Business credit with social security number

[Anonymous]

Does business credit build with a social security number and applying for a DUN number and the like?

I have been in business for awhile but only utilized personal credit before.  I can get by using just personal credit for now but am wondering if there are any advantages of business credit with a social security number.  Apparently I have a file from Experian which was generated which was empty and somehow I obtained it without ever having an EIN or business credit before.

[Rgudino1717]

An EIN is not necessary to build business credit. SSN is enough however many sole props get an EIN to help with keeping their business separate from their personal stuff. I'd imagine that it also looks better if you have an EIN when applying for credit. Helps your business look more professional along with a website, business phone line, fax, etc.

The other big thing is that many of the people that you will find in this forum are big in not giving a PG when it's not needed. I agree with that idea because it's better to avoid getting hard pulls when they can be avoided easily and again it helps with keeping business separate from personal. 

Have you checked if you have an open file with DnB? If you have an experian business file then maybe at some point you did business with somebody that reported a transaction at some point in time. 

[Anonymous]

Not sure if the following info is useful to you--but when we report on our borrowers, only the business phone number and address is used. EIN can be filled out, but it isn't a required field. Every business is offered a different suite of reporting options, so I'm not exactly sure what other businesses use. Adding more to the oddity, the system offered to us only has one line for street address--so if anyone sets up an account with us and has a second address line, (apt or ste #) it won't get reported right; especially if there are multiple businesses at your building address.

Bottom line: if you have the right business address and phone no. listed with your creditors, then there's a good chance of you getting away with building a proper business credit.