How to Check Whether a Lender Is Licensed, Step by Step

“Are they licensed?” sounds like a yes-or-no question. In practice it’s three questions: who is the lender, what kind of institution is it, and does the right regulator know about it for the place you live. Answer those in order and most problems surface on their own.

You need a computer or phone and the loan offer, agreement, or website in front of you. Allow about ten minutes.

Six checks, in order

1. Find the lender’s exact legal name

   The name on an ad is often a brand. The name that matters is the one on the loan agreement and the Truth in Lending disclosure, usually something like “Example Lending, LLC.” Look in the agreement’s first paragraph, the signature block, or the website’s terms of use and footer. Write down the address and any license or NMLS ID number shown.

   If you came through a comparison or matching site, that site is probably not the lender. It passes your request to lenders and may be paid when you take a loan. Our guide to how loan matching sites work explains the handoff. Check the company whose name is on the agreement you’d sign.

   Some online loans are made by a bank and marketed or serviced by a separate technology company. The agreement should say which company is the lender. If it doesn’t, ask in writing before you go further.

2. Work out what kind of institution it is

   The right lookup depends on the type. Most lenders fall into one of these groups:

   • Bank, chartered by the federal government or a state.
   • Credit union, a member-owned cooperative.
   • Licensed nonbank lender, such as a consumer finance company or online installment lender, licensed by each state where it lends.
   • A lender claiming tribal affiliation or based outside the U.S., which raises separate questions covered in step 5.

   If the website and paperwork don’t make it clear which one you’re dealing with, that’s already useful information.

3. For banks and credit unions, use the federal lookups

   Search the bank’s name in the FDIC’s BankFind Suite, which lists FDIC-insured banks, their charters and their main office. Credit unions are listed in the NCUA’s Credit Union Locator. Banks and federally insured credit unions generally don’t hold state lending licenses the way finance companies do, so a missing state license isn’t a problem for them. A missing FDIC or NCUA listing for a company calling itself a bank or credit union is.

   Scammers sometimes copy a real bank’s name. If the bank is real, contact it using the phone number from its listing or its official site, and ask whether the offer came from them.

4. For nonbank lenders, check NMLS Consumer Access, then your state

   NMLS Consumer Access is the free public search for the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System, which many state regulators use to issue and track licenses. Search by company name or NMLS ID. The result shows which states license the company, under which license types, and whether each license is active, along with regulatory actions where states have posted them.

   What NMLS does not do matters just as much:

   • It only covers licenses that participating state agencies manage in the system. Mortgage licensing is nearly universal there; consumer loan, installment and small-loan licenses vary by state.
   • It doesn’t grant licenses. The state agency does.
   • It doesn’t say whether a lender’s prices are fair or legal for your loan.

   So if a lender doesn’t appear, the next stop is your state’s financial regulator. The Conference of State Bank Supervisors keeps a directory of state agencies, and the CFPB publishes a state-by-state list too. Many agencies have their own license search. In some states consumer lending is overseen by a different office than banking, so if the first agency says lenders aren’t theirs, ask which one is.

5. Be careful with tribal and offshore lenders

   Some online lenders say they are owned by a federally recognized tribe and that your state’s licensing and rate laws don’t apply to them. Others operate from outside the country. Either way, the practical question is the same: if something goes wrong, which rules protect you, and where would a dispute be decided?

   Courts have not answered this consistently. Tribal governments do have sovereign immunity, but courts have sometimes found that a lending company was not truly an arm of the tribe, and a 2019 federal appeals decision in Gingras v. Think Finance let borrowers sue tribal officials to stop ongoing violations of state law and refused to enforce the loan’s arbitration terms. Other cases have come out differently. Loan agreements from these lenders often require disputes to go to tribal arbitration or tribal court.

   For an offshore lender with no U.S. license, enforcement is harder still. Your state regulator or attorney general may have issued warnings about specific companies; ask. If a lender’s main selling point is that your state’s rules don’t reach it, treat that as a reason to look elsewhere.

6. Read complaint records as signals, not verdicts

   Complaints show patterns. They don’t prove a company is good or bad.

   • CFPB. The CFPB’s complaint portal was accepting complaints as of October 2026, and its Consumer Complaint Database holds years of earlier records. In August 2026 the agency said it would stop publishing complaint narratives and visualizations, so expect less detail than before. The search may change further.
   • Your state attorney general and regulator often accept complaints and sometimes publish enforcement actions.
   • The Better Business Bureau lists complaints and company responses. A rating reflects the BBB’s own criteria, not a regulator’s review.
   • A web search of the company name and phone number with “scam” or “complaint” catches copycat sites and impersonation reports.

   Big lenders have more complaints simply because they have more customers. Look at what people complain about and whether the company responds, not the raw count.

What a license does and doesn’t tell you

A valid license means a state knows the company exists, has some basic requirements on file, and can act on complaints. That’s worth a lot: it gives you someone to call. It does not mean the loan is affordable or a good fit. Licensed lenders can still charge prices that are legal in your state and still expensive, which is why you should also read the terms. Our predatory loan red flags and guide to reading a loan agreement cover that part.