Business financing in Multnomah County.
County-by-county financing guides. No paperwork. No social. No ID.
15 institutions are headquartered inside the Multnomah County line, Portland included, and 7 more keep a branch here. Below, we say which is which.
Not this lane? Home FinancingPersonal Financing
The doors in Multnomah County.
The CDFIs, credit unions, and microlenders that actually say yes — county by county, in two languages. We are not a lender. Nobody paid to be listed. And where a county has no good doors, we say so.
- 22
- DOORS HERE
- 15
- BASED HERE
- 32
- OR COUNTIES WITH DOORS
- Lane
- Business Financing
- People
- 815Kresidents of Multnomah County
- Covers
- Portland
- Elsewhere in OR
- Washington County →13 doors — the biggest list of any other county in Oregon
- State
- Oregon →32 of 36 counties hold a door in this lane
Certified by the U.S. Treasury to lend where a bank will not. Nonprofit, patient, and used to a file that is not clean.
Consolidated Credit Union · Craft3Owned by their members, not by shareholders. They look at your whole story rather than a score, and that is the difference when a bank says no.
Consolidated Credit Union · First Community Credit Union- Consolidated Credit UnionCDFI-certifiedPersonal · Home · Business capital
- Craft3Community lending · Business capital
- Habitat for Humanity of Oregon , Inc.Community lending · Business capital
- HDC Community Fund LLCCommunity lending · Business capital
- Ibew & United Workers Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
- IN THIS LIST
9 of the 22 doors inside the county line are CDFI-certified.
The U.S. Treasury certifies them to lend to the people banks pass over. It is a loan, not a favour.
- Micro Enterprise Services of Oregon (Pedagogy Institute)Business capital
- Network for Oregon Affordable HousingCommunity lending · Business capital
- Portland Housing CenterCommunity lending · Business capital
Show the other 7Show fewer
- Teamsters Council #37 Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
- Trailhead Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
- Ironworkers Usa Credit UnionCDFI-certifiedPersonal · Home
- Northwest Adventist Credit UnionPersonal · Home
- Nw Priority Credit UnionPersonal · Home
- Point West Credit UnionCDFI-certifiedPersonal · Home
- Radio Cab Credit UnionPersonal
Based elsewhere, with a member-facing office inside the Multnomah County line. You can walk in.
- First Community Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
- I.l.w.u. Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
- Peak Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
- Rivermark Community Credit UnionCDFI-certifiedPersonal · Home · Business capital
- Selco Community Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
- NO AGENDA
Nobody paid to be on this list.
The 22 doors inside the county line come off public data, and 16 of them are owned by their own members. We do not ask for your name, and we earn nothing if you knock on one door rather than another.
- Unitus Community Credit UnionPersonal · Home · Business capital
Show the other 1Show fewer
- Forrit Credit UnionPersonal · Home
- Accion Opportunity FundAccepts ITIN
Nonprofit small-business lender. Accepts ITIN in place of SSN. Serves most states, in English and Spanish.
Business capital - Grameen AmericaAccepts ITIN
Microloans for women entrepreneurs. Requires photo ID and proof of address — no SSN requirement. Branches in major metro areas.
Business capital - Mission Asset FundAccepts ITIN
Zero-interest lending circles and credit building. SSN or ITIN accepted. Works through nonprofit partners across the country.
Personal
How to read this list.
We do not ask for your name, your email, or your number. Nothing on this page changes based on who you are.
A door is headquartered here when its head office sits inside the county line. The rest are based elsewhere and keep a branch you can walk into. We list both, and we label which is which.
Every institution on this page comes from public federal data — the CDFI Fund certified list (Aug 2026), NCUA credit union data (Mar 2026), and the SBA microloan intermediary list (Sep 2026) — plus a short national tier we verified by hand. We refresh each list as its agency publishes. No listing is paid.
Multnomah County holds Portland, Gresham and the working east side of the metro, and it has something most counties in America do not: real mission lenders headquartered inside the county line, alongside a bench of union and community credit unions. If you run a crew, a cart, a shop or a truck here, this guide explains the kinds of financing that exist, who qualifies, which documents you will be asked for, which institutions are actually based here, the Oregon licensing rules that catch contractors, and the offers to walk away from.
It's a process, not a rejection.
Business financing comes in four shapes, and picking the wrong one is what hurts people.
- A term loan — a fixed amount on a fixed schedule. For a van, a trailer, a cart build-out, kitchen equipment, a lift.
- A line of credit — an approved ceiling you draw from and repay again and again. This is the tool for the gap between finishing a job and getting paid.
- A microloan — a smaller loan, usually from a nonprofit lender, built for the business a bank's automated system declines. Human review, often with technical help attached.
- A grant — money you do not repay. Real ones come from governments and foundations, are competitive, and never arrive by text message.
What you need depends on the work. Multnomah County's small-business economy has a few clear shapes: construction and specialty trades feeding a dense metro, much of it union-adjacent; a food economy of carts, small restaurants, bakeries, roasters and brewers; freight, warehousing and trucking along the Columbia Corridor and the river; rideshare, taxi and delivery driving; janitorial and landscaping contracts across office and apartment portfolios; and a long spine of immigrant-owned storefronts through outer east Portland and Gresham — groceries, salons, auto repair, restaurants, childcare.
Each of those has a different money problem. A cart or a small restaurant needs equipment and build-out money, and its revenue is seasonal and weather-sensitive. A trades crew needs a line of credit because general contractors pay slowly.
A trucker needs equipment financing and fuel float.
A janitorial contractor with monthly invoices has the most bankable revenue on that list and often does not realize it — recurring contracts are an underwriting strength worth putting in writing.
One thing sets this county apart: several nonprofit and community development lenders are actually headquartered here. That means the microloan conversation can happen locally, in person, sometimes in Spanish, with an organization whose purpose is to lend to people banks decline.
Forget what the banks say.
Every lender asks the same four things: can you repay, have you repaid before, how long have you been doing this, and does the work make sense here.
- 01**The 1099 subcontractor in the trades
** Income lumpy, licensing required, demand steady. Two years of returns plus deposits that match your invoices is what makes lumpy income legible.
- 02**The union tradesperson going independent
** You have a work history, a skill credential and, often, a credit union tied to your trade. That is a strong starting file.
- 03**The cart or small restaurant owner
** Equipment-heavy, seasonal, tight margins. Lenders will want to see a full year of sales, not the summer. A microlender is the likeliest yes for a first location.
- 04**The driver
** Rideshare, taxi and delivery income is documentable through platform statements and deposits. Vehicle financing is the usual need, and the credit union tied to the taxi trade in this city exists for exactly this work.
- 05**The cash-heavy storefront
** Groceries, salons, restaurants along the east side. The obstacle is almost never credit — it is that revenue never passed through a business bank account. What goes through the account is what an underwriter can see; cash is invisible even when it is real.
- 06**The janitorial or landscaping contractor
** Recurring monthly contracts are close to the best collateral a service business has. Bring the contract list.
- 07**The business under two years old
** Most banks will decline. The nonprofit lenders based in this county will not automatically. Start there.
- MISSING ONE?Ask Iris which one you're missing.ASK A QUESTION ↓
Get your papers in order.
Gather these once into one folder and you can apply to three lenders in the time it usually takes to apply to one.
- 01Government photo ID
Oregon driver license or ID card, passport, or consular ID
- 02Your ITIN or Social Security number
- 03Oregon business registration from the Secretary of State, plus your assumed business name filing if you operate under a different name
- 04Your Construction Contractors Board license if you do construction work
or your landscape contracting license — Oregon takes these seriously and so do lenders
- 05Your Portland business license registration and county business tax filings if you operate in the city
- 06Two years of personal tax returns, plus business returns if any exist
- 07Three to six months of business bank statements
The single document that decides most files
- 08A simple profit-and-loss statement, even one you typed yourself
- 09One page describing the business
What you do, who pays you, what the money is for, how you repay it
- 10Vehicle titles and an equipment list if you are offering collateral
- 11Signed contracts
Recurring-service agreements or purchase orders showing future revenue
- 12For a food business
Your health department licensing and, for a cart, the commissary agreement
The doors worth knowing.
Multnomah County is one of the better-served counties in the country for mission lending.
ALL 22 DOORS, BY NAME AND BY TOWN- 22
- DOORS HERE
- 43
- ACROSS OR
Based in Portland, Oregon. A community development financial institution, certified by the U.S. Treasury to lend where a bank will not, and used to a file that is not clean.
BEST FORCommunity lending where a bank has already said no, and working capital, equipment and payroll for a small business.Based in Portland, Oregon. Treasury-certified as a CDFI, which is a mandate rather than a courtesy: reaching borrowers the mainstream market passes over is the job.
BEST FORWorking capital, equipment and payroll for a small business, and community lending where a bank has already said no.Based in Portland, Oregon. A CDFI — a mission lender, not a branch network. It is measured on who it reaches, which is why a thin file is not the end of the conversation.
BEST FORCommunity lending where a bank has already said no, and working capital, equipment and payroll for a small business.Based in Portland, Oregon. A credit union — owned by its members rather than by shareholders, which is exactly what changes the conversation after a bank has said no.
BEST FORA personal loan, or building a credit file from nothing, and buying, repairing or refinancing a home.
Don't fall into these traps.
A phone call, funding in two days, only bank statements required. It is not a loan — it is the sale of your future deposits at a discount, repaid by daily withdrawals that do not pause when work slows. It is the most common way a profitable crew or restaurant in this city fails. Before you sign one, call one of the community development lenders based in this county and ask what they can do instead.
Read the total of payments, not the monthly. Ask what you own when it is over.
A legitimate lender takes its fee out of the funded loan, not from your card in advance.
One broker can produce a dozen hard inquiries and a pile of offers you did not request. Apply yourself, to two or three named institutions.
It is not fine, and it can cost you the right to collect on your own work.
Real lenders do not have offers that expire at five o'clock.
Ask plainly what happens if you miss a payment and what exactly can be taken. A salesperson who cannot answer that has told you everything about the product.
Everything below is set by Oregon, and it reads the same in every county in it. The 22 marks above are this county's own doors — who opens one is decided by them, not by the state.
The rules where you are.
Oregon is a straightforward state to register a business in and a strict one to build in.
Entities and assumed business names register with the Oregon Secretary of State. If your work is construction, you must be licensed by the Construction Contractors Board before you advertise or take work — the license carries bond and insurance requirements and an exam, and there is no grace period for working without it. Landscape contracting has its own licensing board. Lenders in this state generally ask to see the license before financing equipment, and an unlicensed contractor has trouble enforcing a contract, which is a business risk as much as a legal one.
Oregon has no statewide sales tax, which simplifies bookkeeping but removes a state return from your document pile. What replaces it is local: the city and the county each levy their own business taxes and registration requirements, and there are regional taxes layered on top. A bookkeeper who actually knows Portland filings is worth what they cost, and clean filings make you financeable.
Oregon's land-use system, with urban growth boundaries around metro areas, limits where commercial development can happen. If your plan involves a building or a yard, confirm zoning before you sign anything — this is a state where the zoning answer is genuinely restrictive rather than a formality.
On the help side, the state's business development and economic development offices maintain programs for small firms, delivered mostly through lenders and nonprofit partners rather than directly. The Oregon SBDC network is the free front door to all of it.
The short version.
- 01
Multnomah County is an unusually good place to be a small business looking for honest money, because mission lenders are actually headquartered here. Open a business checking account and run everything through it. Build the document folder above. Then call the local microenterprise organization and one of the community development credit unions based in the county, and compare what they say.
- 02
If you work in construction, get your Construction Contractors Board license in order first — in this state it gates both the work and the financing. If you drive, run a cart or run a storefront, say so plainly and bring a full year of records rather than your best three months.
- 03
You do not need perfect credit, a Social Security number, or two years in business to get a real conversation with a nonprofit lender. Skip the merchant cash advance. Use the free SBDC and SCORE help before you borrow rather than after.
- 04
Origen Capital is a directory, not a lender. We do not collect your information, we do not sell it, and we do not take applications. Use this page as a map, then work directly with a licensed lender, a credit union or a nonprofit community lender when you are ready.
Same county, another question.
Home FinancingPurchase, renovation, HELOC, and bridge loans for homeowners and investorsSEE IT IN MULTNOMAH COUNTY →
Personal FinancingPersonal loans, credit building, and ITIN-friendly financing optionsSEE IT IN MULTNOMAH COUNTY →32OR COUNTIES WITH DOORSThe whole stateEvery county in Oregon, in this same lane.43 institutions fund small businesses inside Oregon county lines.OPEN THE STATE →Still don't see your situation?
Ask Iris. She'll explain it the way it should have been explained the first time.