£300 loans

A £300 loan is often for something specific: a garage bill, a broken washing machine, or a bill that has landed at the wrong time. That makes it easier to plan than a general shortfall, because you can find out the exact cost first. This page covers how to do that, what £300 costs over different terms and the options worth comparing. Dot Dot Loans is a credit broker, not a lender, so any offer and its rate come from the lender.

Start with the exact cost

In our Borrowing Barometer, applications for £100 to £300 were most often for utility bills (42.2%) and emergency cash (30.1%), with home improvement (10.9%) and vehicle costs (10.6%) next. Whatever the reason, borrowing a round £300 when the job costs £240 means paying interest on £60 you did not need. Before you apply:

• For a car repair, ask the garage for a written, itemised quote, and ask which work is needed now and which can wait. If the car has failed its MOT, the failure certificate lists what must be fixed. Some garages will let you spread the cost.
• For a broken appliance, check whether it is still under warranty or covered by your home insurance, and compare the price of a reconditioned model. Charities and local welfare schemes can sometimes provide essential appliances; the Turn2us grant search is a good place to start.
• For a bill, ask the company about a payment plan before you borrow.
• For anything else, compare an arranged overdraft or a credit union loan, either of which may cost less for a short gap.

£300 over 3 to 12 months

At the representative rate, each extra three months adds roughly £27 to £30 in interest. If you can afford the 3-month payment of £111.29 without leaving yourself short, it is the cheapest option shown. If it would leave you short, a longer term costs more but is safer than missing payments.

If your loan has an APR of 100% or more and is due to be repaid within 12 months, it is high-cost short-term credit. On £300, the FCA cap limits interest and fees to £2.40 a day, and you can never repay more than £600 in total, whatever happens.

Representative Example: Borrow £1,000 over 18 months. 18 monthly repayments of £89.22. Total amount repayable: £1,605.96. Interest: £605.96. Annual interest rate: 59.97% (fixed). Subject to application approval by the lender. Not all lenders offer loans up to £5,000. Representative APR 79.5% (Variable). Any representative monthly repayment shown is for illustration only, based on our representative APR. Your actual repayments will be confirmed by the matching lender if your application is approved.

Who a £300 loan suits

If you are already behind on priority bills such as rent, council tax or energy, free debt advice is the better first step. An adviser can often agree lower payments with the people you owe, which a loan cannot do.

If you are declined for £300

A decline on a small amount is usually about affordability or recent credit history rather than the size of the loan. Applying to lender after lender adds hard searches to your file and can make the next decline more likely. Instead, check your credit reports for free with Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, correct any mistakes, make sure you are on the electoral register at your current address, and look at the options above.