Approval can take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of months. The biggest variables are the type of lender you choose and how ready your paperwork is.
Timelines by lender type
Speed varies enormously by product. As a rough guide: merchant cash advances and short-term online loans can approve the same day to 48 hours; online term loans and lines of credit often take a few business days; conventional bank loans run one to several weeks; and SBA loans can take several weeks to a few months.
There's a clear trade-off: the fastest options usually cost more, and the cheapest options usually take the longest. Your timeline should match how urgent the need really is.
What speeds approval up
Preparation is the single biggest lever you control. Having your last 3–6 months of business bank statements, a government ID, a voided check, and basic business details ready can shave days off the process. Clean, consistent deposits and no recent negative balances help underwriters decide faster, too.
Responding quickly to a lender's follow-up questions matters more than owners expect — many 'slow' approvals are really just files waiting on one missing document.
What slows it down
Common delays include incomplete paperwork, inconsistent or hard-to-verify revenue, recent overdrafts, requesting an amount your cash flow doesn't support, and large products like SBA loans that require collateral and appraisals. Applying to several lenders one at a time — getting declined, then starting over — also stretches the timeline unnecessarily.
How to get funded faster
Instead of applying serially, submit once to many lenders at the same time. The Broker Shop sends your single file to 50+ lenders, so multiple offers come back in parallel rather than one slow application at a time — and you can pick the fastest option that fits. Checking your options is free and won't affect your credit score.
See what you qualify for
One 2-minute application reaches 50+ competing lenders. It's free, and checking your options won't affect your credit score.
See What I Qualify For →The bottom line: Approval ranges from same-day advances to multi-week bank loans — have your documents ready, match speed to your real urgency, and apply to many lenders at once to get offers faster.