Commercial credit risk: what it is, how to measure it and how an SME can reduce it (2026)

In brief: commercial credit risk is the possibility that a customer to whom you have sold on deferred payment does not pay, pays late or pays only in part. It has two faces: actual insolvency and the gradual deterioration of the customer, which usually precedes it. In Italy, according to CRIBIS, in the second quarter of 2026 only 42% of companies paid on the due date. It can be reduced with four moves: checking the customer beforehand, setting a credit limit, choosing the payment terms and monitoring the signals during the relationship.

What is commercial credit risk?

Every time you deliver goods or services and get paid later, you are extending credit to the customer. Credit risk is the probability that this credit does not come back in full and on time. Credit management literature splits it into two parts:

The second is the one you can act on: when a customer reaches insolvency, your credit is already at stake. When instead you see it getting worse, you still have time to change the terms.

How widespread is the problem in 2026?

CRIBIS's Payments Study for the second quarter of 2026, updated to June, shows the payment habits of Italian companies:

The same study shows strong differences by area: in the North East 49.7% of companies pay on time, in the South and Islands 31.6%. By size: micro-enterprises are the most punctual (42.7%), large companies the least punctual (21.1%), although they have fewer serious delays. On the crisis front, Cerved's observatory on the first quarter of 2026 counts 2,611 serious insolvency procedures, 7.5% more than a year earlier.

Which signals anticipate a customer in difficulty?

The Business Crisis Code (Codice della crisi d'impresa, Legislative Decree 14/2019), in article 3, para. 4, lists the signals that companies must be able to recognise in themselves in order to foresee a crisis. They are also useful for reading a customer, because two of them you can see from the outside:

• wage debts overdue by at least thirty days amounting to more than half of the monthly payroll;
• debts to suppliers overdue by at least ninety days, for an amount greater than debts not yet overdue: if the customer pays you 90 days after the due date, it is likely to do the same with others;
• bank and intermediary exposures overdue for more than sixty days, or over the credit line for at least sixty days, amounting to at least 5% of the total;
• debts to public bodies referred to in article 25-novies, such as INPS and the Agenzia delle Entrate (Revenue Agency).

Other practical signals, found in the guide on insolvency signals before non-payment: sudden requests for longer terms, changes of directors or registered office, orders out of line, financial statements not filed.

How do you measure the risk on a customer?

1. Risk class: the customer's score or rating tells you how likely a default is. How to read it: company credit score.
2. Exposure: how much it owes you at the worst moment, open invoices plus deliveries in progress. It should be compared with the customer's credit limit.
3. Expected loss: probability of default times the unrecoverable share of the exposure. The calculation is in the guide on probability of default and expected loss.
4. Behaviour with you: how many days it really takes to pay you. This is measured by the DSO.

How do you reduce credit risk?

A useful protection to know: article 1461 c.c. allows you to suspend your performance if the customer's financial situation has become such as to clearly endanger payment, unless adequate guarantees are given to you. To use it you need documented facts, and a recent report is one of them.

Why put it in writing

Article 2086 c.c. requires the entrepreneur operating in a company or partnership form to set up an adequate organisational, administrative and accounting structure, including to detect a crisis early. For an SME that sells on credit, a written credit policy, even of one page, is the simplest way to show that credit lines are not decided on gut feeling. A template is in the guide on SME credit policy.

Sources

• CRIBIS, Payments Study, second quarter 2026 (accessed 27/10/2026)
• Cerved, Procedures and Liquidations Observatory, Q1 2026 (accessed 27/10/2026)
• Legislative Decree (D.Lgs.) 14/2019, Business Crisis and Insolvency Code, art. 3 (Normattiva, accessed 11/11/2026)
• Italian Civil Code, art. 2086 and art. 1461 (Normattiva)

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