The Growth Guarantee Scheme is being expanded. Loans of up to £1.1 million will be able to run for as long as 10 years, the turnover ceiling for eligible businesses rises from £45 million to £54 million, and the government expects the scheme to support an extra £2 billion of lending a year by 2028/29, more than doubling the annual total from £1.35 billion to £3.35 billion (GOV.UK).
The useful bit first: this is not free money. The government does not lend to businesses under the scheme and there is no grant pot to claim. An accredited bank or finance provider lends its own money, and the government gives that lender a partial guarantee against loss. You still borrow commercially, pay commercial interest, and stay liable for every penny. The reform gives lenders more room to say yes; it does not make the debt cheaper or the decision automatic.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the package on 13 July 2026, ahead of her Mansion House speech the next day. The British Business Bank, which runs the scheme, says the uplift should bring in a further £6.5 billion of lending over four years and help around 33,000 businesses (British Business Bank).
Status checked 14 July 2026: The existing Growth Guarantee Scheme is open now under its current terms. The longer terms and higher turnover limit are being rolled out through accredited lenders, so availability will vary by provider. Confirm what a lender can actually offer before you rely on a 10-year term or the £54 million ceiling.
What has changed, and what has not
The scheme’s structure is untouched. Accredited lenders still make the loans, price the risk and decide each application; the government guarantee sits behind them, covering 70% of an eligible loss after the lender’s normal recovery. The changes are to scale, term and eligibility.
| Feature | Before | After the July 2026 reform |
|---|---|---|
| Government guarantee to the lender | 70% of the eligible loss | No change |
| Borrower’s liability | 100% of the debt | No change |
| Maximum facility | Generally £2m per group (outside the NI Protocol) | No change |
| Turnover eligibility limit | Up to £45m | Up to £54m |
| Maximum term (term loans, asset finance) | Generally 6 years | Up to 10 years for loans up to £1.1m |
| Lending supported each year | About £1.35bn | Rising to £3.35bn by 2028/29 |
| Businesses supported each year | About 8,000 | Rising to 20,000 by 2028/29 |
Two figures worth keeping straight. The £6.5 billion and the 33,000 businesses are the British Business Bank’s cumulative estimates across the four-year uplift. The £3.35 billion a year and 20,000 businesses a year are the annual run-rates the scheme is meant to reach by 2028/29, a 150% increase on the 8,000 businesses supported now (GOV.UK). They measure different things, so do not add them together.
For how the guarantee works, current costs and the full eligibility rules, see our evergreen guide: the Growth Guarantee Scheme explained.
Are the 10-year loans available now?
Not necessarily. The existing scheme continues under its current terms while lenders adopt the enhancements, and the British Business Bank’s own scheme pages still showed the old six-year and £45 million terms at the time of writing. So you can apply for GGS finance today, but you should not assume any given lender can yet offer a 10-year term or use the higher turnover cap.
Worth asking a lender directly:
- Have you implemented the July 2026 changes yet?
- Which of your term-loan or asset-finance products can run to 10 years, and does that apply to the amount I want?
- Are you assessing against the £45 million or the £54 million turnover limit?
- Does the longer term change the rate, the security or the personal guarantee you would want?
A longer term lowers the monthly repayment but usually raises the total interest, so run both terms through our business loan repayment calculator before you treat the smaller monthly number as a saving.
Who the expansion helps most
The 10-year option is the most tangible change. Stretching a term loan or asset-finance facility over a decade can match the repayments to the working life of a machine, fit-out or piece of technology, making a capital investment affordable month to month. The trade-off is that you pay more interest over the longer life of the loan and carry the debt for longer.
The higher turnover cap closes a specific gap. Firms that have grown past £45 million but are not yet served comfortably by corporate-finance markets sit outside the current rules; once lenders adopt the £54 million ceiling, they come into scope. It is a narrow band, but a real one for scaling businesses.
Beyond that, the scheme still does what it always has: it is aimed at viable businesses a lender likes but cannot support on standard terms because of thin security, a short track record or a larger ask than its normal appetite. The guarantee gives the lender room to approve some of those.
The measures announced alongside it
The GGS uplift came with three adjacent programmes worth knowing about.
£500m for IP-rich firms. The British Business Bank has allocated £500 million of its ENABLE Guarantee capacity to support lending to smaller firms whose value sits in intellectual property rather than property or machinery, pointing to creative industries and life sciences as examples. It says the allocation could enable up to £1 billion of lending by 2029 (British Business Bank). ENABLE is a wholesale guarantee that backs lenders’ portfolios, not a pot individual companies apply to, so what will matter is which lenders use it and for what.
A new exporter scheme for spring 2027. UK Export Finance and the British Business Bank plan a joint portfolio-guarantee scheme aimed at smaller exporters that struggle to get lower-value finance for orders, stock and the gap between shipping and getting paid (GOV.UK). It is not open yet; businesses needing export support now should approach UK Export Finance about its existing products.
More community lending. The Community ENABLE Funding programme, which backs Community Development Finance Institutions (the specialist lenders that often serve businesses the high street has turned down), will support up to £150 million of lending over its first two years, with nearly £120 million of government funds already committed to seven accredited CDFIs and a second phase due later in 2026. SWIG Finance is among those seven, with £17.5 million to lend to smaller businesses across the South West of England, and the wider ambition is to bring in an additional £1 billion of community SME lending over five years. If you have already been refused by mainstream banks, a CDFI is often a more practical next step than resubmitting the same case to another high-street lender.
Sitting behind all of this is a set of slower reforms: a 2027 consultation on Open Finance starting with SME lending, plans to let building societies do more SME finance, a joined-up financial-readiness programme, and a consultation on ring-fencing that includes a proposed New Growth Allowance to free up bank balance sheets for up to £80 billion of additional support to UK businesses. These depend on legislation and consultation, so their value to any individual firm is further off.
How to apply
There is no government form; you apply through an accredited lender. A tight version of the process:
- Fix the use of funds. Lenders want a specific plan, not a general request for cash: the amount, what it buys, when it is spent, and how it improves revenue, capacity or cashflow.
- Match the product to the need. A term loan suits a defined investment, asset finance suits machinery and vehicles, invoice finance releases cash from unpaid invoices, an overdraft covers short-term swings. Asking the wrong lender for the wrong facility gets a no even when another would say yes.
- Prove the repayments work. Expect to show recent and management accounts, bank statements, a cashflow forecast, existing borrowing and tax position. The strongest applications explain what happens in a poor trading month, not just the best case.
- Choose an accredited lender. Use the British Business Bank’s official directory or our plain-English lender list. Starting with your own bank is reasonable, since it already sees your account, but you are not tied to it.
- Compare the total cost. Weigh the rate, whether it is fixed or variable, arrangement and broker fees, security, personal guarantees and early-repayment charges, not just the monthly figure. A refusal from one accredited lender is not a refusal from the scheme; another may assess the same case differently.
The honest test
The expansion widens the door. It gives lenders more capacity and, with the 10-year term, a way to match debt to longer-lived assets. It does not set interest rates, force any approval, remove personal guarantees or turn weak cashflow into affordable debt.
So the test a business should apply is the same as for any borrowing: does the investment generate enough dependable cash to cover the repayment in a difficult month, after fees, tax and existing debt? If it does, the larger guarantee may open a door that was shut before. If it does not, a 10-year term only spreads the problem over 10 years. Businesses already inside the £45 million limit do not need to wait for anything; the scheme is open now. Those relying on the £54 million cap or a 10-year term should ask lenders when their updated products go live, and go in with a clear use of funds, a realistic forecast and a full debt schedule.
