How long UK business debt actually lasts

Recent cohorts are right-censored and read low by construction: a charge registered in 2024 that is still outstanding cannot appear here at all, so only the quicker repayments have been observed yet. The headline figure above therefore uses cohorts old enough to have largely run their course, and the later bars should be read as a floor rather than a trend.

A satisfaction means the debt was repaid or the security released. It does not distinguish repayment from refinancing, because the register does not record why. A rising satisfaction count alongside rising new charges is the signature of an active refinancing market rather than of companies clearing debt and staying out.

It is shorter than most people assume. Secured business lending is often discussed as though it sits on a company's balance sheet for five or ten years, and for some facilities it does. In aggregate it does not: half of all secured charges are discharged inside about two and a half years, which means the population of borrowing companies turns over far faster than the headline stock of outstanding charges suggests.

Source: charges registered at Companies House, compiled by CoreFi. Figures count charge filings, not amounts lent, because a charge document rarely states a reliable sum. Updated monthly.