American Express Membership Rewards - How do Small Business Cards Get Reported to Credit Bureaus?

Can anyone please let me know if AMEX small business cards (like the Plum Card) get reported to the credit bureaus? If so, is it reported differently? Is it only reported for the cardholder under which the account was created? I'm not even sure if it is reported at all since I haven't run a credit report lately. Thanks.

Great question. I would like to know as well. Is it reported under the applicant's ssn, or the federal tax payer id of the business, or both?

Business cards typically don't report against your personal credit report. I don't have any Amex business cards, but I do have them from Chase, Citi, Advanta, Fifth Third, and Barclays and none show on my credit report (except for the initial inquiry).

There are some strange ones, such as Citi Professional that are business cards but DO show up on your credit report.

fatwallet.com probably holds the answer to the particular card you are looking for. Check the finance forum.

Beyond the initial inquiry and subsequent allowable inquiries of primary and additional cardholders they do not get reported as an active credit line.

Yep, only the initial hard pull/inquiry (when applying for the card) and any subsequent hard pull/inquiries will show up on the personal credit report. Does not show up as an active credit line, however if you default, then the Biz CC will report the default to your personal credit, thus affecting your personal rating.

The Plum Card doesn't show up on your credit report.

I have an amex gold business card and it does not get reported except the inquiry. However if you default on payment, obviously it will appear on the report. Unless you get an amex business "credit" card, then it will report due to line of credit.

Amex doesn't report on your personal credit report-- but they do report
to Equifax Commercial Credit.

The report is similar to a personal credit report with prettier graphics, including a colored pie chart.

Like your personal report a numeric score is also generated ("Credit Risk Score")

Here's what Equifax says:

The Credit Risk Score is designed to assist credit grantors in improving risk assessment throughout a small business's account life cycle, reducing delinquency rates and improving profitability. The score utilizes unique bank loan, credit card, and lease information, as well as, supplier, telco and utility credit history, public records, and firmographic data from the SBE databases. The score predicts the likelihood of a small business incurring greater than 90 days severe delinquency, charge-off or bankruptcy on supplier accounts over the next 12 months.


Score range is 101 - 816, with the lower score indicating higher risk. Up to four reason codes may be returned indicating the top factors influencing the score.


Amex runs an inquiry when you apply for a business credit card and then after you have one they report monthly.

There is not a heck of a lot of info out there but I'm assuming that they aggregate your personal and business credit "in house"

Although not issued by Amex, my AA Citi Amex does not appear on my CR at all - did not even appear as a hard inquiry when I applied.

For all who are interested, both Canadian small business cards I have DO report on my personal CR.

Both the initial hard inquiries (Equifax only) and active trades show up for the CIBC Bizline and Aerogold for Small Business cards (on BOTH reports). So far there havent been any other hard hits from them, only the usual soft ones every few months or so.

IMHO this practice by AmEx is shameful. It essentially locks small businesses in to AmEx after building a great credit history since no one else knows about it. So years of building credit DON'T get reported but if something bad were to happen, they report to the primary user's personal credit right away.

IMHO this practice by AmEx is shameful. It essentially locks small businesses in to AmEx after building a great credit history since no one else knows about it. So years of building credit DON'T get reported but if something bad were to happen, they report to the primary user's personal credit right away.

Why just AMEX? I know Chase, BOA and Advanta do the same.

-Dave

Why just AMEX? I know Chase, BOA and Advanta do the same.

Just to clarify, I'm disappointed with the reporting, not the personal liability aspect which is completely understandable.

My Advanta account is regularly reported under my business' credit.. :confused:

IMHO this practice by AmEx is shameful. It essentially locks small businesses in to AmEx after building a great credit history since no one else knows about it. So years of building credit DON'T get reported but if something bad were to happen, they report to the primary user's personal credit right away.

If you have a real business and a Federal Tax ID number then your business credit will be reported to Dun and Bradstreet. http://www.dnb.com/

If you have a real business and a Federal Tax ID number then your business credit will be reported to Dun and Bradstreet. http://www.dnb.com/

Right, business credit goes on the d&b credit report. Nothing shameful about that. It'd be shameful if your business credit trashed your personal credit score by showing a ton of debt.

AmEx does not report OPEN accounts to D&B. That's the problem.

Although Amex doesn't report to D&B the commerical Equifax rating is very useful. I have customers with 100-200k Amex lines of credit and the german credit insurance we use (euler hermes) will give the same credit line.^