PAYDEX Score

PAYDEX is calculated from trade payment experiences reported to D&B by suppliers who have extended credit to the business. Each experience is weighted by dollar amount, so a $50,000 supplier account paid on time influences the score far more than a $500 utility bill. That is why the accounts a business chooses to open — and the order it opens them in — matters more than the number of accounts.

Lenders and larger vendors pull PAYDEX as a fast read on business payment behavior before deeper underwriting. A PAYDEX of 80 or above is the working threshold for most trade credit and many bank programs. Below 80, the business is signaling to every reporting supplier that it pays late — and that history is durable.

The most common mistake we see is a business opening a DUNS number, opening no reporting trade lines, and then applying for bank credit expecting the PAYDEX to work in its favor. It cannot. Without reported experiences, D&B has nothing to score, and lenders read "no PAYDEX" as "unproven."

Building a PAYDEX intentionally means opening reporting trade lines in the right order — foundational net-30 vendor accounts first, then tier-two trade, then bank tradelines — and paying every one of them early enough that the reported experience lands above 80. That sequence is a standard piece of the Bankable One Foundation build.