How Brex credit limits work

Overview

Brex is unique in that its credit model is flexible enough to underwrite many businesses that have limited operating history, revenue, or profitability. In order to give you the highest credit limit possible, our underwriting model relies on maintaining visibility into your company’s cash balance and transactions. Because of this, Brex credit limits adapt to the unique financial characteristics of your business. The information below can help you understand how and why your Brex credit limit may change.

Brex underwriting

Cash based underwriting

When we use cash-based underwriting to determine your limit, we’ll underwrite your account based on one or a combination of the following:

• Connected bank underwriting (available for accounts making monthly payments)
• Bank statement-based underwriting (available for accounts making monthly payments)
• Brex business account underwriting (required for daily payments and available for monthly qualified accounts making monthly payments)

Note: Your limit will never exceed the cash you have available.

Financial statement underwriting

If we’re underwriting your account based on financial statements, we’ll evaluate your company’s performance, including liquidity, profitability, and leverage metrics. We’ll take all of this into account to determine your credit limit using balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements.

Cash-based underwriting

Connected bank underwriting

Brex uses Finicity, Plaid, or Teller to connect to your bank accounts so we can view account transactions and balances. Your card's credit limit is directly related to the cash balance in your connected bank account. if applicable. We may also consider your rolling 30-day average balance. As those balances fluctuate, so may your limit. The best way to maintain a stable credit limit is to maintain a stable cash balance in the account(s) you connect to Brex. Drastic or consistent decreases in connected account balances will result in lower limits, potentially as low as $0 in some circumstances. Account and card admins can update bank connections or add new ones from your Brex dashboard. Finicity, Plaid, and Teller support many, but not all, bank accounts. Note: Brex will assign you a credit limit based on the total cash balance we have visibility into. If you maintain cash at multiple financial institutions that you cannot connect to Brex, providing us with statements for each account helps us give you the highest limit possible. Upload your two most recent monthly statements for additional accounts through this secure file uploader or the Financial documents page in your Brex dashboard.

Bank statement underwriting

All Brex customers are required to connect a bank account through Finicity, Plaid, or Teller. In the rare case where this isn’t possible, we may agree to waive this requirement and accept bank statements instead of an account connection. We'll proactively email you at the beginning of each month to collect your previous month’s statement(s) so your limit is reflective of your most recent month’s cash balance. Similar to connected bank underwriting, we use bank statements to access your cash balance and transaction history and assign you a credit limit that is directly related to the cash balance stated on your statement. We accept statements that meet these criteria:

• Bank statements must be submitted each month.
• Statements must be official bank PDFs; no screenshots or scanned copies will be accepted.
• Two full months of statements are required each time a new account is introduced.

If you’d like to see instructions on how to upload bank statements, please read this help article.

Shared bank account underwriting

If two Brex accounts share a bank balance, you may be eligible to split their overall credit limit. Here’s an example where this would be applicable: If you have two companies and want to allocate 60% of the shared limit to Company 1 and 40% of the shared limit to Company 2, if we approve the allocation we’ll split your limit as such:

• Company 1’s split limit would be 60% of the limit from all connected banks and statements.
• Company 2’s split limit would be 40% of the limit from all connected banks and statements.

Depending on the specifics of the split, we may require a parent or affiliate company to sign a guarantee. If you have any questions about your specific situation, please feel free to contact Brex Support.

Financial statement underwriting

If you have a Brex card with monthly payments, we can evaluate your financial statements to determine your credit limit. We’ll assess your company's performance based on the following documents:

• Balance sheets
• Income statements
• Cash flow statements

For more information on financial statement underwriting, please read this help article

Limits by account type

Please read the relevant section below, which will outline how your credit limit is determined for your Brex card based on your product type.

$0 credit limits

There are several events that may prompt Brex to reduce your credit limit to zero. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The connection to your linked external bank account loses connectivity or becomes out-of-date.
• If you’re being underwritten by bank statements and we don’t have your most up-to-date documents.
• You have an insufficient cash balance to meet minimum underwriting requirements (for monthly statements).
• You aren't meeting the minimum monthly revenue requirements (for grandfathered accounts with net 60-day payment cycles).
• There are failed payments on your account.

Disclaimer

Credit limits are calculated in part by Brex’s ongoing account-specific determination of risk. These credit limits are subject to change at any time at our sole discretion in accordance with our rights outlined in the Platform Agreement.