What happened to Kabbage, and who this is now
American Express acquired Kabbage's lending business in 2020. In early 2023 it retired the Kabbage Funding name and folded the product into the American Express Business Line of Credit, accessed through the Business Blueprint app. The old Kabbage site now points to Amex. So a "declined by Kabbage" search and a "declined by Amex Business Line of Credit" search lead to the same place. As of 2026 the line runs from about $2,000 to $250,000, with each draw becoming a separate installment over 6, 12, 18, or 24 months.
The published bar is a personal FICO around 660, roughly $3,000 in average monthly revenue, and at least 12 months in business, available in all 50 states. Those are floors, not the thing that gets you approved.
Why Amex and Kabbage really decline deals
This product is brutal on thin-file and newer businesses, and it is brutal in a very specific way. The underwriting is almost entirely automated. The old Kabbage engine, now Amex's, links to your bank account and tools like QuickBooks, PayPal, and Square, and scores revenue consistency, transaction velocity, and seasonality across a huge number of data points in minutes. There is essentially no human to override it.
A young business starves that model. It has too little transaction history for the system to establish a pattern, so even strong recent revenue reads as unproven. The model has nothing to compare it against. That is why a business doing real money at nine months old still gets a no.
The credit bar floats too. Amex's own language says the required score may be higher based on your relationship with American Express and your credit history. A thin credit file with no Amex relationship gives the model nothing to offset against, so the effective bar rises above the published 660. And because underwriting leans on both your consumer and your business credit reports, a thin or nonexistent business-credit file leaves the model with little to score, regardless of how much revenue you are bringing in.
The most common reasons borrowers get declined by Amex or Kabbage
- Under 12 months in business, which is a hard floor no amount of revenue overrides
- A thin or nonexistent business-credit file
- Short linked-account history, so the model cannot establish a revenue pattern
- A FICO near 660 with no offsetting American Express relationship
- Revenue that is high but lumpy, since the model rewards consistency over size
- An industry that is not on Amex's eligible list
What to do next
The category that solves an Amex or Kabbage decline is bank-statement and cash-flow lending. These lenders approve primarily on your average monthly deposits rather than your credit-file depth or your years in business. That is the precise mismatch that got you declined, so it is the precise thing to route around.
Time-in-business floors across the wider market run well below Amex's 12 months, with real programs starting around three to six months. Merchant cash advances and revenue-based financing weigh your recent deposits over your credit history, which is the right tool for a high-revenue but thin-file business. The honest trade-off is cost. Revenue-first access is priced for risk, so factor rates and shorter terms come with it, and a brokerage's job is to find you the least expensive version of yes rather than the fastest no. If a low credit score was also in play, our guide on business loans for challenged credit lays out what is realistic.
The data supports going wider. The Federal Reserve's 2024 Report on Startup Firms found that startup employer firms, those zero to two years old, were fully approved for financing far less often than firms three years and older. Being young is a known, common reason for a decline, and the market has built products specifically for it.