Can a new haulage firm get a revolving credit facility secured on trucks or fuel card receipts?

Three separate obstacles sit in this question, and it is more useful to take them apart than to answer yes or no.

Trucks do not secure a revolving line

Vehicles are very fundable. HGVs are close to the ideal security: they hold value, there is an established resale market, and a registration number gives a lender something precise to take a charge over.

But the product they unlock is asset refinance, and that is a term facility. You raise a lump sum against vehicles you already own, repay it on a fixed schedule, and carry on driving them exactly as before. The balance does not replenish and there is nothing to redraw. If you are buying rather than refinancing, asset finance does the same job on the way in.

That is not a lesser outcome. Rates on asset-backed lending are usually better than unsecured borrowing, precisely because the lender can see what stands behind it. It simply is not revolving, and no mainstream UK lender offers a revolving line drawn against vehicles.

Fuel card receipts are not security

This one is worth stating plainly. Security has to be something that will turn into money for the lender: an asset it can sell, or a debt someone owes you.

Fuel card receipts are neither. They are evidence of money you have already spent. They can be useful in an application as proof of trading activity and running costs, but nothing can be secured on them, and no facility can be sized against them.

The haulage equivalent of “receipts you can borrow against” is your sales ledger: the invoices your customers have not yet paid.

A revolving credit facility needs 12 months

Even setting the security question aside, a revolving credit facility as the product is normally sold generally requires at least 12 months of filed or management accounts. A new firm is on the wrong side of that regardless of what it owns.

What actually works for a new haulage business

Invoice finance, if you invoice other businesses on credit terms. This is the closest thing to what the question is really reaching for, because it does revolve: the funder advances typically 80% to 90% of an invoice within 24 hours, and the line grows with your ledger rather than sitting at a fixed limit. It also works early, because the funder is underwriting your customers as much as you. A new haulier running regular work for established commercial clients is a reasonable proposition even in its first year.

Two haulage-specific points to raise at the outset: subcontracted work can complicate who is owed what, and heavy dependence on one or two contracts will limit how much is advanced. Both are workable, but flag them early so we approach the right funders.

Asset refinance, if you own vehicles outright or with a small balance outstanding. This releases cash without touching your ledger, and the two can run alongside each other.

If you are working out which of these fits, tell us what you own, who you invoice and how long you have been trading, and we will tell you straight what is realistic now and what opens up once you have a year behind you.