cover the repayments with room to spare?
• Debt multiples as a sense check: how big is your total debt against your earnings?
• Revenue multiples for revenue-based finance: how much comes through the account each month?
• Asset value for asset finance: what's the kit worth, and what deposit are you putting in?

Then there's a fifth filter that sits over all of them: how long you've been trading.

A quick word on our neighbour. If you've already got an amount in mind and want to see the monthly repayment, our business loan calculator guide does exactly that. This guide works the other way round. It tells you what amount a lender is likely to put on the table in the first place.

DSCR: The Number That Caps Most Business Loans

DSCR stands for debt service coverage ratio. In plain words: for every €1 of loan repayments, how many euro of spare cash does your business make?

Most Irish lenders want at least 1.25. So if your repayments across all your debt come to €80,000 a year, they want to see at least €100,000 a year of cash available to pay them.

Here's the trick. Run that backwards and DSCR tells you your borrowing ceiling:

1. Take your cash available for debt service. Roughly, that's your EBITDA (profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) less tax and any drawings the business has to fund.
2. Divide by 1.25. That's the most you can spend on all debt repayments in a year.
3. Subtract what you already pay on existing loans, leases, hire purchase and any revenue-based facility.
4. What's left is your room for a new loan. Turn that annual figure into a loan amount using the rate and term.

What counts as "existing debt" in step 3? More than people think. Lenders include every loan, every hire purchase and lease agreement, any revenue-based facility, credit card balances you don't clear, and often the interest on your overdraft. Some will also ask about directors' personal borrowing if you're giving a guarantee. Leave one out of your own sums and your ceiling comes out higher than any lender's will.

That last step is where people get surprised. The term changes everything.

Say you've got €80,000 a year of room. At 9% over four years, that supports a loan of about €268,000. Stretch the same repayments over seven years and it supports about €414,000. Same business, same profits, a much bigger number. Just make sure the term still makes sense for what you're buying. That's why security matters: it doesn't change your DSCR, but it's what gets a lender comfortable with a longer term.

Debt to EBITDA: The Sense Check Behind the Sum

Even if DSCR works, lenders look at total debt against earnings. If your business makes €180,000 of EBITDA and you'd owe €900,000 after the new loan, that's five times earnings. Most SME lenders get nervous well before that.

As a rough guide, many lenders are comfortable with total debt of around two to three times EBITDA for a trading SME, sometimes more where there's strong security or very steady income. It's less a formula than a smell test, but if your request blows through it, expect questions.

Why does this matter if DSCR already works? Because a low interest rate can make a big debt look affordable on paper. The multiple asks a blunter question: if things go wrong, how many years of profit would it take to clear this?

Revenue-Based Finance: Sized on Your Monthly Takings

Revenue-based lending works completely differently. It isn't sized on profit at all. It's sized on what comes through your account each month.

The typical range is about 1 to 1.5 times your average monthly revenue. So a business turning over €100,000 a month would usually be looking at €100,000 to €150,000. Strong, steady, growing revenue gets you the top of the range. Lumpy or seasonal revenue gets you the bottom.

Our own revenue-based lending needs at least €15,000 of monthly revenue and six months of trading. That's what makes it useful for younger businesses that are growing fast but don't have two years of accounts showing big profits yet.

The trade-off? You'll usually raise less than with a term loan, and it costs more. You're paying for speed and for repayments that flex with your takings.

Asset Finance: Sized on the Asset and the Deposit

With asset finance, the kit does a lot of the heavy lifting. The lender looks at what the asset is, what it'll be worth over the term, and how easy it'd be to sell if it had to.

For new, mainstream equipment and vehicles, lenders will often fund most or all of the cost, with a deposit of 0 to 20% depending on your profile. Used, specialist or fast-depreciating kit usually needs a bigger deposit and a shorter term. Our guide to equipment finance in Ireland goes deeper on how lenders value kit.

Two things people miss. First, affordability still counts: the repayments go into your DSCR like any other debt. Second, because the asset secures the deal, asset finance often gets approved for amounts an unsecured lender wouldn't touch. If you need a machine and working capital, financing the machine separately usually gets you more in total.

Trading History: The Caps That Apply Before Anything Else

You can have perfect ratios and still hit a ceiling because of your trading age. Here's roughly how it plays out in the market today:

• Pre-trading or under 6 months: your options are mainly Microfinance Ireland (up to €50,000), asset finance with a deposit, and your own or investor money.
• 6 to 12 months: revenue-based finance opens up, and some alternative lenders will consider smaller term loans.
• 1 to 2 years: most alternative lenders are in play. Many cap unsecured lending at a slice of annual turnover.
• 2+ years with filed accounts: the full range, including the pillar banks for larger amounts. Bank of Ireland, for example, offers business loans up to €120,000 online, with bigger amounts going through a relationship manager.

Sole Traders vs Limited Companies

Structure changes the sum too. For a limited company, lenders look at company profit after the directors' salaries already in the accounts. For a sole trader, business profit is your personal income, so lenders take your household costs, personal loans and mortgage out first before they see what's left for business debt.

That's why a sole trader and a company with identical profits can get very different answers. A sole trader earning €70,000 with a mortgage and a car loan might have far less room than the raw profit suggests. If that's you, our guide to sole trader business loans walks through how lenders treat your figures.

Your credit record sits across all of this. A clean Central Credit Register record and up-to-date CRO filings won't raise your ceiling on their own, but a bad mark can cut it sharply. We cover what lenders check in our guide to your business credit score in Ireland.

Worked Example: One Business, Four Products

Let's make it real. Take a hypothetical engineering firm with two years of filed accounts:

• Turnover of €1.2 million (about €100,000 a month)
• EBITDA of €180,000
• About €150,000 a year of cash available for debt service, after tax
• Existing debt (a van on hire purchase and an older loan) costing €40,000 a year, with €120,000 still owed
• It wants to buy a €220,000 CNC machine and fund growth

Here's how each product would size it:

Notice something? These aren't four amounts you can add together. Every lender counts the others' repayments in its DSCR. Take the €220,000 machine on asset finance first and your room for an unsecured term loan shrinks by roughly the same amount.

And here's the lever most people never pull. Clear that €40,000 a year of existing debt and, at 9% over four years, the business could support about €134,000 more. Sometimes the best way to borrow more is to tidy what you already owe. Our guide to refinancing business debt covers how.

How to Push Your Borrowing Capacity Up

So what can you actually do about it? A few things move the number:

1. Get your management accounts current. Lenders size on your latest figures. If this year is stronger than last year's filed accounts, show them. Our checklist of business loan requirements covers the rest of the pack.
2. Add back the right items. One-off costs, owner pension contributions and non-cash depreciation can lift your EBITDA, but only if your accountant documents them properly.
3. Match the term to the purpose. A five-year loan for equipment that lasts ten supports a bigger amount than a three-year one, and makes sense.
4. Separate the asset. Put equipment on asset finance and you keep your unsecured capacity for working capital.
5. Clean up small debts. A few old hire purchase agreements or a credit card balance eat into DSCR more than their size suggests.

Our fixed-term loans cover €30,000 to €300,000 over 12 to 48 months, and when we take a case to lenders, sizing is the first thing we work through, before anyone talks about rates.

Know Your Ceiling Before You Ask for a Number

How much you can borrow for a business loan in Ireland comes down to a handful of numbers: your cash available for debt service, what you already owe, how long you're borrowing for, what the money buys and how long you've been trading.

Work those out first and you'll ask for an amount lenders can actually approve, instead of getting a decline or an offer that's half what you need.

Then, once you know the amount, plug it into the calculator to check the monthly repayment fits your quietest month, not just your best one.

Frequently Asked Questions