What is the difference between a consumer lending license and a commercial lending license?

Consumer lending is the heavily licensed side. Most states require a license before a company makes personal-purpose loans to their residents, and the exact license turns on the loan size and the rate: small loan licenses for lower balances, consumer finance or installment loan licenses for the general case, and supervised lender licenses where the rate crosses the state's threshold. These licenses usually carry surety bonds, minimum net worth, background checks on control persons, and annual reporting.

Commercial lending runs on the opposite default. Because the borrower is a business, most states have not required a license, which is why many commercial lenders operate nationally with only a handful of filings. That default is eroding: California licenses most non-bank commercial lenders under its Financing Law, and a growing group of states now applies licensing or disclosure statutes to smaller-balance business financing, including merchant cash advances and equipment finance. Several of those statutes carve out larger transactions above a dollar threshold, so the same lender can be regulated for its small-business product and unregulated for its middle-market book.

The trap sits at the boundary. Loan purpose is judged by the actual use of funds, not the label on the note, so a loan to a sole proprietor that pays personal expenses can be recharacterized as consumer credit, pulling in the consumer licensing stack retroactively. Lenders serving both markets should map the consumer licenses on our consumer lending page and the state-by-state commercial rules on our commercial lending page, and document loan purpose at origination.