To make comparing even easier we came up with the Finder Score. Speed, features and flexibility across 60+ lenders are all weighted and scaled to produce a score out of 10. The higher the score the better the lender – simple.
Read the full methodologyPlease note: You should always refer to your loan agreement for exact repayment amounts as they may vary from our results.
Late repayments can cause you serious money problems. See our debt help guides.
Yes, you should be able to borrow £10,000 as long as you meet the lender’s eligibility checker. Many lenders and providers offer loans for £10,000, including for those with bad or limited credit history. You can compare loans above, or find out how to get the cheapest loan below.
This will depend on the length of your loan, and the interest rate you receive. For example, a £10,000 loan that has a fixed rate of 10% p.a. over 5 years, your monthly payment will be £212.47. In comparison, with a £10k loan offering a fixed rate of 5% p.a. and a 1 year term, you’ll pay £856.07 each month. You can calculate the cost of a £10,000 loan here.
Borrowing over a longer term can bring your monthly repayments down to more affordable levels but it also pushes up the overall cost of the loan, making it important that you secure a competitive rate.
Whether you’re buying a car, consolidating debt or planning your wedding, here are some examples of £10,000 loans at varying rates and loan terms.
| 5.0% p.a. interest | 10.0% p.a. interest | 25.0% p.a. interest | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-year term | £856.07 | £879.16 | £950.44 |
| 2-year term | £438.71 | £461.45 | £533.72 |
| 3-year term | £299.71 | £322.67 | £397.60 |
| 4-year term | £230.29 | £253.63 | £331.57 |
| 5-year term | £188.71 | £212.47 | £293.51 |
Here’s an example of a £10,000 loan at a fixed rate of 8% over three years, with no fees involved. You can see that early repayments contain a larger proportion of interest, and at first, you chip away at the capital relatively slowly. By contrast, towards the end of the loan, each repayment goes almost entirely towards clearing capital.
Each bar represents an individual repayment – you can click to get a closer look at what’s going on in that month’s repayment.
Here’s the same loan repaid over five years (in other words 60 monthly repayments). The individual repayments are more manageable, at £201 rather than £312, but the amount of interest overall, is significantly higher: £2,085 rather than £1,235. Again, you can click on a repayment to get a closer look at what’s going on in that month.
The example loans below use approximate figures based on a flat interest rate.
| 5.0% p.a. interest | 10.0% p.a. interest | 25.0% p.a. interest | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-year term | £10,272.90 | £10,549.91 | £11,405.30 |
| 2-year term | £10,529.13 | £11,074.78 | £12,809.16 |
| 3-year term | £10,789.52 | £11,616.19 | £14,313.54 |
| 4-year term | £11,054.06 | £12,174.04 | £15,915.42 |
| 5-year term | £11,322.74 | £12,748.23 | £17,610.79 |
It’s currently possible to borrow £10,000 with rates as low as 5.9% APR, or even slightly less, but these market-leading rates are reserved for borrowers with excellent credit. Those table-topping rates may also only be available on loans of specific durations (after all, at 5.9% over a year, there’s not much profit in it for the lender).
Most lenders adjust the rates that they offer to the risk profile of the individual applicant. In other words it’s not as simple as you get approved or you don’t – your application could get approved but it might not be at the lender’s advertised “representative APR”.
Because lenders tend to adjust their interest rates to each applicant (aka “risk-based pricing”), there are strict rules around the rates that they advertise. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) states that a lender’s representative APR must be the APR (annual percentage rate) that at least 51% of its customers actually receive. The other 49% will usually be offered a higher rate.
The annual percentage rate is a summary of the annual cost of borrowing, but as we’ve explained, you’ll want to make sure that the APRs you’re comparing are the APRs that you’d actually be offered. For the majority of us, we’ll need to provide a little information about ourselves in order to see accurate, personalised rates from willing lenders.
If you’re looking at borrowing £10,000 and you’re in the minority of people who know they have excellent credit and, crucially, the loan you’re interested in would be comfortably affordable, then you might opt to go straight to a traditional lender such as a bank, supermarket or building society and enjoy those super competitive rates. You may also find that your current bank offers same day funding to existing customers (although it usually pays to shop around). You could even opt for a credit card, although getting a £10,000 credit limit is far from guaranteed.
For everybody else, you’ll want to be upfront about your credit history so that you don’t waste your own time and to avoid disappointment. It’s not possible to borrow £10,000 without a credit check (at least not from a legitimate lender).
A “hard” credit search will have a small and usually short lived negative effect on your credit score, while a “soft” credit search won’t have any effect whatsoever on your credit score. Many lenders can run a soft search before you apply, to give you a clear idea as to whether or not you’d get approved, and in some cases can use this search to give you a more accurate idea of the rate you’d be offered.
It’s when you formally decide to go ahead and apply for a loan that you’ll always undergo a hard credit search. It’s perfectly normal to undergo a few hard credit searches from time to time, but because of that slight effect on your credit score, and because each hard search will be visible on your credit file, you want to keep hard searches to a minimum, and you should only agree to one when you’re fairly sure that you are going to take credit from that lender.
The good news is that a decent loan matching service can allow you to run soft searches with multiple lenders in one go – saving you a whole lot of time and meaning that you can compare the rates you’d actually get rather than those often-unhelpful advertised representative APRs. You’ll need to provide a relatively small amount of info about yourself – from basic details about your name, address and date of birth which allow the service to find your credit file, plus some info about your income and outgoings which lenders use to assess affordability.
£10,000 is a lot of money, so most – but not all – lenders will look for a good-to-excellent credit score before they’ll approve you. There are now plenty of specialist lenders who lend to less than perfect credit histories, and offer loans of £10,000, but as you might expect, they charge much higher interest rates. If you’re not careful you could end up paying more interest than you need to – with some lenders charging upwards of 50% annually. Your objective should be to identify the very best rates available to you.
Crucially, don’t apply to the first lender you come across. Each application involves a credit check and a small negative impact on your credit score. Only hit “apply” when you’re confident the lender will approve you. Most offer an “eligibility checker” to check your likelihood of success without impacting your score.
You could go direct to a specialist lender like Everyday Loans for an unsecured personal loan for bad credit, but you might be missing out on better rates.
A more sensible approach is a loan matching service. That’s a fancy way of saying a broker that runs “soft search” credit checks with a number of lenders to see which would approve you. You’ll need to fill in a short online form, but it’s a lot faster than going to multiple lenders individually.
A secured loan is when you put forward an asset as security for the lender. Typically, it’s the equity in your home. The lenders can see this as less of a risk because if the worst comes to the worst and you default on the loan, they’ll be able to sell the asset to recoup their losses.
By reducing the risk to the lender, you may be able to boost your chances of getting your application across the line, and, if you have bad credit, you’re likely to be able to access lower APRs than you would otherwise.
Loans secured against your home are also known as “second charge mortgages” or “homeowner loans”, and are a popular choice for debt consolidation. However a secured loan should only be entered into after extremely careful thought, because ultimately you’re putting your home on the line.
£10,000 is about the smallest amount available through a homeowner loan, and it’s important to bear in mind that substantial fees are typically involved with secured lending. Nonetheless, if you have bad credit but equity in your home, opting for a secured loan could well be the cheapest option
An unsecured loan is money you borrow without putting any property up against the loan as collateral. Many lenders offer unsecured loans of up to £25,000.
Crucially, even if you take out an unsecured loan, your assets may still be at risk if you fail to make payments. Your lender can refer the case to debt collecting agencies, who have the authority to seize property from you to offset the debt.
Find out more about homeowner loans
If you’re looking to borrow £10,000 and your credit rating is preventing you from getting a traditional personal loan, then a guarantor loan could be worth considering.
A £10,000 guarantor loan will realistically be an expensive option however – with rates exceeding 35% annually. As such it’s not a decision to be taken lightly. Nonetheless, in certain situations, applying with a guarantor could be the difference that allows you to get approved for a £10,000 loan, or it could help you access lower (but still high) rates.
£10,000 is towards the upper limit of what you can borrow with a guarantor loan. That means that your guarantor will need to have an excellent credit score. It’ll also help if they own their own home. Most importantly, they’ll have to be willing and able to make payments on your loan if you can’t.
For a £10,000 loan, many borrowers would require a longer loan term to keep the monthly payments affordable. Guarantor lenders usually offer up to five years to pay off the £10,000 plus interest and any fees. Over a five-year loan, your monthly repayments would come in at more than £300, so it’s important to be realistic about what’s affordable. Broadly speaking, shorter loans are cheaper, but come with higher instalments, while longer loans are more affordable month-to-month but cost you more overall.
To make comparing even easier we came up with the Finder Score. Speed, features and flexibility across 60+ lenders are all weighted and scaled to produce a score out of 10. The higher the score the better the lender – simple.
Read the full methodologyTo make comparing even easier we came up with the Finder Score. Speed, features and flexibility across 60+ lenders are all weighted and scaled to produce a score out of 10. The higher the score the better the lender – simple.
Read the full methodologyPlease note: You should always refer to your loan agreement for exact repayment amounts as they may vary from our results.
Late repayments can cause you serious money problems. See our debt help guides.
Most lenders try to process your application and give you a decision within 24 hours. However, there are factors which can delay the application, or even result in it being rejected. If you and your guarantor take care to be accurate and truthful in your application, you’re more likely to be approved faster.
A £10,000 loan taken out for business purposes is different from one taken out for personal use. Lenders often stipulate that their personal loans are not to be used for business purposes. Businesses also have access to a range of different finance products that might not be available to consumers. There are a variety of business loans available, and some are even government backed – which can mean better rates for borrowers.
Compare £10,000 business loans
Most lenders will consider applications from self employed individuals. Lenders realise that this is an expanding market which needs to be served, and as a result, more lenders are offering loans to self-employed applicants. Whatever stage you’re at, if you know your options and how best to go about applying, you’ll have a better chance of having your loan approved.
Compare loans for the self-employed
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