{"id":1820238,"date":"2026-09-21T17:51:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T15:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/articles\/how-to-write-a-business-plan-in-the-uk-currentyear\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T17:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T15:38:17","slug":"how-to-write-a-business-plan-in-the-uk-currentyear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/articles\/how-to-write-a-business-plan-in-the-uk-currentyear\/","title":{"rendered":"How to write a business plan in the UK 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The UK has no franchise disclosure document. No statute requires a franchisor to hand over audited figures, and no regulator checks what it does hand over. That makes the business plan the only place where the numbers are tested before the money is committed, which is a different job from the one most templates are built for.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A business plan in the UK has two audiences that want different things. A lender wants to know whether the debt can be serviced from month four onwards. The person writing it needs to know whether the thing works at all. Those two documents overlap but are not the same, and the government-backed lending scheme is unusually clear about which papers it expects to see. Company law, tax thresholds and the lending schemes below are UK-wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a business plan?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A business plan is a written account of what a business will sell, to whom, at what cost and with what money, supported by financial forecasts covering at least the first 12 months, and in the UK it is the document a lender assesses before advancing funds to a business with no trading history. It is not a legal requirement to have one. It is a practical requirement for almost any external funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Start Up Loans scheme, run by a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Business Bank, states what it wants alongside the application: a business plan and a cash flow forecast, with templates and guidance provided to applicants. Its delivery partners describe a personal survival budget as part of the same pack, because the loan is a personal one and the assessment includes whether the applicant can live while the business starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Templates are free and do not need buying. gov.uk publishes a “Write a business plan” page that points to a template on The Prince’s Trust website and to a business plan and cash flow forecast template on the Start Up Loans website, and the cash flow forecast template is itself hosted on the government’s own publishing service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What goes in a UK business plan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The sections below are what UK lenders and advisers consistently ask to see. The right-hand column is the question each one actually answers, which is the more useful way to write them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t
Section<\/th>The question it answers<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Summary<\/td>What is the business, and how much money does it need<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The offer<\/td>What is sold, at what price, and why anyone buys it<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Market and catchment<\/td>Who the customers are and how many of them are within reach<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Competition<\/td>Who already serves them, and what happens to price<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Operations<\/td>Premises, equipment, suppliers, opening hours, staffing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The people<\/td>What the owner has done before, and what the gaps are<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Start-up costs<\/td>Every pound needed before the first sale, including working capital<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cash flow forecast<\/td>Whether the business can pay everyone in month four<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Personal survival budget<\/td>What the owner needs to draw, and when<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n

How to write a business plan, step by step<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most people make a business plan in the wrong order, starting with the description and ending with the numbers. The numbers are what gets tested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a UK lender expects to see in the pack:<\/p>\n\n\n\n