Most small-scale aquaculture producers in the developing countries have limited access to formal external finance. More easily accessible alternative source of finance for these producers is trade credit. However, earlier literature argues that trade credit is a drain on one hand and the gain on the other hand for fish producers. Based on farm level cross section data, this study empirically examines the sources of drain and gain of financing through trade credit using Stochastic Meta Frontier and Propensity Score Matching model, whereas determinants of trade credit are identified using Probit regression. The findings imply that users of trade credit are as technically efficient as the non-users and are using improved production technology (Figure 1). In addition, there is positive tradeoff between benefits and costs of using trade credit (Table 1). Furthermore, collateral, documentation, number of suppliers and revenues influence the farmers’ decision on use of trade credit as financing tool (Table 2).