Invoice Finance Statistics UK 2026

Invoice finance and asset-based lending provided by UK Finance's members at any one time ("well over £20 billion"), to tens of thousands of UK client businesses. Source: UK Finance

Approximate finance provided each year by UK Finance's invoice finance and asset-based lending members ("around £150 billion"). The businesses they supported had a combined annual turnover of over £315 billion in 2024. Source: UK Finance

Share of UK invoice finance client sales put through invoice discounting in 2017 (£289.5bn of £311.0bn, domestic and export), against about 7% through factoring. By number of clients the two were much closer (16,519 domestic discounting vs 15,291 domestic factoring clients). Source: UK Finance, Q4 2017 statistics

Active providers in our directory of 83 UK invoice finance providers, from high street banks to specialist independents. 27 of them publish enough terms for a full comparison. Source: Market Invoice provider directory

Indicative market range for the service charge, as a share of invoice value. It is a UK broker's published statement of where charges usually fall, not any provider's price: Time Finance, Skipton Business Finance, Close Brothers, the high street banks, Bibby and Ultimate Finance publish no service charge and agree it per facility. Source: ABC Finance (checked 25 Sep 2026); Market Invoice Rate Index

Providers in our terms dataset that publish a percentage fee or rate at all, including lenders whose published figure is a loan rate rather than an invoice finance service charge. The rest, including the high street banks, Bibby, Ultimate Finance, Time Finance, Skipton and Close Brothers, quote per facility. Source: Market Invoice Rate Index

The advance most lenders in our dataset publish ("up to 90%"). Some publish more: Ultimate Finance and HSBC up to 95%, and Hydr up to 100% per invoice. Recruitment funders such as Sonovate advertise up to 100% on a different model. Source: Market Invoice Rate Index

Average advertised setup time across the 5 direct lenders in our terms dataset that publish a setup time. None of the high street banks we list publishes a setup time, so none is in this average. Source: Market Invoice analysis

Fastest advertised setup in our dataset (Hydr). Ultimate Finance says a facility is set up within one week. Many lenders, including Close Brothers, Skipton, Time Finance and IGF, publish no setup time. Source: Market Invoice Rate Index

Time to funds that several lenders state once a facility is live: NatWest, Time Finance and Ultimate Finance each say funds can arrive within 24 hours of an invoice. Source: each lender's own page, in our Rate Index

Owed to UK businesses in late payments at any given time, on average £17,000 per business affected. Source: Department for Business and Trade and the Office of the Small Business Commissioner, late payments research (31 Jul 2025)

Estimated annual cost of late payment to the UK economy. Source: Department for Business and Trade and the Office of the Small Business Commissioner, late payments research (31 Jul 2025)

Businesses that close each year because of late payment, about 38 a day. Source: Department for Business and Trade and the Office of the Small Business Commissioner, late payments research (31 Jul 2025)

Year Barclays agreed to transfer its factoring portfolio to 4Syte (announced February 2021). Barclays still offers invoice discounting. Source: 4Syte